2021-05-25 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2021-05-25
Time	18:00:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting - 5/25/21

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terry we are ready to roll can we just move the agenda and no all right this board meeting of the board of education for may 25th 2021 is called to order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on has been posted on the pps website under the board and meetings tabs this meeting is being streamed live on pps tv services website and on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times welcome to tonight's meeting a year ago i remember in our board meeting lifting up the tragedy that had happened in minneapolis the day before with the death of george floyd at the hands of police officers this year has been one of important conversations important actions and important work here at pps in our community and throughout our country and we know we have so much farther to go as we grieve with those who knew and loved andrew brown michaia bryant adam toledo duante wright and too many others we as a district have chosen to create system shifts focusing on our black and native students and inclusive of all students to create change and to make our graduate portrait a reality for all kids this work is not easy and i commend our staff for the many many ways that they have led and lived into these changes this past year and beyond tonight's agenda is filled with work that shows the demons demonstrates the clear commitment of our district to change to make our world as it should be and to be a place where all kids can grow and thrive we begin tonight with an important statement celebrating asian american and pacific islander heritage month our student leaders have spoken so eloquently on this topic in public comment and in other ways and now director brim edwards brings forth a resolution as we denounce the racist hate towards members of the a aapi community we have witnessed escalate recently and celebrate all that asian american and pacific islanders uh bring to this country to our community and to our schools director brim edwards would you like to proceed thank you chair lowry um i'm honored to bring to the board tonight resolution number 6304 a resolution to recognize may as asian american and pacific islander heritage month i want to begin by thanking these individuals for collaborating on the creation of this resolution lynnea olson from apono james liu a board director for the nonprofit parent organization supporting pbs's vietnamese dual language immersion program van trung a retired pps admin administrator and a co-founder of our vietnamese dual language program pps staff roseanne powell and courtney wesling and also oregon state representative khan pham who i'm honored to have as my state rep we have a resolution before us which recognizes may as asian american and pacific islander heritage month the full resolution is posted on pps.net with the meeting materials and will be translated and shared to the broader pps community i'm going to tonight um just briefly pull from some of the sections of the of the resolution before um the board um moves and adopts this during asian american and pacific islander heritage month we acknowledge people of asia and pacific islander heritage who live and work in oregon contributing meaningfully to organs and the united states economy culture education politics arts literature science and technology developments despite institutional and systemic injustices designed to prevent and limit these achievements and contributions portland public schools has many enrolled aapi students and asian american and pacific islander employees serve pps students in a diverse cross-section of roles and contribute to the accomplishments of our mission and our students benefit from the continuing efforts to elevate aapi teachers principals school and central office staff as representation from these diverse communities are important not only for our aapi students but also all of our students the dual language immersion program and pps honor and enrich the diverse backgrounds of native chinese japanese and vietnamese speakers while exposing non-native speakers to diverse multilingual and multicultural perspectives our district and our community is strengthened by the support and advocacy of organizations like erko asian family center and apono which is the asian pacific america network of oregon
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oregon has a long history of discrimination against members of the aapi community and racially motivated discrimination and harassment is at a high with a national and local spike in hate crimes against the broader asian american pacific islander community i want to conclude by reading the resolved portion of our resolution that we're voting on tonight and it says the portland public school board of education recognizes may as asian american and pacific islander heritage month and strongly encourages our staff and community to observe recognize and celebrate the culture heritage and contribution of asian american and pacific islanders to our country our state our cities and our schools the pps board of education and superintendent guerrero see our diverse asian american and pacific islander students and staff we strongly denounce violence against our asian american and pacific islander community members and continue to explore and embrace ways to better support aaapi students in our schools and finally the pbs board of education supports oregon state representatives confams legislative proposal to combat anti-asian hate and bias crimes by fully funding a culturally responsive bias response hotline enhancing data collection efforts establishing a bias crime victims relief fund and continuing to invest in culturally specific affordable housing thank you and again i'm honored to bring the resolution to the board tonight for its consideration superintendent guerrero did you have anything you wanted to add um at this moment yes sir lowry thank you director brim edwards for introducing this important resolution recognizing uh asian american and pacific islander heritage month and like you i'm also devastated over senseless acts of violence and hate towards asian pacific islander communities throughout the country uh in our own community here in portland so uh i also am committed to moving beyond statements of condemnation and you know harnessing our full power of our collective you know to name and fight hate speech and violence in our district but to add a little bit more uh i'd like to introduce uh our gretchen schlog director of avid and advanced placement and jamie uh suher suhiro i hope i said that right jamie i apologize one of our teachers on special assignment who can share how we've been supporting educators in this critical time of increased anti-asian american and pacific islander sentiment in our community uh gretchen and jamie thank you superintendent guerrero hi i'm dr gretchen schlag director of avidin advanced placement uh thank you for having jamie and i to tonight to share briefly about what we're doing i'm actually going to have jamie do most of the talking um she is one of our teachers on special assignment and has been a um just a great catalyst and supporter for providing resources to our teachers across the the district and really uplifting a lot of their work as they engage with students and really begin the to dig in deeply around our culturally irresponsive practices and more specifically around anti-asian hate um work that they can be doing throughout this month and ongoing right because the work doesn't stop so um jamie i'm going to turn it over to you i know you provided some resources earlier and you have some great things to share with us i'm going to let you have the stage right now thank you good evening it's an honor to be here uh my name is jamie suhiro i use she her pronouns i am chinese and japanese-american from hawaii where my great-grandparents immigrated in the early part of last century i'm a teacher on special assignment with college and career readiness department supporting avid schools and i've had the privilege of advising the asian desi pacific islander affinity group at iw wells high school since it began in 2015. as many of you know asian americans have been the target of attacks throughout the pandemic over 6 600 incidents were reported to stop aapi hate from march 2020 to march 20-21 the true number is likely even higher but discrimination bullying microaggressions marginalization are not isolated to this past year for asian americans we have felt their impact for centuries this year it's more important than ever to recognize and celebrate asian american pacific islander heritage month i wanted to highlight a few resources that were created by pps teachers which have been widely used throughout the district first tiffany koyama lane and karen liao led a group of educators in creating a page on the pat website at pdxteachers.org backslash aapi where teachers can get their students involved with activism participate in community events read from book lists and learn about history
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culture and identity there are numerous wonderfully detailed lessons for every grade level also in a compelling rethinking school's article called dear educators it's time to fight for asian america roosevelt ethnic studies and senior inquiry teacher moya yonamine and her co-author present a call to action for educators in the form of 24 specific lessons to teach about asian american history the harmful model minority myth asian and black combined activism indigenous rights climate justice and island solidarity finally back in mid-march our superintendent shared my google slide deck on anti-asian hate which the pps with the pps community originally these slides were a way for me to process my own emotions while cataloging media for friends and family and eventually they were repurposed as a way for educators and students to enter conversations about the complex history of asian americans and the reasons behind the rise in hate crimes last week i updated the deck for api heritage month to include slides about current events and representation in the media it is my hope that these resources will not only raise awareness but encourage people to take steps toward critical thinking understanding empathy and ultimately action in the wake of the tragic anniversary of george floyd's murder we have seen this past calendar year are resolved to unite many of our students our resilient and brilliant youth are right there in the forefront organizing the community demanding an equitable and just society but whether or not our students are out in front or sitting quietly in the back with their cameras off they need to know we are right there with them that we recognize and celebrate their intersectional identities and that we will do everything possible to provide them a safe and joyful learning space where they can grow to their greatest potential happy aapi heritage month everyone thank you thank you jamie i don't know about the board but you just gave me chills that was very inspirational and um thank you so much for working with our teachers throughout our district i know they really really are gaining a lot of resources and support because of you and your talents thank you jamie it's so great to see you it's been far too long all right thank you both so much do i have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6304 resolution to recognize may as asian american and pacific islander heritage month moved all right i heard director from edwards move but i'll go with director depos because then director room edwards seconded so director to pass moves and director bruh edward seconds the adoption of resolution six three zero four is there any board discussion uh i i didn't move or second um i think it was someone else was i think no i heard a woman's voice i'm sorry it was amy so amy so director constance moves and director medwards seconds thank you for clarifying director to pass it's sometimes hard to tell uh on uh on zoom um all right is there any board discussion i just want to say that you know we received a lot of communication from our students and there's been a lot of activism in our high schools especially um around some unfortunate incidents of hate but also just around the general climate in our community and in our country and um you know passing a resolution doesn't i don't doesn't address the problems but work like jamie's work um does address it and it's just means a lot to me to continually see our students acting in that role which is the portrait of a graduate that we have um be advocating for change advocating with urgency pressing us on action and this was just another example of that i totally appreciate the work of staff on preparing specific lessons uh that can be used uh just to reinforce all the points in the resolution so thank you for that and i want to thank director brim edwards for her leadership on making sure that this item was brought forward so thank you julia for the heavy lift on that and for especially your work and including so many of our community partners um this is work we don't do alone so thank you for that i wanted to also just appreciate jamie um it's great to see you and um thank you for your leadership for our students and um the rise and hate is one reason that we need to keep talking about subjects regardless of whether they're difficult or not especially when they are difficult thank you for being here ms bradshaw is there any public comment no okay the board will now vote on resolution 6304 resolution to recognize may as asian american and pacific islander heritage month all in favor please indicate by saying
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yes yes yes i'll oppose please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6304 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes all right thank you all um tonight uh our next very important item on our agenda is a resolution reaffirming our support for the albino vision as we as a community work to address the devastating racist policies that placed a freeway through the albino community and took land from the folks living there this resolution is a small step towards justice as it authorizes the albino vision trust to have a right of first offer on the besc property in 2019 the pps board of education adopted pps reimagined a community driven vision for what we want to be true for the graduate system and educators of pps i got to participate in that process as a community member and it was an incredible time of learning and conversation for our district this ambitious vision represents the values and aspirations of thousands of portland students families staff partners and members of the community and articulates our foundational and enduring belief in racial equity and social justice on june 11th of 2020 the pps board of education unanimously approved resolution 6130 in this resolution we declared that the lives of black students and our black community matter and we committed to working with the superintendent and the portland community to create the dish conditions for every student but especially our black and native students who experience the greatest challenges to realize the vision of the graduate portrait we also recognize our fiduciary responsibility to preserve and maintain our real property assets in a manner that will serve current students and future generations as an educational institution and as the organization's board of education we have a moment an opportunity to lead not with race neutral plans but with an anti-racist agenda that amplifies an intergenerational healing process among students their families and our community and today of all days when one year ago today the brutal murder of george floyd occurred it is a moment for our community and this school board to reflect and to take decisive action to do right by black families and students superintendent guerrero would you like to continue this very important resolution thank you chair lowry and and directors i'm i'm really excited about uh this particular resolution you're going to get a chance to hear my own reflection a year in the anniversary of george floyd but tonight i think this is an important recognition in that we've seen over these last 15 months just how central schools are to communities as hubs we also know that no matter how central or role schools might play we can't do this work alone in supporting our community our children and our youth strong partnerships strategic partnerships rooted in our shared goal of supporting the success of black native american and pps students of color in particular are a necessary part of our success as a school system and a city tonight represents a major milestone because the board's considering a vote on a particular kind of partnership one that has the ability to transform the experiences and opportunities for black portlanders including and especially our own students and their families tonight's agenda item comes to the school board after many months of discussion between senior staff the albino vision trust and multnomah county i want to share my public appreciation to our pps real estate team also for working in a spirit of collaboration and with our district's core values at the forefront of your recommendations and decisions so thanks to you we've reached this historic moment for pps and our city i also want to give thanks and appreciate key stakeholders uh in this effort rakaya adams winter johannes and the albino vision trust team for your partnership for your friendship and for always pushing us to think bigger better and brighter on behalf of black children so i'm excited for us to do something remarkable right rikaya i also want to express my gratitude to chair kafori commissioner jayapal and multnomah county this year our organizations worked closer together in service of our community's families in response to covid19 your critical leadership and support of
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this effort is key in our collective effort to create a brighter more equitable future for our children and families so i'm proud to be at the table with you in this effort i also want to acknowledge our black community leaders and elders who are here with us tonight thank you for your visionary leadership and for your standing with us to reimagine pps i look forward to continuing to authentically listen learn and partner with you our communities black elders and listen to our black youth as we continue to address the pervasive inequities and cultural norms that impact our collective path to success so as i turn it over to director de pass and director brim edwards to share more about tonight's board action i want to thank you all as well tonight's an important step towards building a community and a school district that sees and honors our black students families and staff and i'm proud to have worked in collaboration with each of you go off mute thanks for your patience um i'm feeling some kind of way tonight about the board's resolution to affirm the support for the albino vision trust that's in front of us tonight um perhaps it's because it's the one year anniversary of the murder of george floyd or that we're at the end of a tail end of a pandemic i've just recently allowed myself to breathe but i am feeling hopeful for the work ahead in any case an important aspect of this work excuse me an important aspect of this work is the acknowledgement of the permanence of the cultural and institutional racism that has existed in our system since it's its inception racist practices that advantage white students and disadvantaged students of color have been reinforced by racist cultural narratives beliefs and norms six years before oregon proposed a state constitution banning black people from entering residing or acquiring property portland public schools oregon's largest school system was established for close to 170 years pps failed to respond to struggles of the communities of color especially black and native american students this pattern started when william brown a resident of portland in the 1860s tried to enroll his children in one of portland's only two elementary schools launching what would be the first recorded case of racism against black children in portland public schools while our commitment to calling out and eradicating systems of oppression is clear in our words plans and values we also know that cultural and institutional racism continues to produce disparities and negatively impact the lives of our students of color but specifically black students reflecting on our community's vision for pps our core values and educational system shifts along with the acknowledgement of persistent racialized predictors for student outcomes we are called to strategically utilize and invest resources in a targeted and culturally responsive manner to achieve racial equity and social justice grounded in the belief that culturally specific organizations are uniquely positioned to partner with pps to support our racial equity and social justice goals we continue our commitment to partner with culturally specific and multiracial organizations i want to speak for just a moment tonight about representative leadership and how we got here today we wouldn't even be here today but for the strength conviction love and labor our elders have so lovingly given portland's black students over many many decades and i would be remiss if i did not mention their names mama joyce harris ronnie herndon michael chappy grice donna maxie tony hopson mark jackson jimmy dojo renee anderson lolenzo poe sherry garen smith senators gordley carter and frederick and all of those i've failed to mention including all of our esteemed and hardworking teachers and administrators of color and the guests that are on our call tonight this resolution is what is possible when we have leadership that thinks big and pushes 24 7 365 i see you superintendent and your team and know that this work is only possible um when we all including my board colleagues metaphorically all pull the rope in the same direction in service of students in our district thank you director from edwards would you like to introduce our first
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speakers make some comments and then introduce our first speaker tonight thank you and i'd be remiss if i just didn't pause and second um director into passes um recognition of the community leaders who in my 55 years with pps i've seen many of them model leadership on behalf of their community and be on behalf of the entire community um so thank you director to pass for recognizing um the decades of work and dedication um of those individuals in the community so i would like to just take a moment to also recognize the work of the real estate task force that for the last six months have been meeting every week that would be jonathan garcia dan young liz large david roy dana white carlos sanchez quizar and courtney wessling was the pps team that really brought this agreement to the board tonight in concert with and work with multnomah county and also with albino vision trust um and as a member of the task force um there were to knit together the partnership i was asked just to reflect on the resolution tonight and also maybe a personal reflection as a as a portlander um so 170 years ago when pps was created its foundation has been has been noted earlier tonight was a web of discriminatory and racist policies and practices that excluded many of our students and families as pps grew as a district albino was growing as well and here's an excerpt from tonight's resolution about albina albino was once a thriving creative and affordable neighborhood consisting of black-owned businesses homes and faith institutions it was the cultural capital of portland with world-class jazz venues environmental justice initiatives and education models created for and by black portlanders decades of disinvestment urban renewal and racist public policy disintegrated the neighborhood end quote that is the albina that the black community built it's the albina that many institutions including pps has disrupted and torn apart over the years my journey with pps as i mentioned started 55 years ago in 1966 i started as a kindergartener in portland in my grade school in high school students from albino neighborhood schools were bused to my neighborhood k-8 and high school not the other way around over the years as a parent and community member i've seen schools in albina including humboldt and jefferson be reconstituted destruction disruption and sporadic support marked pps's relationship with the albino community the federal no child left behind legislation further undermined the school communities in albino leaving leading to the closure of some and the um constant change reorganization and others in 19 and 2003 i had that honor of serving for my first term on the school board and i co-chaired the board with uh lolenzo poe who director of uh depass mentioned earlier and lolenzo was a proud graduate as he always reminded me um of jefferson high school and he taught me deeply about the two portlanders the two portlands so when many white middle-class portlanders proudly talk about the strength of their urban public schools here in portland and compare them to the less successful urban districts around the country i'm reminded of the other portland that lolenzo taught me about the portland that other portland and albino where the schools received less support where change was always being done to the schools where students and families have faced discriminatory practices and policies last year the community passed a bond overwhelmingly to rebuild high school and co-create with the community a center for black student excellence portland public schools didn't harm the albino schools through one devastating and destructive action rather rather through a series of actions and we can't now say we've done our work through one action like tonight rather will be a continuum of actions and tonight is one of those nights it is one action in a continuum a sense of place is incredibly important in the past pps has marginalized and disrupted the school community in the albino neighborhood tonight we're entering into partnership with the albino vision trust in multnomah county to elevate and support our black students their families the historic alabama neighborhood and our long-term racial equity vision i want to thank the albino vision trust and the county leaders
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and all the elders who are on joining us tonight for working with us to take an action that moves along the continuum closer to one portland um so thank you thank you to everybody who um brought us to this point tonight and um i want to next introduce uh mulan county chair um deborah kofori who um along who has been instrumental in um making tonight a possibility and with that uh chair kafori who's also a portland public school graduate um i'd like to ask you to speak next thank you i'll just have to say go generals since we're on this call tonight thank you good evening everyone my name is deborah kofori and i am your multnomah county chair and i am really honored tonight to share that multnomah county is joining portland public schools and partnering with albino vision trust to grant them the first right of refusal on the blanchard building site this decision is in perfect alignment with multnomah county's commitment to aid in the co-creation of solutions that confront the historical injustices that lead to contemporary inequities as we've heard tonight already but it bears worth repeating that the historic albino neighborhood was systematically taken apart through decision after decision but with the same level of intent it can also be restored and renewed multnomah county sees this as an opportunity to have a role in rectifying one of the most egregious chapters in our community's history and to be part of building something new and lasting the choice to grant albino vision trust the right of first refusal isn't just an easy one it's the right one and i'm grateful that they are leading the charge with an exceedingly clear sense of purpose and vision for how we can establish together a future that ensures portland's black communities can thrive and it's even more exciting to know that atv's vision for the site will be oriented towards helping children and families flourish and succeed together values and work that reflect what multnomah county aims to do every day the dream for this site is one that we as a community must pursue together and i am thrilled and honored that the county is here tonight to help advance that purpose thank you thank you chair kofori and again we really appreciate the partnership with the county as we move ahead tonight in this historic action um next i'd like to introduce multnomah county commissioner susheela jailapal and um michelle spoke to representative leadership and i think sushila really has stepped into this role and providing great leadership at the county along with her colleagues cherika fourie and also the fellow commissioners so um commissioner um thank you so much director bring bermed words good evening everybody i'm sushila jayapal multnomah county commissioner for district 2 which includes the albino neighborhood in which the blanchard site sits um i'm actually going to start by thanking you for your recognition of aapi heritage month earlier this evening i feel as a member of the aapi community i feel lucky to have been here for that and note that of course um you know the racism that leads to anti-asian hate is connected to and in fact has its roots in the racism and the anti-blackness that led to the destruction of large swaths of the black community the heart of black community that was in the albino neighborhood so that through line feels very present to me as we as we talk about this um i realized as i was preparing these remarks that the last time i was before you all was almost exactly one year ago it was june 2nd 2020 one week after the murder of george floyd and i was here at that time to urge you to include the rebuild of jefferson high school in your 2020 bond referral and i thank you so much for doing that i used a quote then that i'm going to use again tonight because you can never use a good quote too often from the author eve ewing quote we must continually set our sights on what it would look like to get things right and we must integrate those visions into our rhetoric and our strategy by partnering with albino vision trust you and we at multnomah county are setting our sights on what it would look like to get things right and we're integrating that vision into our strategy
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we're acknowledging past harms from urban renewal while investing in something new and sustainable in the long term with the purchase of the blanchard site albino vision would have the opportunity to bring back resources into the heart of the black community the community that was torn apart when the freeway was bulldozed through it and to rebuild this property into something remarkable for individuals families and youths preserving land yes and repairing social networks there's no single path to equitable growth rather multiple intersecting and complementary strategies are needed to develop and implement that vision of what it looks like to get things right this resolution is one of those paths and i'm really delighted to be here to support it thank you michelle would you like to introduce our guest from the albino vision trust yeah so i i hope i get this right um so i'm introducing um ms the fabulous rakaya adams i have to tell you all that i'm struggling to maintain my composure um a lot of us are so we've got tissue handy cheri lowry you started this meeting with a shot through my heart so thank you for framing this in its importance i look at winter's young face and i see our future and i just i almost can't hold it together but i'm to try i am a pbs student i went to martin luther king elementary school and harriet tubman middle school and when i was there paul coakley whose son was just recently promoted implored us to be bold to be visionary to walk in the room like we own the place now it took me 40 years to actually do that but it is a true gift to engage with the various forms of government and oversight in such a constructive and loving way what you are doing is teaching us how to love in public policy and civic leadership in return the albino vision team will commit to excellence will commit to healing will commit to shared prosperity for generations you must change the way you govern to drive equity and we must change the way we're governed to heal and evolve and this is the first step in that i know some of our ideas sound big almost unimaginable but on a day like today in memory of george floyd that's exactly what we have to do we have to love big we have to try harder we have to trust each other and step into new partnerships that will transform how we live together i don't know how much more i can add with words except to say thank you for trusting us and i look forward to delivering on the beloved community that will be rebuilt in the place of the blanter site a place where black and brown children will be safe and loved and reflected in the urban vernacular when we accomplish that i hope we all remember this day the day when our school district meets the city meets the county meets 50 60 years of advocacy meets four generations of black portlanders tilling the soil of lower albina in order to begin anew thank you very much i'm sorry that i can't contain my emotions you're all so beautiful director de pass would you now please introduce senator abel gordley i'm delighted um to introduce my dear friend and um loving mentor senator abelgordly i am so glad you're joining us tonight thank you thank you i i too am in a place of
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emotion this evening i i see rukaya and i hear her and i recognize her as one of our black united front saturday school students from the 80s i've lived in portland for 74 years i want to say about the albino vision trust that this organization is the correcting influence the correcting influence leading us forward and the trust is also reminding us that we have not lost the capacity to dream to dream big i think about my journey with and through portland public schools starting with grade school at boise and then later highland highland became martin luther king jr elementary girls polytechnic high school in the years 1979 forward advocating with others in our black community led by the black united front fighting for a non-racist quality education for black children for all children and so now we are at a moment of that will lead us to some transformation and i want to say to michelle michelle de pass about this moment thank you for your courage and leading with integrity using your voice with integrity michelle thank you for standing in the gap to the young man who serves as a student member on this board nathaniel i've been watching you nathaniel and i know one of the things you do well is listen deeply i hope that you take in every single word that is said this evening committed to your heart's memory embrace the history of the moment that we're in i see my sister joyce harris and i think about all of your work these many many many many years as a master educator master educator there will be a building named for you my dear to our superintendent thank you for choosing portland thank you for remaining here
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thank you for leading with an open heart the significance of this time this hour was just not lost on me i'm thinking about those who are no longer here haleem rasan bs loving ruth spencer still with us carolyn leonard there are so many who carried the torch retire winter michael michael alexander i see you thank god for you for the quality of your leadership and i'm gonna i'm gonna stop there thank you bless you all thank you thank you much uh senator gordley thank you so much senator gordley and to all of our speakers um and thank you rakaya for your words do i have a motion and a second to adopt resolution 6303 resolution of forming affirming support for the albino vision and authorizing right of first offer so moved again okay i believe i heard director broome edwards move and director bailey second the adoption of resolution 6303 um ms bradshaw is there any public comment yes joyce harris i also um in my script i have that mr alexander was going to speak i don't know if that's been changed at the last moment but it would be wonderful to hear from him if he would um do so is he on the public comment list jonathan yes okay and miss harris you're muted so we we didn't hear you begin there yeah this is an emotional moment for all of us because we have been through some trials and tribulations and when i look uh my message is really to the young ones i'm i'm at that stage where i can call you young ones um ricky winter it is truly a celebration of us to see you young folks carrying the torch as you can see avail myself ronnie we've been through some trials and tribulations and it's beginning to show um when you have to take a nap a couple of times a day just so you can speak and look presentable i am so proud of the work that you all have done and continue to do i mean there's nothing more exciting than to see the fruits of your labor being carried on i mean i just um [Music] what can i say um to know that we are leaving our community in strong talented hands that i know that everything is going to be all right um so i just want to say thank you to the young folks y'all got a lot of work to do but i know that you can do it and um even though some of us are getting a little aged we're feeling good because i look at you all and i remember some 50 years ago i was right where you were trying to figure out what to do and
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being committed to doing it um avail and i always talk about these rocking chairs that we're gonna get so that we can just sit back and reflect on our time and then celebrate your time so if anybody has a notion we really want to do something nice for me and avail get us two red rocking chairs so that we can carry on the work that we started and that you have you are continuing i am so proud um i'm just proud thinking about all the things that we have done and how you all are carrying it on um so that's all i have to say this this is a i always say um there was a movie called a great day in harlem and when i have moments like this i think about that great day in harlem this is a great day in portland in our community and um i just can't wait to see what you do next and superintendent i guess i can say this publicly i'm glad you stayed i was a little reluctant at first and say is he going is he gonna make it is he gonna last well you did and i want to congratulate you for that and thank you and michelle thank you for calling me this morning and um it's it's it's going to be wonderful i'm looking forward to this center for black excellence oh my goodness it's going to be amazing and i will be a part of it if that's all right with you colleen okay and julia thank you for staying in the struggle with us i didn't realize you had been here for such a long time but you've been doing you've been doing good work thank you bye-bye i'm gonna let you all go cause i'll be like rakai yes sniveling thank you so much for being here yes thank you we have plenty glad well after all of that i don't know that there's much left to say i do want to acknowledge um just that we young folks rakay i love that we're young do stand on the shoulders of greatness and i i just need to acknowledge mama joyce and senator gordley and ronnie herndon uh lolenzo poe people who i know have personally held me up and given me wisdom and advice and part of why i'm here today and i i just admire and respect you more than i could ever describe um and we would not be here without you um and not just your work but you're also believing in this next generation of leaders and being actively engaged in supporting our vision dr may jameson who was the first black female astronaut said never be limited by other people's limited imaginations and um i'm just so proud and happy that pps was not limited by what maybe they could not fully see um rakaya had a vision for change in community that centered the humanity of black people that centered our history and most importantly to me centers children and today is a step in the right direction of actualizing that all of you are part of history one day children will look back on this day and they will look back at this recording and they will see your faces and they will see that you have stood for justice that you have stood for children for the black community and really communities of color who have been disenfranchised for too long so i thank all of you um hi fitz ron if it talks about leadership being dangerous and i really do believe leadership and equity right now in education is under attack and we are seeing it throughout our state and throughout our nation and so making bold decisions to support things that are explicitly about enhancing black communities to thrive and rectifying historic wrongs is not an easy decision and i don't think any of us take it lightly i i thank you for your leadership for your
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boldness for your willingness to be out there recognizing that you know there may be articles about you for giving into radicalism um but i'm excited because we are imagining together and we are carving out a place in history where all of our children can truly thrive where they can be seen and valued and their humanity and education and all of the things that we say matter to well-being can be on full display so it is a privilege to be here tonight it's a privilege to partner with albino vision trust and our vision for the center for black excellence and i'm just so thrilled and excited about what's to come thank you ms bradshaw do we is mr alexander next on our public comment list yes mr alexander welcome are you able to hear me fantastic yeah first of all i i um like everyone i'm i'm having a very difficult time sort of harnessing some boundaries on the emotions that i'm feeling right now although not a native of portland this is a community that i have come to love and that has embraced me over the last 16 years and i feel very privileged to be in this space and in this place today um it is not lost on any of us that a year ago today we were facing the trauma associated with the killing of george floyd and at times the awakening within this country of the challenges that we face around issues of race and bias and bigotry i would like to say that that awakening has been something that has shown its permanence but in many instances institutions were trying to find a comfortable place to land in what was going to be a very difficult time and i commend the leadership superintendent guerrero the staff for the willingness to not only embrace this difficult time but to stay on the field during difficult discussions during discussions that we're going to challenge not only who we were but how we got to where we are right now and where that accountability lies there's an old expression that says you know it may not be your fault but it's your responsibility and it is clearly our responsibility and we welcome the opportunity to work with the superintendent and the staff in creating this new space you know the adage that i think we're all familiar with that it takes a village to raise a child in some way is intuitive but it's premised on the creation of that village if that village doesn't exist that work cannot be done and the effort and the commitment and the resolution tonight affords us the opportunity to strengthen the foundation of the shared village and the beliefs that we believe all of our children are entitled to our creator gives all of our children gifts and charges us with the responsibility of giving them opportunity so we have that tonight and i'd like to close by just calling on a saying of the maasai tribe which is a tribe known for their ferocity and their intellect in kenya and tanzania and they begin every meeting with one phrase and it doesn't matter what the purpose of the meeting is if it is around community and families and institutions the first thing they will say is and how are the children if we can ask ourselves that throughout the course of this path that we've committed to navigate together we will always keep an eye on true law because how we answer that question will determine whether we're bringing the proper resolve and intentionality to the opportunity and the shared path that we've committed to so i feel so very very privileged to be working in partnership with the staff of the district with the board with the leadership and with the wonderful colleagues who've allowed me to be a part of the avt team so thank you for the opportunity to offer a few comments today is bradshaw do we have further public
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comment no that concludes public summit was uh i just i see winter on my screen and i just wanted to make sure winter did you want to speak um would you like to take a moment or are you good i can't hear you sadly okay i apologize uh for whatever reason that the sound there didn't work but um wanted to recognize that you are here as well looking young apparently and uh wanted to thank you for your presence and for all of your leadership and work uh as well this evening uh is there any board discussion of resolution six three zero three i just again want to thank everybody that showed up to testify tonight and to witness um you're doing this on your free time when you should be eating dinner with your families ricaya thank you so much for your vision they say that leadership is um sharing a vision and then getting followers to uh kind of come behind you so i think you've proven that that's that's happening now and really happy to see you on the call and and thank you to everybody that that spoke tonight um and thanks for everybody that also didn't interrupt the speakers tonight because that that would be a no-no in in the black church i just want to remark on the poetic happenstance of having this time together tonight on this day because it's like a balm for our souls you know to be able to be hopeful and forward thinking and inspired um at a time when we're remembered of how hard the fight is so thank you all for bringing us that hope and inspiration and now let's uh step on the gas make it happen yeah i i don't i don't have i can't add anything to the emotional and eloquent testimony and truth telling we've heard tonight so i also want to thank you for coming and and and speaking your truth and telling us um about that experience and and about this opportunity and i'll just say that it is such an honor to be on this board and have an opportunity to vote yes on this tonight so so thank you for giving me that opportunity well we'll we won't delay in giving you that opportunity any longer andrew the board will now vote on resolution 6303 resolution affirming support for the albino vision and authorizing right of first offer all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions [Music] resolution 6303 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative xu voting yes all right i see the round of applause i have to say this is amazing and yet i still in my heart this is one small step in a journey of much much more work both um of this district um and i know that uh even if you're sitting in red rocking chairs uh senator gordley you're gonna be uh keeping us accountable and keeping sharing your wisdom so um we have more work to do and i know that you all will be partners in that work and leading in that work as we continue to address these um historic wrongs i loved what mr alexander said about it's not your fault necessarily we didn't uh create the policies that destroyed albino but it is our responsibility um and that we as especially a white board have a lot to answer for for the historic injustices that have played our city um and i i just wanted us to be clear that this doesn't solve racism um this is one one moment that we must celebrate and fill with hope and yet have it fuel us for that next moment next step um under superintendent guerrero's able and incredible leadership and with our staff as partners as well we turn now from this amazing moment of a historic night of these deep emotions to turn to our consent agenda which often uh feels a little dull but it is the work that is the heart of so much of what we do tonight we're looking at contracts and curriculum um and so many important pieces um but if there are any items you would like to pull and director burn edwards i know you have one we're gonna set those aside for discussion and vote after the rest of the consent agenda but first miss bradshaw are there any changes to the consent agenda no okay board members are there any items you would like to pull actually yeah chair lowry i'll just leave the math adoption in the the consent agenda and just when we get to discussion just ask my question okay great thank you so much director brent edwards director brian edwards was um as you know always very diligent and uh the math adoption there was a little bit of a miscommunication and it got added to our board packet a little late so
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we were having some conversation about how best to address that and make sure it was fully um reviewed okay thank you julia i know that took a lot of extra work on your behalf this weekend um are there any other items that any other board members would like to pull from the consent agenda do i have a motion and second to adopt the consent agenda all right i heard director scott move and director constant second the adoption of the consent agenda is there any board discussion on the consent agenda i just had one question it's around the math adoption which is a four million dollar contract and this is part of our ongoing curriculum work and that's being paid for by the bond and the question i had for staff um that i'd sent before i'm just going to ask one of them is around um sort of the feedback loop that we have and evaluating the effectiveness um i i know that as the adoption was underway and being considered there was lots of field testing and teachers involved in that and i'm just interested in the other the other end of things dr valentino our chief academic officer would be the appropriate person and uh all of our curriculum adoption processes will reflect something similar to what he's about to share with you great then i won't have to ask the questions so good evening excuse me director larry director superintendent so this is this is a very complex process that we have embarked in primarily because there wasn't a lot in place at the time so some of the protocols and procedures we are still developing and we were using our first couple of adoptions to test out the protocols that we had been uh putting in place and so the handbook that was provided to you prior with during the math during the science uh upgrade was to give you a sense of the complexities of that but also to share with you that that's a way of standardizing our processes moving forward and so one of the things that is included in that that we still are having to address is making sure that the communication system works alongside so that people are engaged from the very beginning the various stakeholder groups the various people who will influence and inform the process have a voice at the table on the front end and so as we figure this out and because there's so many people trying to to support this work um you know once or twice we haven't fully implemented in the way that we'd like but that's the part of that cycle of continuous improvement and so in that learning within that cycle one of the things that we learned was how do we ensure that within our stakeholder groups um there is an opportunity for feedback and so it's that that feedback loop that we had that you had actually mentioned during the audit committee meeting that we are really paying close attention to to make sure that it does two things one that along the way we're able to get feedback on our own process on how we are piloting how we are making decisions uh about the indicators that we're going to use to measure for quality etc but also that as we begin to implement that from the very beginning we are measuring for the quality of our professional development the quality of the initial implementation and get feedback from that and so as the superintendent indicated as we begin to formalize that as we codify those individual components and we formalize that every single adoption will actually have very similar markers that you as a board will be will be looking for so that you can make sure that one that we have been rigorous in the identification of possible curriculum adoptions of adoption programs too that our procurement process is of quality as well that we actually have invited the right people to the table to be part of that conversation and then as we feel test that we actually are looking for the right the right conditions for that to happen the pandemic did not help us and so we really had to figure out um tangible ways of measuring the quality of the piloting and that sort of thing so it was difficult for everyone but moving forward we will be able to hold that steady and be able to look for those things and measure for those things and so we're hoping that as as we answered to questions that you had know that they are going to become part of our process
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for evaluation along with others that will allow us to address some of the gaps that we still have in our process thank you dr valentino all right is there any further board discussion of the consent agenda a quick thank you this may be the only opportunity but a quick thank you to dr valentino for his vision in um thinking about including curriculum resources into our bond work which is not something this district had done before and without it there's no way we could have uh undertaken a wholesale adoption like this which is i believe going to be an absolute game changer every grade level math curriculum including the professional development so um thank you for your leadership dr valentino it's a it's a huge huge investment for our children and a wonderful opportunity for our teachers who it's fair to recognize have not been well as well supported as they should have been thank you for that and i want to thank the superintendent because he put the bug in my ear said well if you can make it happen go for it but if it wasn't that he said let's give it a go so i appreciate that so thank you ms bradshaw is there any public comment on the consent agenda no all right the board will now vote on resolution 6305 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions the content the consent agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes thank you nathaniel all right we turn now to student and public comment and board members we will take a break after student and public comment but uh before we begin i would like to review our guidelines for comment the board thanks the community for taking the time to attend this meeting and provide your comments public input informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen our board office may follow up on board-related issues raised during public testimony we request that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel manner if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide to the board or superintendent we ask that you email them to public comment pps.net please make sure that when you begin your comment that you clearly state your name and spell your last name you will have three minutes to speak you will hear a sound after three minutes which means it is time to conclude your comments ms bradshaw do we have anyone signed up for public comment hi um we have so we have a group of students that are all going to be in the same the same meeting invite so we'll start with amaya leary sims uh hi my name is l-e-a-r-y-s-i-m-s and i'm going to read you my plastic pollution book uh econology today i would like to acknowledge that we are standing on the homeland territory of the loma clackamas and many other tribes who lived along the columbia and willamette rivers i extend my respect and gratitude to the many indigenous people and ancestors who call these lands home dear pbs board members my name is amaya i'm writing it because of how much plastic i'm seeing in burger school lunches if you didn't know plastic is polluting the air and is creating toxic micro plastics as an activist it's my job to encourage others to reduce plastic use because all it does is end up in a landfill or the great pacific garbage patch or it might degrade if it keeps degrading it will travel farther because it'll flow on lakes rivers oceans and then the wind might pick it up and it'll fly to other places where other people will have to deal with it in other countries but can also be transferred by people who can ship it in container ships if you keep using too much plastic as you do in our lunches and just in pps business in the year 2048 the ocean could turn into a plastic swamp with less fish because i bet you didn't know but almost nothing can survive without clean healthy waters air pollution my first reason for you to reduce plastic is as polluting our air and changing its quality completely burning plastic does give a small amount of space for landfills but it also
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releases carbon mono dioxide dox infurians and not to mention volatiles carbon monoxide is a tasteless colorless and odorless gas that can kill you trees stuck in carbon dioxide it makes a difference to take away chemicals that go in the air from people that burn carbon from fossil fuels but it also but it's still not enough to reduce all the carbon out of all the air one because trees can't do it all themselves the second even if trees did reduce all the carbon out of the air people would still burn plastic we could still leave a lot of it in the air micro plastics my second reason for you to reduce plastic is because plastic is breaks down into micro pieces called microplastics did you know that when you use plastic bags you usually taste paths of bags 10 to 12 years to degrade however when they do degrade it they're usually on the road to fish bellies because fish can blindly mistake plastic for food and die but another human might eat the fish before it consumes too many plastics in reality that human would be eating microplastics microplastics are tiny particles that stick onto bags bottles and other plastic materials when you use all these plastic things these particles are free to stick on the food of our lunches and then we end up eating these particles alternatives instead of plastic i understand if you do not have a lot of cooks in burger school but it's not enough but it's still not a good excuse to get a bunch of food wrapped in plastic just because you do not know the causes and extreme torture it does to mother earth you can have our food in plastic because it releases 12 hormonal chemicals that are all cancerous however you can wrap food in butch paper for it is not plastic it is not plastic chemicals and it's very recyclable if you have if you hire cooks you don't have any reason to buy food wrapped in plastic the cooks could use an alternative to plastic butcher paper if people want to do takeout i have other opportunities that you cannot hire any cooks or chefs first you can be serving fresh fruits and vegetables such as apples salads peaches mangoes oranges and my personal favorite plums dark plums all these foods are healthy and don't cost a lot second i am certain there are lots of cooks in british student families i'm sure that at least some of the parents could start cooking meals for the student at bridger school elementary school i um i am i've seen the kitchen in bridge school we have all the basics such as stoves refrigerators and other alternatives you could buy metal silverware and silicone utensils and wrap a conclusion in conclusion i hope you learned something in the 12 pages i read to you i want you to understand that if you keep using all of these single-use plastic wrappings things go very long and very wrong in the next seven years with the ocean rivers and lakes which is exactly why i made this book for you i cannot wait one more second knowing that sea life is dying just because of plastic so do it for the earth and stop your plastic use and what's more you can easily begin with paper bags and sell fresh fruits to hire student families to cook and it's more healthier and i'm sure that your use of plastic would shorten much much more this is only the beginning we must continue doing these alternatives if we are to make a difference and lastly you do it for all these kids that are going to grow up on the planet do it for the world do it for yourself thank you for considering all of this thank you miss amiyah thank you thank you for being so brave to come to us tonight and also let you know that i am anti-plastic also um i've committed in my own home to use um no plastic it's very hard and i'm not not 100 yet thank you next we have diane christina racks in your book no i can do it online my name is john paul o-l-l-a-o-l my name is john paul i go to portland public schools michonne farley has taught us all about plastic we have read articles about climate change it has forced refugees to leave their homes because it gets too hot to live and they can't even go things for example where i'm from paleo they have been plastic because it is hurting animals on land and in the ocean plastic bags are bad and for the most part unnecessary plastic pollution is so bad that more than five trillion pieces are already floating in our ocean and around the world nearly a million plastic beverage bottles are sold every minute i'm writing to pps board members because i want you to reduce the use of single-use plastic in our lunches dps should reduce plastic in our lunches because my island pulao is getting destroyed and it's harmful to people my first reason i want pps to reduce plastic in our lunches
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is that my island palau is getting destroyed from plastic i'm in the united states but my aunt is in palau when she calls and tells us about the beach because she always sees trash such as plastic just washing up on the beach palau became the first country to ban harmful sunscreens that are toxic to coral reefs my grandfather has a company for beach cleanups and he makes laws like no fishing zones my second reason why portland public schools should reduce plastic is because according to flaws flaw says mycoplastic particles can also accumulate polychlorinated biphenyls other chemicals that are linked to harmful health effects including various cancers a weakened immune system reproductive problems and more once these chemicals are inside of us even low doses may have an effect this makes me feel sick because i eat the food that has plastic in the animal's body and we are basically killing ourselves but we don't know it first of all one of the solutions i have for pps is to stop using plastic and at lunch one of the ways you can do this is to hire perhaps some of our parents furthermore my parents get ethic foods such as healthy rice and soup we could also introduce different kinds of vegetables and fruits for students that thus making healthy students we could use the old-fashioned way of using washable bowls and silverware also since there are many cultures in our school it would be a wonderful education to share with you my palau foods in conclusion i have given you plenty of examples to reduce the use of single-use plastic in our lunch school lunches perhaps you can try recycling at least the plastic bags that hold our lunch and please use the paper bag that can be recycled it's it's not that it's not difficult and it's really not that hard it's not that expensive and it's saving our planet as well there are solutions as well such as banana leaves and other paper containers that would keep our food just as fresh if not fresher in addition if you were to do this maybe my island of pulau would not be destroyed and people's health would not be harmed thank you thank you thank you kylie logging okay okay um it's diane okay [Music] my name is diane rex spelled rex dear pbps board members my name is diane rex and i'm a fifth grade activist at bridget elementary school i'm writing this ledge to you because i'm concerned about the plastic that's going into our ocean did you know that not only dimerian animals eat plastic but humans do too you guys need to wake up and realize that the earth is in danger because of plastic and the plastic pollution is only growing because of the plastic lunches at our schools sure we stopped using plastic straws but is that enough no it's not if pps schools could just stop using any sort of plastic for the school lunches we could help them contribute to solve this problem the first reason why i think we should stop using plastic in our schools is because plastic is hurting the marine animals according to newsela scientists say that they have found bits of plastic in the marine animals bodies it's believed that it could have possibly came from chip bags and plastic wrappers with this information we know that the marine animals could have gotten sick from this some marine animals have probably eaten dirty bits of plastic which brings me to my second piece of evidence marine animals and ocean animals don't look for food with their eyes so if they smell anything that smells like food they'll eat it a scientist proved it the scientists took their items plain plastic plastic that smelled like sea plants and an object that smelled like crow when he put those things in a container full of anchovies the anchovies mainly went for the plastic that smelled like sea plants and the object that smelled like crow none went for the plain plastic this is the reason why we should stop using plastic for our school lunches second reason why i think we should stop using plastic in our schools is because plastic also goes into human bodies some schools might serve some sort of seafood for the students did you ever think about how those sea creatures might have eaten some microplastics if they did then the students eating the sea creatures would have ate some micro plastics too instead of using plastic we could use silicon silicone because silicone is kind of like plastic however silicon degrades better it's also less
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harmful for marine animals and humans some people may say that plastic is good for food that's why they use plastic for it well i don't blame them after all plastic preserves food longer but we could always find an alternative lastly i want to tell you about how plastic is affecting the pacific islands i came from there myself it's truly devastating to hear about the islands being endangered the plastic in the ocean might not seem like a big deal in the us but such a big problem for those people on islands since the plastic is helping climate change ice melts since the ice melts the ice turns into water and becomes ocean water if the ocean ever does overflow then the water can easily flow through the island since the island is flat not only will the water flood the island but it will kill the crops that the people grow there and those crops are the main food source that the people eat on the islands so to prevent islands from getting flooded we have to get plastic out of our schools conclusion in conclusion plastic is damaging and hurting our earth bit by bit and what are you guys going to do sit there and work and watch the earth crumble i know i know even if you guys do remove plastic from our schools the plastic pollution would still be a huge problem but it would definitely make a change i would think that we want would want to leave this world in better condition than how we got it you as a school board member have the power to enact something as simple as getting rid of plastic in our school lunches thank you thank you thank you [Music] you want to read it on here hello i am sarah lovely spelled l-g-g-i-e um i'm one of miss sharply's fifth graders she and her students last year protested until school agreed to nurse straws youth silverware and coffee friends this year there was grown 19 and that has made things hard those who could went vlogging this is a combination of jogging and picking up glitter i use plastic bags at my house at school read articles on it the problem is growing it's getting too hot and it's making farming hard we need farming to be easy so we can eat food this is where you come in by stopping plastic in our school lunches here are my reasons why okay who loves turtles like get confused by plastic bags which leads to either choking or thinking they're full but aren't starving to death or maybe someone comes and helps them two out of three ways sleep to death not a good chance of survival this is where i want you to come in and help by reducing this the school lunch plastic no seems like it's small in the world so much and you might think what would that do what's a problem right there if we all think that then no one gets anything done in other words it's like if all the worker ends that it won't make a difference if i help carry the food then who's going to no one will that's why you need to help stop that chain be the ant that picks up the food not the one that thinks it won't matter because it does matter i think if we work together we can stop this chain help our marine life and ourselves yes us too i have a question who enjoys sushi i like sushi and there's plastic in it that's right fish is sushi and fish eat plastic we eat fish which means we eat the microplastics in them not such a delicious idea now is it well let's start off with saying we need to stop global warming it is not a good thing it is destroying our earth and by the year 2050 it will be permanent that's only 29 years from now that means we will never be able to reverse it plastic is the main source of global warming because when it's made into something it's heated up when being rolled into a shape that means the c and co2 in other words the carbon in co2 is emitted when when it combines with o2 in other words oxygen it creates co2 which is heating up our planet which also means that the marine life impact is only part of the problem they get we get effective at what we need to the problem is only getting worse by the minute we need to do something about it we need you to help by getting rid of the plastic in our school lunches silicone rubber wood bamboo metal beeswax wrap cardboard paper foil and butcher paper all things that aren't plastic that you can use furthermore i would like you to consider using these things because plastic is not good for our environment or us in other words it's not really that good to use plastic especially when it you consider the fact that in the long run it's not worth it for example take a look at fire zones they are getting bigger
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because earth is getting hotter the earth is getting hotter because of things like plastic bamboo is a plant so it's good for the earth if it returns to soil eventually metal can be used for mouse straws so that's good cardboard and butcher paper are also solutions all you have to do is use them in conclusion i know that we are on a path of destruction firing no one wants to walk there i know we can take that first step of change all you have to do is try last but not least the choice is in your hands are you going to be the pollution or the solution by the way i hope you learned why you should take a hard look at our school which is what's our goal to eliminate half the plastic in our school went to that minimum for example trade out plastic bags with paper bags finally this is the only world we have let's try to care about let's try to take better care of it than when we came into it thank you for your time today now you know my reasons why i think we shouldn't use plastic natural lunches thank you we have grace blasphemy hi my name is b l a s c h my plastic pushing book introduction dear portland public school board member guess what the great pacific garbage patch is two times the size of texas the biggest u.s state i'm grace flaschke and i'm a fifth grade activist in michonne coiler's class at berger school i'm writing to you because i see too much plastic in the school lunches no coven might be a good excuse but it is not a lot of companies think everything has to be wrapped in plastic to be safety and covered but it does not always have to be in plastic wrapping over the last few months i have been thinking about plastic potion a lot and it really hurts my heart to think about i've tried to reduce as much as i can i do get that it's hard to reduce all plastics but i try to do as much as i can that is what i'm asking you to do too i think that the school district needs to reduce the use of plastic in the lunches because it hurts marine animals puts fed fumes in the air and gets enough food and water hurts marine animals after plastic goes to a landfill sometimes blows away into waterways and eventually makes its way to the ocean sometimes animals mistake plastic bags as jellyfish animals wash up and be on on beaches and are found with plastics in their bodies worries me because i might be eating sea life that has plastic fits in it called micro plastics according to google fish sea birds sea turtles and marine mammals can be entangled in or digest plastic debris causing suffocation starvation and drowning plastic kills up to a million seabirds a year as with sea turtles when sea birds ingest plastic it takes up room in their stomach sometimes causing starvation puts bad fumes in the air to make plastic pucks carbon in the air the carbon wind bonds with two oxygen and form co2 in the air co2 warms up the earth and glaciers are melting by the minute according to earth classified satellite images show glaciers are melting faster than ever according to google the burning of plastic releases toxic dioxins furance mercury and polychlorinated bethanol into the atmosphere and poses a threat to vegetation human and animal health burning plastic also releases black carbon which contributes to climate change and air pollution solutions there are some alternatives to plastic in our lunches though you could hire cooks they could cook the food for the lunches wrap it in butcher paper put it in paper bags you can also buy fresh fruits and vegetables it does cost more money but a few extra dollars is worth the child's health right there are 49 000 stones in pps that is a lot of kids using more than one piece of plastic almost every day i know that not all the students get the lunches but a lot of them do imagine 49 student thousand students using five pieces of plastic going into a landfill every day conclusion in conclusion i hope i changed your mind about plastic pollution in the world i love portland public schools that the school district needs some change er now in our school lunches plastic in the lunches needs to be reduced because it puts bathrooms in the air hurts marine animals puts pet fumes in there gets nerfed in water even if i did not change your minds i want you to know that i'm not gonna stop being an activist for the rest of my life because it's the right thing to do thank you
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thank you thank you thank you next we have miss trunkweller i want to thank the superintendent guadalupe guerrero who knows that i like to make a little good a little bit of good trouble and the board members for allowing these fifth grade activists to express their concerns about the plastic in our school lunches i also want to thank my principal melissa sharpner for for encouraging me to teach what is important i couldn't be prouder of these young activists first for their remarkable argumentative essays and second for being activists for change as i hear these essays i have many thoughts as a teacher i know i need to teach the truth to my students about climate change and racial injustice especially how it affects our students heritage the pacific islands central and south america the african continent and many more places throughout the world according to our climate there can be no more delay in addressing the climate crisis is called catastrophic by scientists genocide by island nations and death to our continent by african climate diplomats there's no more slack time climate is everything plastics are one contributor to our climate crisis that these students can see firsthand locally this is arguably the biggest problem affecting our community as you drive down the streets of portland you see plastic and trash everywhere this plastic waste is on the streets where we live and the school grounds where we work when we teach about this problem students also need to know that there are solutions and that they can be a catalyst for change that's where you all come in my students need to see some action action drives and encourages them to continue to fight for change as the students mention we need to reduce plastic in our school lunches here are six solutions that portland public schools should implement one have ethnic foods hired and cooked by some of the community members possibly parents to use more fresh fruits and vegetables even during coba times instead of being wrapped in plastic three use containers like cardboard and or find companies that use sustainable packaging why are we supporting big oil and gas companies that supply plastic wrappings that are hurting the health and heritage of many of our students and our planet four supply each school with silverware containers for recycling food waste and milk cartons eight cloth aprons and reusable gloves for cleanup have it all set up for them videos on how the program works in schools and give one teacher a stipend to run the program in each school i know fifth grade would be a good place to start that five have a goal to eliminate all plastics by 2025 and show progress made each year by sharing what products were eliminated because of the carbon footprint six provide community gardens that help feed underprivileged students and schools with nutritious food and teach all students how to be stewards of our earth in addition i would like the board to contact these students telling them their solutions and how they are young activists can help portland public schools solve our plastic problems their emails are on the information given to you along with their essays the students crafted their essays using book creator it might be nice to display these books on the pps website finally i want to thank portland public schools for 37 years of employment it has been an honor to work for such a progressive district although i am retiring i plan to continue to cause a little bit of good trouble helping our district find solutions to the plastic catastrophe and to support our young activists in finding their voices for change again my students and i look forward to hearing from you on our next steps together to solve this problem thank you sheriff go ahead teacher ms shankweiler thank you for hosting us uh in your classroom and and seeing your students at work uh and thank you for confessing at the end there that uh you're celebrating uh many many years of service to to portland public schools students and for all of our educators who there we go we're ahead of the curve in um producing students who are looking at real world issues and uh becoming change agents uh and and the things in the way that we describe our vision uh thank you for uh your forward thinking and many years and serving our students in that manner thank you thank you
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and i i hope to hear from you soon and see some action uh thank you so all so much all the students our amazing teacher um we i know we have further public comment miss bradshaw who's next on our agenda tonight with evie welcome it looks like you're still muted uh i apologize there you go it's okay zoom life thank you yup my name is edie ragaway uh my last name is spelled our r-o-g-o-w-a-y and thank you for allowing me allowing me to speak tonight uh since she was a little girl i have drilled the art of the apology into my 14 year old's brain because when you apologize when you genuinely apologize you give the other person nowhere to go unless you're a total schmuck you're going to accept the apology and move on i'm here today as a parent actually as a client asking for an apology from all of you the board the union the teachers the district owe us an apology who is us it is your clients every single parent of a pps student something we have lost sight of it is not the teachers it is not the union it is not the board it is not the district it is us the parents it is time to tell the truth and admit what this is this is the union holding our kids hostage in an attempt to leverage bargaining terms they've wanted years before the pandemic years before the pandemic to the teachers who got vaccinated before the population that will die without the vaccine thanks to our governor's priorities who then voted not to return to school you owe us an apology to the board who paved the union's threats in the union's bowling who agreed to four hours a week of study hall you owe us an apology to the union who cares more about your members more about money more about vacation days and you care about our kids you owe us an apology and to any of you in any camp who disagree with the union but refuse to speak out publicly well you owe us an apology too and you really set a bad precedent when we're trying to tell our kids every day to speak up and raise hell when no one else is willing to do so you all have one primary job which is to educate our kids and i would respectfully ask that you do your job we mourn the 2613 oregonians who have died from copen but how dare pat how dare the union use covet use our kids as bargaining chips and can we please have some perspective the leading cause of death among organ use by miles there's not even a second is suicide we all know that for kids who are abused and neglected it is the adults in their school who are most likely to see it and do something about it what do you think life is like for those kids i do not believe that pps will return to full-time in-person learning in the fall i have lost faith i have to say i'm sad to say that as long as you continue to gaslate us as long as you continue evading the truth by throwing out terms like racist equity privilege with no rational context nothing will change so we as parents are left with two bad options continue with this unacceptable subpar education or pull out i can't count the number of families i know who have pulled out in the last two months for private school these are the field trip chaperones and the room parents and the fundraisers and the classroom volunteers who have had it these are the parents who are bridging the gap for all kids all kids thank you for your comment your time has uh ended thank you okay well that's great that like you let the kids go on for eight minutes and you didn't let me finish my remarks i have 30 seconds left so i would at least ask for the respect to finish my remarks can i do that please i would uh ask uh us to move on to our next speaker you had you had what an hour 50 minutes of these kids about plastics this is so disrespectful thank you and we will hear our next speaker thank you hello my name is brian chu that's spelled chu and i'm a teacher at harry tubman middle school uh with all this talk about reopening schools in the fall we have to wonder what other wounds are being reopened and how much salt is being poured and rubbed into one for some of us school has never been saved there's always been a disconnect between you who make decisions and us who have to teach through them i'm
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here to give testimony to document this moment in history where change is inevitable my hope is that you stand with me on the right side of it your past and everything has changed and nothing has changed old acronyms have been replaced with new ones yet the same toxic positivity predatory philanthropy and white supremacist gatekeeping is still intact data teams are now called plc's professional learning communities arg i'm sorry mr chu i've lost i can't hear you can anyone else hear mr chu is it just me no brian carrick miss bradshaw can you help us it looks like he's frozen now mr chu are you there yes i'm sorry we lost um audio on you for there for a second um i'm gonna restart your timer um can we uh can you can you go ahead and restart your testimony please because i want to make sure we didn't miss anything okay got you from the top uh i'm not sure where we lost you so i don't want to miss any so yeah go ahead and start from the top apologies uh my name is brian chu and i spilled chu and i'm a teacher at harry tubman middle school with all this talk about reopening schools in the fall we have to wonder what other wounds are being reopened and how much salt is being poured and rubbed into them for some of us school has never been safe there's always been a disconnect between you who make the decisions and us who have to teach through them i'm here to give testimony to document this moment in history where change is inevitable and my hope is that you stand with me on the right side of it a year has passed and everything has changed and nothing has changed old acronyms have been replaced with new ones yet the same toxic positivity predatory philanthropy and white supremacist gatekeeping is still intact data teams are now called plc's professional learning activities rj restorative justice is now res j racial equity and social justice pbis positive behavioral interventions and supports and rti response to intervention have been rebranded as mtss multi-tiered systems of support carried out by tosa's teachers on special assignment bill gates now the largest farmland owner in the united states microsoft and melinda gates have moved on to greener pastures so the white savior's burden of mailing teachers and students to the academic learning cross and carrying the ccss the common core state standards on their s backs get it as back smarter balance assessment consortium has been handed off like a baton in a relay race to karen the emmy and her company cassell or castle collaborative for academic social and emotional learning to baron to carry in this new era of sel social and emotional learning and they're calling it a movement stl the new and improved non-academic common core crusade will help edtech corporations unlock i repeat individual individual potential and exploit humans as a resource sel and cassell are being introduced the same way avid advancement via individual i repeat individual determination and the nsif the nike school innovation fund were introduced back in 2007. with the live grit perseverance and rugged individualism if a scholar can think college and just do it they can overcome white supremacy settler colonialism capitalism patriarchy and any of the interlocking systems of oppression that binds all through surveillance of our content and surveillance of our classrooms what we do and what we do not do and what our scholars do what they do not do is being collected and converted into numbers percentages decimals and data points stored on a dashboard to be bought and sold the fourth industrial revolution and the global technocratic takeover is here and we have gatekeepers inside and outside the district that have plans and are doubling down against our best interests superintendent guadalupe guerrero will your gbc the guaranteed viable curriculum guarantee teachers and students of color a viable future here in portland public schools no bettina love or betsy devos you can't remain neutral on a moving train i've been teaching for 23 years and 14 of those years have been in this district always in hostile hyper-racialized racist white spaces and literally toxic environments i could easily just teach or i could tear her down and i choose to do both and put my reputation home and life on the line for other people's children because that's the right thing to do my honesty my perspective is only welcome when it sits within a certain dominant racialized truth when it doesn't that's when i'm uninvited from the team uninvited from the community placed on an investigation put on the time assistance move from four electives those are does our district policy producers stay in racial inequity between racial groups our schools we already know the answer so is it really that difficult to understand why this district can't seem to recruit and retain teachers of color and the city thank you all right roseville asg who's the man can you please mute mr chu thank you for your testimony tonight ms bradja who is our next public speaker david fulton hi welcome hi thanks for having me uh david scholten last name is spelled [Music] s-c-h-o-l-t-e-n and my pronouns are
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he him um my testimony tonight is about i want to speak about white supremacy culture in our schools white supremacy culture is often defined as the ideology that white people and their ideas thoughts beliefs and actions are superior to people of color and their ideas thoughts beliefs and actions the murder of george floyd was a clear manifestation of white supremacy while pps is not physically attacking students there are countless examples of decisions and policies that create a culture that contributes to what dr patina love calls the spirit murdering of black students when a black former employee testifies at a board meeting that he believes person in pps are racist and the chair of the meeting becomes indignant without even allowing time for the words of the speaker to sink in we see white supremacy culture white supremacy characteristic defensiveness when people respond to challenging ideas with defensiveness making it very difficult to raise those ideas when portland public schools prioritizes the voices of a few mostly white loud and as we just heard often obnoxious affluent parents in the return to schools and refuses to push back against arbitrary deadlines set by governor brown we see white supremacy culture white supremacy characteristic right to comfort the belief that those with power have a right to emotional and physical psychological comfort and scapegoating those who cause discomfort when pps uses poorly trained principles to deliver watered-down racial equity pd that offers no opportunity to confront and uproot painful truths about ourselves and the systems in which we work we see white supremacy culture white supremacy characteristic quantity over quality when little value is attached to process and attempts are made to avoid uncomfortable emotions and feelings when educators who choose to teach outside the besc to highlight inequities like the fact that our superintendent makes over three hundred thousand dollars a year and many of our custodians make only fourteen dollars an hour and those educators are directed to relocate with no rational justification and when they seek a process for formal complaint and receive no response for six weeks until those in leadership are pressured by a member of the board to respond we see white supremacy culture white supremacy culture characteristic paternalism when those in power don't think it's important to understand the viewpoint of those for whom they're making decisions when pps leadership through accelerated schools suggests longer student days more pd for educators and more time for data analysis more of the same teachers are the problem thinking that distracts us from actual problems like class sizes and lack of student mental health supports we see white supremacy culture white supremacy characteristic quantity over quality things that can be measured are more highly valued than things that cannot when we continue to rely on racist standardized testing instead of expert educator assessments and when 92 percent of educators object to administer during standardized map testing in a virtual environment and 18 schools and several pta send letters asking for the test to be paused and the district continues anyway white supremacy culture i'll just wrap up with it with an ask for the board if i may uh white supremacy culture operates to create an environment that is welcome for many white students and families and um and a hostile place for many bipac students and families and i'm hoping that we can work together to get training and use professionally outside professional development from outside sources um so that we can all work to uproot this ideology i really look forward to doing this work with you and thank you so much for your time thank you and i appreciate you hearing the timer and wrapping up your words thank you very much mrs bradshaw do we have any further public comment tonight yes we have pedro and glazada corderon my name is pedro anglada cordero a-n-g-l-a-d-a-c-o-r-d-e-r-o i'm speaking as a parent tonight on may 13th water access was shut off at bridger elementary for the rest of that day there was no access to water for all students and educators at that school building on that day no proper communication was provided to the school community parents or teachers about why safe water was not available to students and teachers or when the problem would be fixed that day pps followed its course by continuing classes without providing such advice technique and a basic need for the student body
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during the following days water towers were replaced by the water fixtures that were removed but no cups or cones were available for students to access the water as of last friday may 21st this was not resolved communications by pps to the community states that all safety concerns related to environmental hazards present in the building including asbestos and safe clean water were resolved but providing little to no substantial data showing how these issues were mitigated when facing the questions of whether students and indicators were drinking unsafe water contaminated contaminated with lead pps is unable to be transparent and refers people to access their website where the lead testing reports can be found not surprisingly the results in certain reports show that lead levels were actually high in several water fixtures of the scuba including the cafeteria the epa has set the maximum contaminant level goal for lead in drinking water at zero because it is toxic metal that can be harmful at low exposure and can bioaccumulate the issue of lead in drinking water in bpas came to the public's attention in 2016 if i'm not mistaken it is the year to 2021 how many schools are currently facing the same situation with other communities awareness not reaching out to communities and being transparent when problems of public health are present in is an example of inequitable practices and lack of care for the community organizations are attached to the directing communities to access websites to access vital information is another sample of inequitable practices and lack of care for communities being transparent is real anti-racist work with this situation currently at play statements of solidarity with the asian and black community are performative and check box approach towards anti-racist work and oppose white supremacy let's not forget that british elementary is located at the southeast 82nd corridor which will continue to serve high numbers of asian black and latino students performative and checkbox approach towards anti-racist work is dangerous and in her communities i am very disappointed at this school board this school board and disappointed at pps and disappointed that you are disappointed i use a superintendent guerrero hi thank you sorry what was that miss bradshaw we have no further public comment yes we're dead okay it is 7 58 so i encourage us to take a break we will come back at 8.04 so that'll give us a little bit over five minutes i'll see you all back here at 804. did you still want to delay that i'd selected land okay great thank you so much um superintendent guerrero would you like to provide your report yes chair i would love to just give us a moment to get situated here no problem there we go all right well good evening directors it's been it's been quite a good evening uh and when i started this to those of those of you joining us via live stream from home um i'm going to begin by asking for your indulgence as i humbly offer a reflection on this particular day because a year ago we all recognize uh we were all reeling from the pain of the brutality uh with which mr george floyd was killed on national television our hearts broke as the footage of mr floyd pleading for his mother was played over and over again to a non-responsive blue wall his murder laid bare for all of us to see the depth of our country's legacy of anti-black racism so through our collective heartache and grief and in the days and months you guys know that have followed young people director constance wasn't muted there sorry superintendent uh through our collective heartache and grief and in the days and the months that followed young people led the way in making their voices heard in protest here in portland the nation watched as pps students marched in the streets demanding justice
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our own students were featured in the national news for their courage and activism and throughout our communities protests we were encouraged and cautioned by black thought leaders in this racial reckoning charles blow discouraged us from seeking hollow performative acts characterized as feel-good gestures that cost nothing and shift no power they create no justice and provide no equity nicole hannah jones a former portlander reminded us of past uprisings that produced hand-wringing and consternation but few necessary structural changes instead she urges us on if we're truly at the precipice of a transformative moment she says the most tragic of outcomes would be that the demand be too timid and the resolution too small uh thank you for this evening directors i think you've proved that if we are indeed serious about creating a more just society we must go much further than that we must get to the root of it so at pps we take seriously uh the words uh the advice of these leaders uh our students family staff and our community who demand we seize the opportunity born of a moment that has cost too many black lives this is our work and our commitment to racial justice school district transformation is deeply personal to me and to all of us and this ongoing struggle for justice educational or otherwise it's emotionally and physically taxing as our school district's leader as a man of color living in portland oregon i regularly reflect on this past year and what it means for us our community came together to create our district's vision and north star our reimagination of the future and what we want for our students so that they're prepared to lead change and improve the world so that it is a more socially just place all four elements contained in our vision our core values a graduate portrait educator essentials and system shifts they're explicit about our commitment to racial justice in order to advance toward vision and to achieve your board goals for student outcomes pps developed a theory of action on the next slide for change to identify key priorities in our emerging strategic plan and we often see colleagues from around the country who take note of our theory of action because they say it's pretty explicit it's pretty bold when we say if we braid racial equity and social justice strategies into our instructional core work with our students teachers and content and build our organizational culture and capacity to create a strong foundation to support every student then we will reimagine portland public schools to ensure every student especially our black and native american students realize the vision of the graduate portrait it's this theory of action is driven both by our targeted universalism and the rugged honesty about black and native student experience at pps it disrupts the cultural racism that provides false narratives about our students and makes explicit our commitment it gives rise to conditions that lead to success and joy of learning for every student because we won't allow for the dark corners that give space to racism to help us in this we adopted an updated racial equity social justice lens as a critical thinking tool helping us to develop a shared analysis and a cohesive approach to advancing racial equity we continue to get better at strategically applying this lens to high leverage decisions including in our budget development process and in how we invest critical resources and it's important to call out that these investments include a forty percent increase in funding for our resj partnerships where 19 culturally specific partners are implementing targeted strategies including wrap-around services positive cultural identity development culturally specific family engagement mentoring and extended learning and enrichment our investments also include increased funding for in-school support such as culturally specific mental health more counselors social workers and staffing for restorative practices in response to hate incidents our investments include a prioritization of the center for black student success this year we also continued our learning journey building on the foundation of years of courageous conversations and moving into applying our knowledge of critical race theory and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy into practice through utilization of our resg professional development framework
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which identifies learning standards and our partnership with center for equity and inclusion we launched 21 different learning cohorts and over 915 pps employees have participated so far we also launched several major initiatives grounded in our values to improve the student experience last summer we changed our relationship with the portland police bureau and we no longer have armed resource officers in our schools instead we're reimagining what safety and belonging means and how to ensure that every student particularly our black and native students feel ownership and empowerment at pps we also embarked on a comprehensive redesign of our administrative directive regarding school naming in our naming and defining places work two high school communities renamed their schools to better reflect our commitment to resj and name id wells and leotis v mcdaniel high schools and in practice these school communities are both exemplars of student-led change as well as leadership in building more inclusive and anti-racist learning communities what i'm excited about is that our collective work is showing promise there's evidence that we're on the right track graduation rates at pps are up coming in at 83.7 percent overall for the class of 2020 our students continue to demonstrate growth year-over-year these are a few of the three-year trends which include the 1920 school year with its many challenges black students had a 12.3 percentage point gain both latinx students and multi-racial students had a 4.8 percentage point gain this data represents the persistence of our students the dedication of our teachers and staff the leadership of our administrators and the support of our culturally specific partners who together implement relevant and effective strategies to support our students and their families this serves as validation that our continued focus on student opportunities and outcomes the investments we're making the specific ways that we've chosen to utilize funds such as measure 98 and student investment account are paying off we've made these choices using our community design vision that calls out the importance of centering our students offering exposure to careers and access to expanded opportunities and culturally specific supports as part of their school experience last tuesday i convened my cabinet school leaders and our resj partners where we reviewed their data to date and i'm happy to report that these 19 culturally specific partners have collectively now served 2050 students this school year and reported 55 795 specific direct service hours to those we also have the successful school survey it's an annual measure of our student staff and family experiences across pps students in grades 6 through 12 reported a 20 percent favorable increase in relationships with their teachers this year there were many factors contributing to this improvement from last year our targeted strategies and focus are showing promise that includes a recognition that our workforce should be diverse and representative of our student body you have here on the slide a second bar graph you'll notice and you heard in a community rally this weekend this demand that pps should hire hundred educators of color in the next 10 years well i have to tell you directors in my fourth year and tenure and this administration we will reach that goal this spring you see there in the bar graph we've hired 92 educators of color just in the last three years in the coming year we're going to continue to disrupt the structural and institutional racism preventing our students from thriving while providing these additional supports and collective engagement to achieve our transformation and there's several opportunities where we'll be reimagining critical areas in our system to help achieve uh these goals this includes the center for black student excellence our continued work in safety and belonging we're excited about middle school innovation and redesign even our purchasing and contracting practices that better meet economic participation goals with certified businesses and we're going to continue to focus on the learning acceleration recognizing the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on our students and families of color and we're going to do this while support supporting one another and providing opportunities for continuous learning and improvement in the past few weeks our work to build an anti-racist school system synonymous with excellence has come under under attack and i want to ask for your support in telling our story especially during a time when some question the impact of our collective anti-racism work so this type of
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questioning these doubts these attacks even are more frequent during a time when people perceive that resources are scarce or when political structures are under scrutiny this is felt more so lately because those who who are invested in status quo don't want to see the power shift or outcomes improve many are fearful of the change underway for example you may have heard about the recent critiques of critical race theory or those who question the role or resist or advocate against the racist structures that hold us back crt helps us understand our history our present inequities and the work we're doing together in service of black indigenous and students and families of color it's our collective responsibility racial justice gets framed as a political issue critics say that to state our affirmation that black lives matter and to focus on those students our system does not serve well leaves white students behind and brings politics into the classroom i want to be clear that our resj work isn't centrally meant to be political it is a vital set of beliefs and practices deeply interconnected with our community's values every student deserves a free and excellent education and our role as anti-racist leaders compels us to understand who is not being served well and to work together to deliberately do something about it there are also critics who challenge our commitment my commitment to black and native students and when they do this they negate the powerful work we're doing together and as the educational leader of our school system i take responsibility and leadership for this calling seriously but i also recognize that it's not the work of one school one program or one person that's going to mark our success i'm proud of our work together and our shared understanding that this work is challenging and it makes people uncomfortable but we can't do it alone nor can we move forward and erase neutral stance discomfort insecurity and hard work does not deter us they strengthen my resolve and commitment and i know i'm in good company and getting into good trouble with all of you our board our students and families pps staff and partners i'm confident that if we can collectively collaborate to create the conditions so that our students of color who experience the greatest barriers basic then they can succeed then we'll fulfill our promise to future generations so on this anniversary we're ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with all of you in solidarity uh with one another and the students that we serve and of course our directors play an important role in our anti-racist work so last week was an important one at the ballot box for portland public schools two new members will join the portland public school board of directors in the 2021-22 school year and a long-time director will return after they won their races in the may 18 special election starting with herman greene and zone 4 an ordained minister the father of four graduates of uh portland schools including a daughter who's a teacher at roosevelt high he will assume the seat held by director moore who did not seek reelection gary hollins in zone five a businessman and community activist he served on the multnomah education service district board he will assume the seat held by director bailey who also did not seek re-election i've enjoyed my initial conversations with both of these directors elect and we welcome back and julia brim edwards in zone six director brim edwards will return for her third term on the board having originally served 2001 to 2005 and being re-elected again in 2017. director brim edwards as you know is a long-time pps volunteer and alumna uh so we will of course formally and more thoroughly welcome our new directors and recognize the service of directors more and bailey next month in the meantime just wanted to say congratulations to director brem edwards and directors elect green and holland and the congratulations continue because this week one of our own woodlawn elementary first grade teacher mr lionel clegg was named on point credit union k5 educator of the year he was a regular focal point you may have seen him on kgw tvs inside woodlawn series he's also appeared on the today show to talk about his drive to inspire his students as a black male teacher here's what woodlawn principal andrea porter lopez had to say about lionel mr clegg is a warm demander and his students want to perform and to participate he creates a safe
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learning environment for his students he sets high expectations for each of them he provides the individual support that each student needs to rise to the challenge and reach the goal lionel models his expectations and approaches every moment as a teaching and learning moment he listens to his students responses and questions and treats them respectfully by honoring their ideas and answering even the most basic questions we're very proud of mr clegg this is a high honor indeed our thanks to onpoint credit union for continuing to celebrate and spotlight educators in our community congratulations mr clegg and spring is always a time for a number of new administrative appointments so i also want to recognize that we have some new school administrators that have been announced in our various communities that includes becky barry at syden anthony bromberg as the new access academy principal and dr jill hunt at west sylvan middle schools we also have catherine galloway who will be serving at maplewood elementary school chris silva is joining pps and will be leading wrigler elementary school and christie mize will be leading creative science school this coming fall so new faces on the board new faces in our school buildings and even some new faces in our central office team so i'm particularly excited to introduce this evening mr jamal tibbs our very own new district and family liaison jamal comes to pps from urban services ymca of san francisco where he served as director of the western edition family resource center with over 20 years of experience in education and social services jamal has served students and their families as a special education high school educator a school social worker and a secondary and central office administrator in his role as district and family liaison jamal will serve as a direct link between pps and families to address concerns and issues in support of every student achieving academic success and social emotional well-being he'll be coordinating and working closely with the office of school performance the office of student support services and all of our school administrators to address and resolve parent and or community concerns jamal earned his bachelor of science degree in special education from virginia state university a masters and social work degree from norfolk state university and an educational specialist degree from regent university he comes from a military family and has lived in multiple states as well as overseas for several years so we're glad to have jamal here with us tonight and as is our tradition invite him to say a few words mr tibbs if you're speaking you're on mute all right i'm gonna continue and if uh roseanne or staff can uh check in with mr tibbs uh we'll have him join us oh here he is is he here sorry for the pause he was on the screen i thought we'd be ready to go i think i think he's no longer uh in the meeting at this moment okay so i just have one additional slide here um and uh this was to provide directors with a little bit of an update on our summer and fall plans uh directors will be getting a much more thorough detailed report at our next meeting but i know that our families are eager to learn about what exactly are we offering for summer programming i can tell you a whole cross-section of staff from different departments and a lot of community agents community-based organizations and partners are working diligently to put together a pretty exciting catalog of offerings for families we expect at this pace hopefully to have this ready
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to publish and send out to all of our families at the end of this week this catalog is an evolving document but we we intend to put this in front of families as soon as possible so that they can begin to see what uh summer options are available and they can begin to do their planning and logistics uh accordingly so uh looking ahead uh we'll be giving uh board directors a fuller presentation uh on some of the themes and the strands of options that are gonna be made available there uh we'll also be giving a fuller update on what we're continuing to learn about uh potential vaccine requirements as well as another strand of work that staff has been engaged in designing and that's what kind of virtual school offering we might make available for those families who want to continue to have that as an option for for their students so there's going to be much more to come about the summer and the fall but in the meantime just be on the lookout for messages communications and the catalog uh to be landing hopefully by by the end of this week uh in and of all of our family's mailboxes and were we successful in bringing mr tibbs aboard maybe not him i see him i'm here sorry about that you know how it is sometimes with the technical difficulties and everything but thank you for the uh wonderful introduction uh superintendent guerrero uh good evening school board members guests and pps families throughout portland my name is jamal tibbs and i am the new district and family liaison i'm coming to pps with 20 years of experience serving students and families on both the east and west coast i'm excited to begin this journey working with pps school communities and fulfilling their goals as as i settle into this role i'm also looking forward to assisting students and families with resolving concerns and challenges they may encounter collaborating with the elementary and secondary school communities to ensure student progress and family growth and lastly building strong alliances with pps staff families and external agencies to assist students with completing the graduate portrait i look forward to meeting you all in person i'm still in transition but i'm hungry and eager to get out to the school spend some time with the principals meet with families uh meet with the extended community and just learn about the rich history of portland thank you welcome welcome thank you glad to be welcome we're helping mr clara joining us i'm sorry i said we're so thankful you're joining us i'm glad to be joining you guys i i love the direction you guys are heading in and i was glad to be a part of this meeting in particular because of uh what went down earlier uh with the the building and watching the people just just become overcome with joy and excitement and you could tell it's been a long time coming and i'm glad that to see that happen and i'm happy for everyone involved and the opportunity presented to them from pps so thank you for that and i'm glad to be a part of that and would love to learn more about the community as well well thank you so much jamal for being with us here this evening i know i've enjoyed our initial conversations and i'm looking forward to many many more likewise thank you and with the directors that concludes my report thank you superintendent so much so much incredible work i really appreciate you illustrating for us um all the ways that changes are happening and those system shifts are being embraced and we have much to celebrate and i especially want to give a shout out to mr clegg for his amazing work at woodlawn and know that we have lots of amazing educators out there making a transformational difference in students lives and had a dear friend who had both of her children be students of his and she continues to just rave about the impact he made on their lives when they got to be in his classroom all right we turn now to our board uh committee reports and i'm just gonna run through our list um is there anything to report from the audit committee yep real quick and this is an important link to later on tonight the resolution on reopening uh this fall so just a quick recap on an ongoing audit that the audit committee um received a report on at the last meeting uh we heard a presentation on the health and safety checks audits and as we the schools the purpose of the the check this audits is to determine whether school buildings are in compliance with the building safety plan put in place due to the pandemic uh there's a memo for the board and community members who are interested in
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the process and procedure of the audit what's happened today they've been to 23 schools so far they ought to team and i think i just give the quick headline which i think is most important um to parents and staff which is um based on the building tours to date um the health and safety checks audits has not identified has not identified any non-compliance with building safety plans that would be considered uh significant so that's great our central office team and the building teams are doing a great job making sure our buildings are safe for our students and our staff and there's a lot of work cooperative work between the auditors and the central office afterwards to make sure that any sort of feedback that needs to come back through to the teams is happening and i think i would just want to close by making sure that we recognize the team um that's been working very closely with auditors um juniper peyton staub straub who is um with the office of student support services and also dan young's office um very close cooperation from natasha granis and we want to the audit team wants to thank the central office for the help that they've received in the audit because this is one way we can assure our students and staff and family that our buildings are safe and they're in compliance with the building safety plans that's thank you director brim edwards uh is there anything from the school improvement bond committee we have a meeting coming up on thursday evening we'll be discussing um our business equity uh program in may in the may meeting and the june meeting um i know there's a lot of interest from the public on how we're showing up in the contracting and purchasing space and that would be a great uh those would be great meetings to attend to learn more anything from cbrc rita their their work is sort of done for the year all right uh charter and alternative programs anything there director constant i believe i reported out from our last meeting but we'll meet next week and i just want to really thank the staff uh superintendent first and foremost for being so responsive to the concerns that we have been discussing in our charter and alternative programs committee meetings this year around operational challenges and funding challenges and differentiating excuse me resources based on their students needs and we got some very good news today about some additions to the budgets for our community-based alternative schools that are uh represented in the in the budget so thank you for um paying attention to that forum and the great advocacy of of our alternative school leaders our cbo leaders thank you director constance apparently i cut director moore off i couldn't she wasn't on my screen and i didn't hear her director moore did you have anything to add about cbrc at this time you're muted rita okay can you hear me yes okay sorry um i'm on the phone it's always a professional sorry um yeah the cdlc they completed the two reports that they delivered to us last at the last meeting um and immediately after that they turned their attention to a letter that they have submitted to legislators strongly advocating for a state school fund budget of 9.6 billion and laid out a case for why that would be important and the impact for the 9.3 billion uh state school fund which is what's on the table um would impact would produce cuts to pps um and what kind of impact it would have on students so that's it thank you sorry that i i cut you off there uh intergovernmental committee no updates uh director moore is there anything for the policy committee uh separate from our later work tonight um yeah so we're we're sort of in the process of wrapping up the year's work uh we've got a bunch of policies on the agenda for later this evening the next meeting is june 2nd which is a wednesday because of the
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holiday on monday we haven't yet finalized the agenda but uh the topics that will likely be on are the two policies on the pps foundation and school foundations climate crisis response possibly a new indemnification policy and possibly an introductory discussion of a new ethics policy that's it thank you anything from rose quarter okay all right um i will now recess the board from its regular meeting and convene us as the budget committee feel like i should do magic fingers or something to turn us from the board into the budget committee okay the board is the budget committee has held a public hearing on the proposed 2021-2022 budget superintendent guerrero would you like to make any comments about the proposed budget just a quick intro chair lowry directors before you tonight you have a budget that i believe is a reflection of the circumstances we're in and many of the anticipated needs ahead especially as we move into the summer and to a full reopening in the fall we know that there's a number of residual impacts that are going to remain that we need to take on uh and we'll continue to always hold central our commitment to the health and safety of our students and staff this budget's aligned to our core mission consistent with our values as a growing dynamic diverse community i believe it reflects our vision the goal set by our board of education the agreements that we've made with our various employee labor groups and working groups as well as state and federal policies and laws so we believe that if we continue focusing on a clearly defined set of strategies which we're looking forward to really articulating for directors in a multi-year strategic plan in the coming weeks which will include continuing to improve our organizational capacity and investing in the talent within our school system uh more important than ever before so this budget i think continues to reflect our commitment to racial equity in collaboration with our stakeholders and community so our black and native students in particular will have the conditions the supports to experience success so we hope you recognize that we're you know we're going to continue to work towards meeting our challenges in front of us and remain undeterred in our journey towards realizing our vision and preparing students for a more socially just world so that's my intro right thank you superintendent um do i have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6317 budget committee approval of the 2021-22 budget and the imposition of property taxes so moved again okay all right director bailey moves and director scott seconds the adoption of resolution six three one seven ms brazil is there any public comment i think mr mcferrin is out there waiting patiently for us yes we got that faster than expected so i'm going to bring him over now mr mcferrin are you there all right oh we can't you're still muted sir can you hear me now yes thank you all righty uh good evening chair lowry and members of the pps school board my name is joe mcferrin in the second m c f e r r i n i just like to well first of all thank you for allowing me to make a few comments about the budget but before before i go there i just want to you know it it's um you know during these times it it um you know it's tough on us all and you know to hear the pain of some of the folks that testify [Music] you know speak their truth and and also to hear the superintendent talk about all the accomplishments that have been made uh i'm just i guess i'm i'm full of emotion right now because you know it's tough it's tough and uh you know um [Music] i showed up here today just to
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on behalf of the community-based alternative schools to express our gratitude for the support and such a rapid response by superintendent guerrero and and the attention from the board for the students who fall through the cracks and pps has over the years done [Music] a pretty good job of providing a safety net for those kids but what i'm seeing today and and what i'm expressing gratitude today for is is monumental in in my 26 years in alternative education um you know tom dejardin and i mount scott we we sent a proposal back in march and we said you know there's some opportunities to to to do a little better with community-based alternative schools and um jonathan garcia and his team and his folks and and karina wolf and erica stavis they they went right to work along with the support of the board and you've made some investments that i know will improve the educational outcomes for so many kids in portland that are struggling and come from families that historically struggle and i'm confident [Music] that the cbo's in close work with district staff and all the initiatives that are going on uh that we're gonna see even more improvements in the future for the students that choose to go to alternative schools so i just want to say thank you to all of you and and i want to call out superintendent guerrero and his team for making us a priority um you know we will we will remember this time especially on this day as you called out earlier in this meeting about the anniversary of george floyd so with that i'll i'll just close by saying thank you i'm full of gratitude and feel free to call on the cbo's to support this work in any way that we possibly can thank you thank you we have missouri tyson welcome thank you my name is mashari tyson t-y-s-o-n good evening superintendent guerrero school board members and student representative shu it was an honor being here tonight to witness greatness within our black community and see the tremendous collective work that led to tonight's resolution affirming support for the albino vision i am a kindergarten parent at markham elementary school and tonight i'm speaking on behalf of markham parents unite a coalition of parents and community advocates working towards equitable outcomes at markham we are lucky to have lydia poole smith as our exceptional exceptional principal we want to thank you for your attention to our most vulnerable underserved students and we have appreciated the thoughtful equity conversations that have occurred over the last several weeks we are grateful for the board's efforts even recently elected board board members as well and the direct district leadership for your effort and time to get to know our community and ensure equitable outcomes with our huge school of 400 plus students 39 black and native which 34 percent are living at our below poverty level our markham parents and community advocates are looking forward to qualifying our data in october that will result in reinstating our title one a special thank you to the superintendent's office for your responsiveness in centering our data and imagining scenarios required for our students to realize the vision for the graduate portrait we look forward to our continued partnership and i want to personally thank the cfo and miss clark for conducting the bypoc budget focus group which allowed meaningful discussion around equitable solutions for systems shown to not serve vulnerable students well and to the equity office for bringing the racial equity social justice lens priorities and goals to the
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budget process thank you our entire district will benefit your dedication to our underserved students and this critical year ahead is beyond appreciated we know providing disparity gap closing efforts for our most vulnerable students breaks down barriers and changes academic outcomes the markham community looks forward to continued trajectory changing efforts that demonstrate a fierce dedication to our underserved students this fall and for years to come thank you for all of your time and thank you so much for the direction of portland public schools thank you thank you that concludes we have signed up for this topic great all right i appreciate uh folks from the public uh reaching out and speaking out is there any board discussion at this time um i'll just i'll jump in really quickly just to pick up on that testimony and i think ms tyson you know for her testimony um and and also just sort of echoing i really appreciate superintendent you and your staffs um you know um diving into this issue you helped me sort of understand a little bit better as well doctor i spent some time with me on friday sort of walking through um um you know um the situation of markham and really the situation in a lot of our schools um throughout the district um and so thank you for that i think it actually shows and and and also as the um you know as i'm sure i noted the the the budget focus group um i i was not able to attend but um you know some really rich conversation happened and i think that's um a model we really want to follow in the future so thank you for that i have a very it's a little bit more of a generic question and sort of still a newbie question even i've been here almost two years could you could you explain or or maybe bring a staff person up to explain a little bit the title one process and sort of when we go forward with that data um and then also just again more more generally speaking i know um staff have talked about um you know even schools that don't qualify for title one um we have equity funding you know we have other funding and one of the things that i'll just say more generically that i am so excited about this budget as i was last year is the continued um willingness uh of the superintendent to really direct resources to the schools that need them this is the type of thing that frankly i think i think we even need to talk about more i think we've started to talk about more and you know it is something that i know i know other districts are nervous about right because you know you know it is it is a zero-sum game unfortunately in budgeting um even even even like even more of a zero-sum game because we ended up it looks like or are headed maybe towards a 9.3 billion dollar state school fund budget rather than a 9.6 billion dollar budget um but within that um those decisions are are really key and the willingness to take funding um from some you know schools that are um performing better and directed towards where we have you know underserved kids and kids in need um it's just it's it's a very brave thing to do and it's a very necessary thing to do and it's very disruptive in a positive way and the kind of disruption that we talk about in terms of of disrupting these these systems um and systems of oppression that we heard about earlier in tonight's meeting and so um so this this budget does that it continues to do that you've done that since you got here um and i just really appreciate that so my question generally um how do schools qualify for title one and then what's the process as we go through the summer and you look at enrollment figures and everything else to to take sort of uh second looks at those schools yes thank you director scott and and for acknowledging that you know maybe we haven't made much fanfare of this but each budget season we have successful successively attempted to turn up the dial on a more equitable resource allocation so even though a school like marcum might be per federal guidelines a little short on the head count that doesn't mean that we don't uh think about you know the kinds of more equitable conditions they need so you know dr oh i think here is going to tell you about what some of those supplementary resources look like so a school like markham still has the benefit of some added staffing capacity and resources to do the kind of work that will support our students but uh dr o our our regional superintendent is here and i see a chief of schools is here as well and if we need our director of federal programming who manages our title one can certainly weigh in but dr rowe the demon um directors and um [Music] um director lowry i just um do want to thank you for the opportunity to explain everything that we have been doing regarding malcolm elementary malcolm elementary is in a very unique situation in the sense that yes they do have a significant population that is um classified as being historically underserved specifically they have about 32 percent
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of students who are economically disadvantaged they also have about 17.4 percent who are um els and then they have another 12.2 percent of their about who are special ed students so we looked at them the data that they do have we looked at the academic performance of the students they don't quite qualify for title 1 designation because that those designations are made on the 1st of october every year at that point markham for whatever reason does not qualify part of what we determine is because the direct certified kids do not necessarily all get to apply for um the services they need so that they are factored into that determination however further down the road as the year progresses they do qualify so i met with um craig craya you know the deputy superintendent uber instruction and i also met with um leslie dell and we try to come up with um some kind of interim funding or interim support system that would help mark um today they have received about a hundred and forty thousand dollars above what they normally would receive um i've also been working very closely with the principal at the school to determine how those monies are spent and how we can best serve markham it is an ongoing conversation i've been in conversations also with the parent community just so they know exactly what it is we're doing so today they have received a hundred and forty thousand dollars we are looking for we are we're working on creating some kind of interim stop gap measure for the other schools that may fall into this category that i think there are about six of them district-wide so that every year at least we have something in place ready to go in the event that we do have schools that need the support thank you dr did that uh respond to what you needed there director scott yes thank you thank you thank you all right um any further board discussion i just want to briefly we're going to be talking about southeast uh boundaries later on tonight and want to recognize again that this is a worry for some of the schools in southeast that as boundaries get redrawn and their enrollments change that they might um cross the line from title 1 status to slightly below um and so that's something we'll need to watch for in the future and think about budgeting in the future as well thank you all right is the board now ready to vote want to just comment briefly on andrew's point about uh highlighting highlighting the investments that we make in our highest need schools and what a radical shift that's been over the last three years i mean to me the real sleeper of the budget processes is volume 2 our school profile book and it tells the story so um so clearly and yet it's a story that i'm not sure we've done a great job of sharing with our community i think there's still a lot of misperceptions in our community that schools are largely funded based on enrollment and you know i think our formula is not perfect but it's very clear there that we are um investing our resources in our highest needs schools and it's it's rock the boat for sure um but this is the statement of our values and i feel like there are a lot of things in our meeting tonight that are sort of elegantly converging and this is one of them you know just talking about um what it looks like in our schools to see our commitment to racial equity and social justice played out in in the allocation of resources um so superintendent i appreciated your really moving remarks in your superintendent's report and i appreciate the preamble for lack of a better word the context setting that you've done with this budget document about what our values and strategies are and even more importantly and this is something that i think is pretty remarkable to be able to look at our budget and see how every bucket of allocations aligns to the system shifts that we've identified for our district um that's that's where we hoped we could end up when we first began with our community talking about what it would be to actually have a community driven vision that guides our work and we've we've done that and there's there's work to be done and there's still more articulation of our
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strategic plan and the nuts and bolts of our strategies that we need to have a conversation with our community about um but to to see throughout this budget process how every recommendation every decision has been tied back to our board goals to our vision to our system shifts is a pretty remarkable so thank you for thank you to the whole leadership team who looked at their own individual budgets through that lens and was able to then weave it all together in a very consistent story for our district about the values that we have for our kids but one of the very very true and wonderful uh insight there uh director constant one of the funny things for me about being on the board is that because i did the magic fingers and we're now the budget committee we'll vote on this now and then we actually vote on it again in two weeks so i know there'll be more time for um thoughts and conversations then as well um the board will now vote on resolution oh sorry director bailey let's real briefly uh building on what director constance said uh so well um superintendent i appreciated the graphs that you showed in your presentation i thought those spoke volumes um seeing some graphs around school expenditures and how that translate into [Music] staff on the ground for our students um i would enjoy seeing some examples of that uh the next time we gather you know me i love a graph we know we know yes and i i also think the visual presentation is is a great way for those who don't want to look through rows and rows of numbers that that um those trend lines and visuals are really um help tell the story as well and and speaking of graphs i would be remiss if i didn't um thank um uh cfo delgadillo for the extra work that he put in um and the many conversations that he and i had about how to represent our investments under the esser of the esser funds and of all the special revenue funds and um that's what we see tonight and some of the amendments to this um this budget as opposed to what we have seen in the prior iterations i i do think it makes it a lot more clear to the public um exactly how we're investing those dollars for our kids so thank you for for being responsive to those concerns i think we can agree that the the team has done an incredible work and especially um cfo delgado who came in and is still in the midst of the time change and all of that as he does this work i just want to make sure and i appreciate the observations but i also need to you know share appreciation to our school leaders because we had a pretty representative number of our school administrators who were along for the budget development process early on and i know uh dr byrd here could could expound on how we do try to tier and differentiate uh the allocations to our media schools certainly to our csi and tsi schools you know whether it's additional staffing or an increase for pupil expenditure which you can see in volume two is the case uh in many of our schools but the strategies whether they're people or resources they're really because we heard from our school administrators and our principal supervisors say here would be important ingredients if we're going to make investments that are going to make the difference and so what you see in there i just want to make sure you realize is because of a lot of collective conversation you know that was spent weeks and weeks you know discussing so thank you all right i'm gonna ask the board to now vote on resolution 6317 budget committee approval of the 2021-22 budget and the imposition of property taxes all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6317 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes all right i will now adjourn the board as the budget committee and call the board back into its regular session let's see i know oh sorry what yeah i just got a quick question um okay i'm one doing um and this is just because it's my first cycle and um i don't need great detail or anything but why we're voting twice on this matter so like i said we vote as the budget committee and then we vote as the board so it's just one of those quirks of um
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kind of how we could have a separate budget committee but we have the full board as the budget committee so that's why we vote twice once adoption yeah once the approval ones the adoption so there are two different kind of um aspects of the budget so all right nathaniel if you're thank you if you're nathaniel if you're interested in learning more i'd be happy to have coffee with you and walk you through the whole uh local budget law process it is great it is it is byzantine and i can't tell if you're sarcastic or not but um i don't know i would that'd be great if you could connect all right we are going to move on to our resolution to urge legislators to adequately fund k-12 schools sadly we got word this afternoon that the senate passed a budget uh for the state school funds that is at 9.3 um we really are advocating for 99.6 um but as it goes without saying um we are very appreciative of the funding we do receive and however we know it is not enough um adequately funding public education to serve students and families is among the most critical responsibilities of the oregon state legislature and director constance um and others had this wonderful resolution and although we know that the house has or the senate has passed a funding bill we're hopeful that the house might be able to make some changes um so we're going to talk about this director constant would you like to introduce this resolution and help us determine our path forward as a board yes i'm sorry i wasn't certain if we were still going to do this or not so i don't have the actual uh resolution queued up in front of me i apologize i had sent out an email saying do we still want to do this um since the senate had already voted and we had enough people say it's important that we at least say something about needing to adequately fund k-12 even if we don't pass the resolution that we at least say to our legislators we need to have funding that doesn't cause cuts which is what this funding will so i apologize amy that i didn't communicate that clearly to you earlier today no problem i think we're probably fine with just the way that you have um teed the issue up and um uh to rita's persistent point um one of the most important points is that this is this rep we believe that this represents a cut to our current service level um there's there's disagreement on how that's calculated but it seems fairly clear to school leaders and those responsible for making and hewing two budgets that um the funding level that we see at 9.3 billion from the state is a cut service level which um is sort of hard to hard to believe coming out of pandemic but we have advocated for greater as we will continue to do and um if anybody do you want me to read something off the resolution i think everyone has it before them in board books and thank you everyone for your suggestions uh as we as we group edited it yeah thank you director constance so we're gonna i'm gonna go ahead and ask do we have a motion and a second to adopt resolution six three one three resolution to urge legislators to adequately fund k-12 public schools don't move second all right director constand moves and director bailey seconds the adoption of resolution 6313 um let's rita can we go ahead and have you uh speak about your amendments yes uh thank you can you hear me okay um so i circulated some proposed amendments to this resolution um those suggested revisions have now been um posted in redline version and apart from a couple of very minor copy edits there are two substantive amendments that i would suggest um one is to highlight last week's remarkably positive revenue projections for the next six years the next three biennium and the second is to note that even with a 9.6 billion dollar state school fund oregon's funding of k-12 education would remain woefully short of the quality education model funding levels um so in the interest of time um unless there's an objection um i would ask that all the amendments be voted on together rather than separately all right i think that's a great procedural take um okay so so moved so okay so director bailey moves do we have a second to director moore's amendments second great director more seconds um all right is there any discussion about director moore's amendments all right um the board will now vote on the amendments before us from director
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moore um all those in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no all right the amendments pass um seven to zero um we now return to the um resolution itself is there any board discussion of the resolution so there's a resolution the last i don't have information the last resolve still say we're urging people to like state their think that they'll be a no vote because if the senate's already voted that's probably not an accurate thing that we're asking people to do anymore it's but i don't have it in front of me the last version i said it does still say that from public schools board of education urges legislators to publicly state their intention to vote no on any budget that inadequately funds public schools which would ultimately harm students so uh director bern edwards are you suggesting we just omit that second ah resolve that we aren't paying attention to what's actually happening um and i think this the statement in and of itself i think we could make a more affirmative statement um versus asking somebody to take a position after they've already had the vote yeah i i would i would support removing that since the senate has already voted um well but the house has not but i think as far as communicating that i do think that's kind of a moot point and the first resolve just speaks to our the core of our intention which is supported at 9.6 what if we what if we amended it to say um the pps school board or just legislators sorry the portland public schools board of education urges legislators to publicly state their intention to adequately fund public schools and have that be the period so that it's a positive statement asking legislators to um to giving legislators a chance to say that they're supportive without putting them in the no vote trap if the vote has already happened in their chamber that works all right um all those in favor of the lowry amendment say yes yes yes all those opposed all right the amendment passes seven to zero anything else any other discussion on this resolution um or student rep hasn't been asked uh for his amendment vote oh sorry nathaniel um either on the uh amendments yes and both okay thank you so can i i think it's um i think for most people this is very much inside baseball and i don't know that um there's been remarkably little coverage of of this um and i think to everybody's detriment because a a state school fund of 9.3 billion um is equivalent to a cut budget for virtually every school district in this state for pps we're looking at an 11 million dollar shortfall um that is the equivalent of roughly 110 teachers we are in an enviable position as a district that we have reserves we have a budget that is significantly larger than most budgets in the state and and we can absorb these cuts using a combination of um as i understand it about three million dollars in position um cuts um plus the use of reserve money um most school districts in this state are not in that position they're going to be looking at actual cuts the fact that the legislature in the face of an extraordinary revenue projection for the next three biennia that was universally described as stunning the fact that the legislature will persist in having a state school fund at a 9.3 billion
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level as we're coming out of a pandemic is frankly appalling to me um this state has disinvested in public education for 30 years two years ago we made some changes that produced additional funding um and i am grateful for every nickel but we are still 833 million dollars short of the quality education model funding level and we now have a revenue forecast for the next six years have i mentioned that six years that would allow us to make up some of that difference and the legislature is just going along with the original um allocation that they that they had already agreed to before the revenue projections came in so i think it's important that everybody pay attention to this this is this is not funny money this is this is a syria another in a long series of serious shortfalls um in public in funding for public education end of speech thank you thank you dr moore and may i point out that k-12 education is what roughly 42 percent i'll say of the state budget and 42 of the extra money coming in would be another 400 million for k-12 um and apparently k-12 again this is every district in the state will not see a penny of that benefit coming in thank you director bailey and dr moore uh ms bradshaw is there any public comment on resolution 6313 no okay thank you all right the board will now vote on resolution 6313 resolution to urge legislators to adequately fund k-12 public schools all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no there any abstentions resolution 6313 is approved by a vote of 7-0 with student representative shu voting yes all right we're still in our sort of money and focus tonight as we talk now about pension bonds superintendent guerrero would you like to introduce this next item i'm actually going to turn over this topic to our new cfo alberto delgadillo are you there he will be in just a second all right well he's going to talk to all of us about the topic of the district pursuing a limited tax pension bond yeah good evening everyone uh i uh chair lori i was waiting for the i was also looking forward to the chime music to transition between budget committee and and back to the board so um maybe next time but uh yeah so uh purrs bond and um i think i i i first want to thank everyone for the the directors for their time over the past two weeks as we had several conversations both from building understanding and getting a sense of what what are our limited obligation bonds what are per response and really taking an opportunity to learn what the district did in the past uh back in 2002 2003 uh and and uh to what we've done now and also understanding the risks and benefits associated with with uh approaching a pension bond and as we've had those conversations over the past two weeks we have updated the staff report with some additional information some clarity in addition to lowering the max true interest credit that we would pursue but considering the current market rate conditions the current interest rate conditions and the opportunity to really fund our uil it's still our recommendation to pursue um a uh the authorization for a pension bond and i i really would open it up for additional questions
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and if there are additional feedback or comments more than happy to to answer them and um i uh we did invite a few guests but i'll keep them in the waiting room we'll see if they're needed but i think definitely want to provide an opportunity for the directors to ask any additional questions i don't have any additional questions but chair lowry if when we move to the discussion if i do have something i want to say but no more questions okay oh sorry no i was actually going to say i also don't have questions but then jump right into what i was gonna say so um no i just i just wanted to thank um um you know cfo uh del delgadio for you know the conversations over the last couple weeks and for the additional um you know uh report from from echo northwest sort of reviewing this you know it is you know it is a big decision for the district and i and it is one that i'm comfortable with and will support um i think the change in this in this resolution to uh a max interest cost of four percent um you know given given the range of of outcomes and scenarios um you know makes me feel you know a little bit more comfortable um you know that uh you know about the investment but you know i think this is this is this is one of those calculated risks i think the the downside risk is relatively small the upside risk is relatively large um that doesn't mean the risk is is is non-existent but i think you know as as responsible stewards um of the district this is this is an an educated and calculated way of trying to reduce some of that you know um that that you know unfunded actual reliability in a way that will benefit you know future generations of students and and um um so again you know the the tool has worked in the past i think this is a good time to do it given the interest rate environment i appreciate staff bringing it forward and all the explanation and we'll be supporting it today sure larry do you want me to just go ahead well let's get let's go ahead and get our um let's just go ahead and get the motion on the table and then uh you can we can have our board discussion um before we before we move um i just want to appreciate um cfo delgado and carol for walking i mean this is all you know was very dense material and i appreciate the time they took to kind of explain it as they were explaining it to a kindergartner and it was very helpful and appreciate your time yeah that's basically the way i needed it explained to me too michelle this is uh definitely andrew's wheelhouse not mine all right do i have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6314 resolution authorizing pension bonds and related matters so moved second dr constand moves and director scott seconds the adoption of resolution 6314. is there any board discussion director broome edwards thanks um yeah i don't have any questions i did have a lot of questions at the last meeting and also appreciative of the separate um offline discussions uh with echo northwest and um our cfo and i'm really appreciative because um just from uh so that the the benefits are high and the stake the stakes are high as well so i appreciated that um after last meeting that um we had a just independent review by echo northwest of the presentation materials that we had from um from piper sandler um and we have that so i just want to um thank um cfl i'm sorry cfo it's getting late cfo don't go go for the um additional follow-up information i feel comfortable where we are this was paid huge benefits to the district in the early 2000s when we did it and as director scott noted um it is um you know it's important to take informed risk um and smart risks and this looks like uh one of those so thanks to the staff and also to board leadership for uh carrying carrying it over for another board meeting so that we all could get comfortable with the material and be ready ready to vote without having any sort of financial financial detriment to the district so i appreciate that
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any further board discussion all right mrs bradshaw is there any public comment on this item no all right the board will now vote on resolution 6314 resolution authorizing pension bonds and related matters all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6314 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes all right we're going to go ahead and take another quick five-minute break we will start at 9 28 p.m with our southeast uh guiding coalition phase two charged thanks everyone program balancing process phase two um so superintendent guerrero would you like to introduce this item for us yes uh thank you for that second intermission uh last year we launched into as you know an enrollment and program balancing process uh we contracted with flow analytics to help support us with data analysis and some modeling uh co-develop some community engagement strategies in february the board adopted resolution 6059 which outlined of scope of work for the first phase of the charge which addressed schools in the southeast quadrant of the district due to a high number of small k-8 neighborhood schools and mainly prompted by the eminent opening of kellogg middle school but now it's time to move in to a phase two so two weeks ago you heard staff recommendations for a draft charge which focuses on assigning attendance areas and dli programs from existing middle schools to harrison park a proposed harrison park middle school and adjust boundaries and dli program locations potentially to address low enrollment at lane middle school so following last week's board discussion staff has returned with a revised draft charge for your consideration thank you superintendent guerrero do i have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6315 southeast enrollment balancing process phase two process and charge so moved do i have a second is there a second of this matter second okay director bailey moves and director seconds the adoption of resolution 6315. i was feeling real lonely there for a second is there any board discussion so just a couple things um that to just clarify about the process again i think this is another example where we really benefited by having a discussion at one a one board meeting and then having that incorporated in to um the documents for the next board meeting for consideration versus trying to do it all in one board meeting so appreciate uh staff's work on that um so just to clarify that um what we're adopting is the resolution not all the background materials i know last time there was sort of a question about like are we going by what's in the background materials or what's in the resolution so it's what the what's in the resolution um and i think probably at the outset um i just want to mention because this is something that director constant brought up at the last at the end of the last process that we have a set of policies governing and enrollment and transfer is that those would be in place um unless we change them of course but like that's what the operating principle should be or the framework um and then the last piece um as i know um at the end of the last process there was um a variety of opinions about how um just roles and what lanes everybody was going to be in and i i do think based on the conversations we've we've had to date um the agreement on sort of more check-ins with with the board just so that we're aligned and it's not all of us when we get to the end of the process and the board is somewhere different um so i really encourage that to happen throughout the process just so we all are moving together um and clear up any sort of misunderstandings mid-process not at the at the very end um but i really i really appreciate the fact that we've had a good discussion about this already and that we're heading into this process and hopefully with the result of more equitable outcomes for more equitable middle grades experience
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for students in southeast i also want to commend staff for their responsiveness and for constantly improving the work and again living into our designation as a learning institution and i especially want to thank you deputy hurts for all of the listening and revising and adapting that you have done in this work to make it be the best of what it can be for our students is there any further discussion before we uh hear from our public commenters ms bradshaw is there any public comment on this matter miss bradshaw i don't i don't there is no public comment no okay great thank you all right is the board ready to vote oh wait wait i'm sorry here larry there is one person here things change and evolve all right thank you also i had some comments that were submitted to me today that i circulated to everybody so hopefully people have had an opportunity to review those thank you for passing those along director brim edwards um so we could um hear the comments from the citizen welcome we've colored becca hello just a moment let me see if i can turn on my camera for you guys i just came over the last second uh you know i got worried there i thought you were gonna forget about me uh good evening chair lowry and pps board my name is tyler bechdel b-e-c-h-t-e-l and i'm the parent of two pps school children i'd like to address two issues tonight first i ask that the pps before pps and the board and sure phase the phase two process and all rebalancing processes going forward adhere to oregon public meetings law second please consider reconstituting the coalition realizing that pps has given an inequitable weight to a few individuals allowing a small minority of the coalition to dominate the conversation in february i requested public records for pps three months later my request received a response were phase one following oregon public meeting laws all of the material i received would likely have been required to be published for all to see i received 395 pages of emails just last week and i immediately signed up for public comment before seeing that a public meeting notice had been published for the next coalition meeting this is a promising change for pps to understand the gravity we need only look at the records received the email show conversation within the coalition was dominated by very few individuals still an even smaller number of coalition members were given an opportunity by pps staff to steer the conversation a writing team was given an extra level of editorial view that other members the public and the board were like not likely aware of this allowed a few privileged persons to have a louder voice ironic because when one school was left out of the phase one process and that community objected those objective objections were derided by the coalition members and aboard at least one board member as a few loud voices the email showed deliberations and decisions were made out of view of community members between meetings flurries of emails and messages were sent back and forth through the dis uh court app emails it created a back channel deliberation that the public was not aware of imagine if this board could deliberate through email and serial communications your board meetings would certainly be shorter but the decisions you reach and how you reach them would be a mystery this explains the surprise some neighborhood school communities had when the final phase one proposal was presented multiple emails show that the coalition members also saw problems with the process and doubted the actual consensus had been reached on january 12th the recommendation was presented to coalition by coalition members to the board a neighborhood school pta testified and submitted written testimony would it surprise the board to know that in advance of this testimony it was provided to a coalition member along with instructions by pps staff to rebut the concerns they were going to raise i'll make my written testimony available to you tonight but unfortunately we can't trust that submitting testimony in advance won't be met by a coordinated effort by the district advisory team to discredit or minimize our concerns moving forward please make a strong statement tonight that openness transparency and equal voice is a priority to the board don't put the rebalancing effort in jeopardy of being held hostage by a legal process pps staff have argued the coalition wasn't
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i'll finish up really quick because i'm really i want to respect your time my pps staff have argued that the coalition was informing staff who would then pass on the recommendations of the board the very fact that you're meeting tonight to set the scope for the coalition to give them a task and set parameters means the coalition has become a committee of this board and is subject to oregon public meeting laws thank you i ask you to make a strong statement tonight require this process follow public meetings law also i urge you to reconstitute the coalition and rebalance some of the dominating voices thank you for your time all right any further aboard discussion on this matter i have a just a question um just based on um because i know this was an issue last time about whether the coalition was um because they were making recommendations staff that were then making recommendations to the board what the status was and has there been a determination or this time is that all that will be public or what what is this the status just we all know at the front end it seems like it's a public meeting law question this has been the first one's been posted does that mean that all the deliberations are i public i'm not sure i'm prepared to address that fully i'd love to follow up by email after the board meeting director from edwards okay um great so i just want to point out that um one that the southeast uh committee met during covid um they broke into small groups to do a lot of their discussion the groups that i sat in on there was a lot of participation by just about everybody in the group and everybody was encouraged uh and supported in speaking up and except for the very first those small group discussions were recorded in previous public processes that i was involved in as a parent and community activist those kind of small group discussions were never recorded the notes might have been taken summary notes might have been taken um on paper and shared out but never recorded um like the southeast was so if if anything that process had more public documentation regardless of the legal status than anything i've been involved in in 20 plus years in pbs just i i just um really quickly add to what director brian edwards said this is a complicated area um and it's one that trips governments up all the time unintentionally um in terms of what what constitutes a public body that requires a public meeting and what doesn't so i i would really encourage um that we spend a little bit of time just just just making sure we're very clear in defining uh what we think it is and then making sure we're very clear in giving those directions right to the to the members who serve on the southeast dining coalition because this is um you know again it's just you know if if it's not serving as a public body there are certain things you know that the members can and can't do if it is a public body and notice it means there are other things that they can and can't do and again it's very complicated so i just think for everyone's sake i'd rather get that defined really upfront and i'd rather err on the side of conservative uh being conservative about it there are instances in oregon where um you know um actions have had to you know be thrown out because it's been determined later um that you know challenges have been filed and i would rather just make sure we are squeaky clean um and i know we're intending to be but i would rather um err on the side of caution just just to make sure i want to echo what director scott said i was disturbed to hear mr bechtel's testimony um and i also know that there are multiple sides to every story um but i agree that we need to be really clear up front um and and also provide very clear instructions to this advisory committee um in terms of what we expect um i'd rather also air on the side of conservatism which is something my dad used to say all the time err on the conservative side i never knew what it meant until i was an adult but um this is one of those cases i'd like to see that put into action i agree with director de pass and director scott all right the board will now vote on resolution six three one five southeast enrollment there's two in
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there southeast oh what there's two that's okay okay there was the resolution word resolution was in there twice so i thought that's what you were mentioning and i didn't didn't think i needed to say it twice but who knows okay the board will now vote on resolution 6315 southeast enrollment balancing process phase two process and charge all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all posts please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6315 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes and i and i didn't vote either so i vote yes sorry oh i'm sorry director constant i missed you okay no i was just asleep at the switch literally and figuratively thank you okay so we are seven to zero uh with that uh vote from director konstam there okay now we are moving uh on to something very exciting that i know that um folks are anxious about and i i heard our public commenter today say she had lost faith that this was actually going to happen but um we're going to talk about a full time reopening for a full five days director scott would you like to introduce this resolution oh yes thank you i had not quite realized we were here already so um yeah and i'll be real quick we actually had a really good conversation about this and i we heard a very comprehensive update from the superintendent and his team at our last meeting about um the plans for fall reopening and all the work that is going into that and we talked about this resolution as well since it was um you know um did get posted last minute before that last meeting we wanted to give a little bit of opportunity um for for the public and others to see it and potentially weigh in um i did not receive any um comments in the intervening two weeks if others did uh you know it would be a great time to talk about them but um just to recap very briefly um you know my reason for bringing this resolution forward um really was was sort of three-fold um you know as we are preparing for full-time in-person reopening this fall i do want to make sure the superintendent has the full support of the board to take really the actions that are necessary um you know to get us to that outcome and and i would i would actually say just you know um um i i completely disagree with what the commenter said earlier i'm very confident that we're going to be able to reopen um but what that looks like may differ a little bit um depending on on what the situation looks like in the fall so i think the second reason is really sending that clear signal to the community about how hard we are working so first superintendent having our support second sending that signal to the community and third really just starting that community conversation about what that return to full-time in-person learning is is going to look like i certainly hope it looks exactly like normal school um that would be the best outcome um you know as we move forward but there are a lot of things outside of the district's control and um you know whether it's state guidelines or you know other guidelines that we'll continue to work on but but again bringing the community along in that conversation so they understand what some of those um what some of those parameters are as we work through them and i think i really see this as the start of the conversation and i know the um superintendent's team is going to be updating us regularly as we go through the summer about reopening efforts and that's a good opportunity for us to to continue to have that conversation so um again i just um um yeah would really uh uh appreciate the board's support and and uh in moving forward on this thank you i have a motion to adopt resolution 6316 resolution to prepare for full-time reopening of in-person learning for the 2021-22 school year got moved second okay all right director scott moves and director bailey seconds the adoption of resolution 6316 is there any board discussion real quickly uh in contrast to some other highly publicized districts although i read the headline not the article so i i hope i'm wrong that we specifically are saying we should have a virtual option for those families who still feel the need and we got a letter to that effect from a concerned parent today so just want to affirm that there will be a virtual option along with what we hope most of our students will be back in person i just want to affirm that that is the case director bailey we have a team of staff developing a virtual school option model for families for students who have very real reasons for not being able to come back to school quite yet so just stay tuned we're still working out some of those details thank you superintendent i just want to also mention that would be uh across all grade levels not just a high school option thank you for clarifying uh mr is there any public comment on this resolution no all right the board will now vote on
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resolution 6316 resolution to prepare for full-time reopening of in-person learning for the 2021-22 school year all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6316 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes okay now we turn to policy and uh having served on the policy committee for the last two years um it is amazing the amount of work that goes into these policies tonight the board will be holding a first reading on six policies and then a first reading to rescind three policies and i really want to commend mary kane who has done a ton of work on um all of our policies around um sexual harassment and um not uh anti-harassment and non-discrimination and um violence uh dating violence between teenagers to really help us have policies that support our students so as chair of the policy committee however and i'd like to ask director moore to do the hard work of introducing each of these policies that are before us tonight director moore thank you uh the first policy we're going to talk about is um the complaint policy 4.50.032 p um pps undertook a major revision of this complaint policy in 2018 in order to better align with our state obligations for addressing student and family constraints since that time the complaint coordinator and other staff have received feedback from families and community members about their experiences with the complaint process as a result of this feedback staff identified some language in the policy that could be clearer for families and staff and requested that the board policy committee revisit this policy the committee has been working on this policy since august 2020. some of the staff requested revisions include clarifying that the district will provide translation and interpretation services as appropriate but does not provide legal services to complainants removing a reference to the ombudsman as that position has been eliminated and adding reference to a new community's liaison position it was actually introduced this evening uh numerous provisions to simplify language and clarify how the complaint process works in order to make it more understandable for families correction of inaccurate references to statutes or administrative rules um i should say inaccurate or outdated references clarifying that a complainant may not refile a complaint on the same subject of a complaint that has already been through the formal complaint process and aligning our definition of who can file a complaint with ode's division 22 standards in addition to these requested edits the policy committee made a number of additional changes to provide more guidance on for example the multiple ways that students and families can express concerns or complaints and seek a remedy including but not limited to lodging a formal complaint the type of complaints that could be made directly to the board related to the superintendent individually versus general complaints about administrative actions expectations of board members and notice from staff when a formal complaint is pending and expectations around provision of materials related to a step 3 hearing before the board the committee was not unanimous on all the changes or in the decision to vote the policy out for a first reading at this time among other concerns director brim edwards voiced concerns that the committee had not had sufficient input from the community the committee did consider carefully the recent survey done with families who have been through the complaint process in recent years including before the 2018 policy revisions the committee also agreed that community engagement on this policy should happen in the fall when the impact of the pandemic is less pronounced and staff is planning to do that the timing decision before the committee was whether to advance the proposed revisions now and engage in additional revisions next school year versus holding all potential revisions until that time the majority of the committee felt the proposed changes that are having first reading tonight should not wait for another 9 to 12 months because they provide clarity additional information or make needed changes and the timeline for additional community engagement is the same under both scenarios the canadian staff also acknowledged that the results of the recent survey as well as other feedback revealed that the family experience in the formal complaint process needs improvement much of that improvement will likely come outside of the policy language and in the form of communication training and successful deployment of the new family resource coordinator
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director director broome edwards i know you shared that you wanted to make a comment yeah thank you i appreciate that um so the complaint policy is one of the ways in which parents who haven't been able to work things out at the school level can elevate their concerns to district leadership whether that's the board or the superintendent senior staff and as director moore indicated staff rothsome suggested changes to the committee a survey was sent out to parents by pps staff who participated who have been participants in the complaint process to get their feedback on the comp on the complaint process and their experience the results showed and i would encourage board members especially those who aren't on the committee to look at the data because it shows that there's really significant there were really significant issues that were raised and dissatisfaction with the experience that people had with the complaint process and because we're in the midst of the pandemic the discussion had been that the engagement would be we all collectively the committee decided that more community engagement was needed based on the survey but because of the pandemic it would need to wait to the fall and so the committee did agreed to to put it off to the fall and then last week or a couple last couple weeks changed course um and i'm going to ask that the that the board is does not it's not very often that i and i can't remember another time that i've opposed or not been supportive of moving a policy out of the committee but what i would ask is that the board get the community engagement before we move to a second reading because moving ahead with the second reading implementing the policy and then doing community engagement i i don't think um just misses the whole community engagement process i do know that there is a desire to clarify an issue that came up in recent weeks based on one complaint um and i've had a discussion with the staff and superintendent about the proposed policy and the specific issue and there are other ways to address this clarification that is needed and we there there is a way the board could for example pass a resolution until there was an opportunity for the community engagement to happen that would allow us to clarify that administrative and operational actions by the superintendent are treated just like administrative and operational actions taken by principals and other central office staff so there's there is a need to clarify that um but it can be done in another way and we actually can have community engagement around this specific policy before we've had a lot of discussions from the policy committee about not moving things along without commuting without doing community engagement or without getting it right and i just feel like we haven't we haven't done that and i'm not comfortable on something especially that's directly about our relationship with the parent community um you know sometimes in the moments when our relationships are most afraid or most challenging um that we're just going to move ahead without getting community engagement so i would hope that the board would consider an alternative way to get after the one issue that um seems to be there some urgency to get resolved and have our community engagement this fall as we as we had planned thank you for the consideration i think director bram edwards said uh you know the work of this the work on this policy is not done on the worker on our complaint policy is not done um for me and you know we have this discussion at length in the policy committee for me this is about more than one issue you know it to me it matters that you know our policy reference is an ombudsman um and and that we have this new mr tibbs in this in this new role um i think it's really important that we be this is a complicated and deeply emotional process for families and so it's important to me that we correct what we can now to make it easier for complainants in the immediacy and then continue to do the deeper work of the fixes because i'm concerned both about families filing complaints now and families in a year and and i i want us to clean up as much as we can so that if a family is is entering into this overwhelming moment of okay how do i file a complaint that the information that's on our website is accurate that the policy reveals the current status of pps and i agree with you we have a lot more work to do on the complaint policy and i think as director bram edwards said it's not the policy language that's the make or break it is the relationships it is
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the the staff it is the way we connect and work with people but i do think that the policy language is often people's first entry point with the complaint um and to have that cleaned up is why i support doing the plan as we have it of doing the first reading on the second reading and then in the fall doing the bulk of the rest of the work after we've done these technical fixes so um i know you and i disagree we talked about this at length at the policy committee meeting um but that's sort of my viewpoint and i see that director constant wanted to weigh in i think that we we have had several several times where we've had an iterative process with policy revision and that's just part of the game i don't see any reason to sort of make things difficult more difficult for our families in the interim and we're going to engage in the in the deep community engagement work under mr tibbs's leadership regardless so i don't see any justification for uh not making these fixes now um it won't it won't change how we how we reach out with our families and how we approach our public engagement going forward so i'd like to put this in for first reading and then um [Music] i'd like to respond since people responded to me is that um the difference is we asked for feedback and we're just not going to engage with it so we're moving ahead with our own changes without have without taking into consideration the feedback that we that we received at night you and i again have talked about that and disagree about how we got the survey and how we're engaging with it i see that director depos would like to direct him to pass i have a comment a question um so um i'm in favor of moving it forward as is as long as you know with the promise of doing a more um robust community engagement keeping the process iterative adding to it continuously improving it um i have a couple questions one was about the role of the family this family services coordinator it is it in the absence there's no ombudsman position but is the family services coordinator are we thinking about that person as a first right the first the first contact for someone that has a complaint or a first contact after someone has not been able to solve a complaint in the building my other question had to be with the where in this community engagement spectrum does this fall is this just we're going to inform the community are we going to empower the community to um to help form to help draft the policy to help improve the policy so there's a difference between just a one-way communication going out and saying hey this is what we're doing what do you think versus um we're puzzling over this section and we'd like to co-create it with community muted would you like to respond to director de pass's uh questions uh yeah i think we're down to a limited number of staff here so i will give a short first shot and and others can follow up um mr tibbs position is new and i think conceptually is designed to help resolve um families concerns and complaints before they reach the formal complaint process that will always be available to them i think there are a number of ways where that can happen they could uh have gone through different channels at their school and come to him they could come to him and he could help work with the school i think he is in fact right now building um the communication and his approach he's doing a lot of listening right now and uh is anxious i know i just talked to him last week anxious to get up here and start meeting with school leaders and so he can help the the dialogue and the relationships at the earliest opportunity um and i'm sure that that he or jonathan can provide something a little more robust and i and i suspect they'll probably be before the board to do that at some point once he gets his feet on the ground or certainly the policy committee on this policy also asked just as a um we i i was uh interested to see the summary report of the survey do we um i hope we do do we track complaints by race or ethnicity or other social demographics that you know of or even if it's voluntary we we do um at the first stage i got a question over the weekend about um how that pro those uh race and ethnicity profiles change um perhaps step one isn't the same as step two which may not be the same as step three so we have we have done that analysis though on those who file and we track um on that and track outcomes as well
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uh i don't i i directed to pass i just don't know i'm i don't know that the outcomes are always in there many that are yes there are many there are no and there are some that are less binary than that so i don't know exactly how that is tracked i don't want to give you an incorrect answer as to your question about uh community engagement my understanding is that the intention is to have um some real conversations i don't know that the full engagement plan is um uh entirely fleshed out but i know that there was discussion with shanice and and her team about some focus groups with parents who've been through it as well as some other outreach so that's what i hear now and and that will happen in the fall ask you a second reading or is it is there a there's i guess my question sorry um it's large because you're the since you're last man standing um so what is planned between during the public comment period if anything by pbs to get feedback on the changes that are being proposed by staff i think that the usual 21 day comment period applies through the normal policy website i don't know that there are any other particularized efforts so just post it on the website right i talked about in this meeting invitations extended in this meeting the same same thing we do for all the others can i also mention that a number of the changes that are being proposed um are actually responsive to the feedback that we got in the survey so we heard a lot of um expressions of frustration around the complexity of the process and the the length of time it took to go through the process and i think a lot of the language changes that are incorporated here are directly responsive to those kinds of concerns i also want to note as i'm looking at this table 1 that in 2020 we had fewer complaints during a pandemic than we did several years ago i mean since we've been it looks like since 2014 so i know the year's not over yet knock on wood but but literally a very few number of complaints that was interesting yeah it is i think it goes to the work that our um district is doing to nr especially our building staff to respond to families in the buildings and proactively deal with concerns there um so thank you again superintendent guru for that cultural shift that you've been key in implementing here in pps only note i wanted to make is we are talking about a formal complaint policy i mean for me the bigger prize is a culture and a climate where our our stakeholders our family our community feel they can approach us with questions and concerns uh you know compliments even you know uh and that those get resolved or heard or listened to or attended to in a very progressive fashion more informally and i think that happens every school day you know hundreds of times and you know by our teachers by our principles by their supervisors by central office staff and i recognize that there needs to be also a mechanism for officially formal complaints that fall under especially division 22 categories you know there's a very limited couple dozen folks who have exercised that as an option and there's probably more work to sort of continue to clarify a process that is more efficient for not just families but also for staff uh as as we've seen so i know that there's a shared interest in doing that because we don't want to make it taxing for the complainant nor do we want to make it taxing for the staff and so we end up in a not a very efficient two-way feedback loop and i think that's what we all have a commitment to resolving you superintendent rita would you move us along now to the responsible technology use policy please uh yes so the next policy is a responsible technology use policy 8.6 0.040 p um this is an update to the acceptable use policy that was created in 2007. this policy and subsequent revisions um reflects reflected the state of access to technology at the time of the creation of its creation the responsible use policy is a rewrite of the acceptable use policy making it more succinct and streamlined and removing extraneous detail and outdated technologies
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and acknowledging the current state of technology in the district thank you board members any questions or comments all right director more the next one okay uh so next uh we have a suite of policies that fall under the umbrella of anti-harassment um that are being either revised or rescinded in order to bring the district into compliance with a number of recent statutory revisions addressing harassment including sexual harassment in the workplace and within the educational setting as we incorporated the new requirements into the policies staff endeavored to organize these policies in a way that may provide easier use for students and staff in some instances policies were joined where there was overlap in contents and focus some were out of date and had been replaced by other policies that recurrent with state and or federal law a few policies required only that we update the definition of sexual harassment to align with current law because there are multiple policies affected um i'm going to list the policies affected but will not walk through each one um a lot of the changes are quite technical in nature technical in terms of very specific language mandated by statutes i will encourage board members and the public to review the posted materials and provide any comment during the 21 day comment period so um we have two three policies sorry uh four policies um that are um substantially revised um first anti-harassment non-discrimination policy 1.80.020 p second student anti-harassment and dating violence policy 4.30.060 p workplace harassment 5.10.060 p and professional conduct policy 5.10.064 p okay um the next set of policies are um rescissions that we're recommending um so the following policies are recommended for rescission either because they are old and not in compliance with current law or because they are redundant since their contact content has been incorporated into the policies that i just listed i want to underscore that rescinding these policies will not result in any decrease in protections available to either students or staff first teen dating violence domestic violence policy 4.30.070 p grievance procedures sex discrimination 5.10.030 p sexual harassment staff to students 5.10.062 that's it all right and again thank you mary kane for your work on that suite of policies specifically all of tonight's policies will be posted on the board website and the public comment period is 21 days contact information for public comment will be posted with each policy the board will hold a second reading of the policies at its june 25th meeting is there any other business at this time before we adjourn i think i would like to give my report actually thank you daniel go ahead all right um i'd like to begin by recognizing last tuesday's board elections um i would like to congratulate hermann green and gary hollins on their election to the pps board of education i look forward to seeing how you two reshape pbs during your tenure on the board i'd also like to congratulate dr gwen edwards on her re-election pbs and our students are lucky to have your continued leadership however despite these outcomes which are exciting and in line with the dsc's endorsements i am troubled with the elections voter tournament books it's no secret that school boards typically gone over torn out that they are often overshadowed by national level elections and this election was not atypical among its category in that way however it's simply pathetic that turnout was less than one third of what it was when voters approved our
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bond package back in november it could not be planar that the overwhelming majority of those votes came from those who were there because of the presidential election this is unacceptable you cannot only vote when matters are at the most desperate when only when the most high-profile offices all on the ballot voting must not be a last resort rather it must be a regular practice akin to russian achieve local races like these as um well not well known are exceptionally important they are they are how we as a community as a people decide how our school systems are run well less than one third of the when less than one third of the voters who turned out on in november do so for this election what does that say about our communities fundamental value of education if we truly believe in our students and in our future i challenge us as a community as a city and as a people to do better in this regard i'd also like to note that the dsc held our third annual pbs student summit last saturday thank you to superintendent goer for kicking off the event the students who took the time to talk and interact with us and of course the dsc counselors who put in so much time in organizing and running summit unfortunately the event did have low attendance which we attribute to the unfortunate fact that we were unable to come together at one of our school sites as has been tradition as well as the summit being scheduled relatively late in the school year nevertheless we did have some excellent conversations with those who did show up and we are hoping to learn from this experience in scheduling next year's summit which the dsc is planning to schedule in the first half of the 2021-2022 school year and finally i'd like to finish by echoing what's been said earlier in the meeting that it is absolutely ridiculous for the legislature to be cutting school funding as we're emerging from a pandemic i'm saddened by the senate rejecting oh sorry approving such cuts earlier today and i hope that the house ultimately rejects them and funds the state school fund at at least 9.6 billion thank you and that concludes my report thank you student representative any other business for tonight can i just congratulate you chair lowry on the time 10 15. yes and all of my colleagues as well that was a tremendous amount of work we got done on on schedule so thank you everybody i mean not on schedule right on time just amazing i think it's the whole board working together to i think what dirk durbin edwards said about the seeing items and then voting them on the next week that gives us time to digest and really ask our questions of staff um helped us to be more effective so thank you all for the work and for the commitment to listen to one another to speak uh the essentials and to to get our work done in a timely fashion well you made a mockery of my pre-meeting joke about the meeting would be done and we'd walk out and see the eclipse there you go i feel like director constantine's going to say something because she's got a special guest with her there i'm trying to stay muted so my special guest doesn't say anything that's probably a good call all right the next uh regular meeting of the board will be held on june 15th and i am going to remind directors that if you're interested in running for board leadership you need to let me know in writing by june 1st so please get those into me so that we can have that ready for the june 15th meeting this meeting is adjourned

Sources

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

2021-05-25 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting - 5/25/21

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