2021-07-22 PPS School Board Work Session

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2021-07-22
Time 18:00:00
Venue PESC Unspecified
Meeting Type work
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: Portland Public Schools Board of Education Work Session - 7/22/21

00h 00m 00s
one job to do tonight and that's to pull apart and put back together the pps mission statement i'm wondering if superintendent guerrero if you'd like to introduce the subject or introduce the staff that will be upsetting yeah well good evening directors uh thank you for uh coming together this evening it's actually a good time to do this in so far as our journey as an organization we are getting ready to come back full force for for the fall the building will be a buzz in just a matter of a couple weeks we you know set out sort of this road map i think i described it to you but we invested the year that we knew we needed to with the community to re-engage them to arrive at a vision we spent quite a bit of time and in retreats with directors to you know move towards having very student outcome oriented goals that would make clear to everybody what the expectations are um we talked about sort of staff then sort of getting to work with you know developing the kinds of action steps that will get us to those goals we've started to report out on our progress and some interim measures um but of course the last year and a half has not permitted us to you know collect the full body of measures so they say all of that because there come moments in the evolution the cycle as the years go by in any organization to revisit its mission statement and so that's really sort of the intent of this evening and so if we're successful we'll leave here with a crisp powerful sentence that really speaks to to the organization it sounds like maybe that shouldn't be a complicated task but you want to be really deliberate about it right and you know in the same way that we gave a lot of thought to to our vision i'll just give you sort of a google sort of statement just to say out loud a mission statement is a literal quote stating what a brand or company is setting out to do it lets the public know the product or service it provides who makes it who it makes it for or why it's doing it a vision statement is a brand looking toward the future saying what it hopes to achieve through its mission statement a bit more conceptual and aspirational but it's a glimpse into what the grand the brand can provide for the client to the consumer so we have our vision statement we'll certainly start by reviewing all of that uh but really want you to you know put your best thinking to coalesce and thankfully we have our new directors here so it's really important to arrive on a statement that the seven of you can really affirm as a mission statement for this organization that really communicates to the broader public to our stakeholders to our students and families what we're about as an organization so we have staff available here this evening to help sort of uh inform the conversation and be a part of the conversation because they'll be new to a couple of our directors uh as we jump into a very quick presentation before we start having the discussion i want to make sure that they introduce themselves as we start so and um terry has asked that if we hear any feedback which we are hearing terri that um he would fix it for us so terry if you can hear us we are getting feedback um i like to think of the mission statement as like an elevator speech when somebody says like what are you about and instead of saying you know going through the long version you can say this is what we're about andrew is treating us remotely as anybody else no oh we are missing amy aren't we she is upset okay she's not coming okay so i did not know that so we um we have an excused absence of amy thank you and amy con stamp director constant and um director scott is joining us by my telephone or by google me i guess okay should we quickly go around the table do you want to start talking introducing yourselves to our sure uh good uh good evening uh directors jonathan garcia chief staff
00h 05m 00s
i [Music] hi david roy senior director of communications airman green board member zone 4 julia from edwards board member good evening everybody michelle depass board chair gary holland board member haley lowry board member jackson weinberger student rep good evening liz large contracted general counsel the superintendent claire hurts deputy supporter john deputy newly appointed celebration it's going to be okay to clap while in the chair for good things especially once if you ask us will you join me and yes um so maybe we should proceed uh join us thank you for joining us dr calvert thank you so for moving forward we will likely see i think i mentioned this in a note to directors likely all the younger students will be reported as our older students to margaret and one which i performed so just to give you a little bit of a preview there all right so uh again thanks for being here tonight and so we'll start off with uh going over our vision statement so uh as a director alluded to you know a vision a mission statement tells us you know what we're about the vision tells us the future position we want to be in so it really describes a future state for for us and so specifically to our vision here at florida public schools our vision statement is a short statement that encompasses the entirety of pps masters which as you all know is a 50 page document that includes uh graduate portrait which are nine elements that characteristics that we inspire for our students that our community aspires for in our students it also articulates a set of educator essentials uh what are the attributes characteristics that we want in our in our student and our educators and lastly what are the we have a set of system shifts things that we need to change over the course as well as a district to shift the system to better support our students and so our mission statement our vision statement which is what you can see on this slide here a graduate of portland public schools will be a compassionate critical thinker able to collaborate and solve problems and be prepared to lead a more socially just world so just for one second uh you've got sentences to yourself and then look at the portrait elements right below that so again a vision statement tells us a future state and so for pps this is our future we want to graduate students who are going to be compassionate critical thinkers we're able to collaborate and solve problems i think for me the most exciting part of why i come to work every day is that uh and why i'm excited to to be able to represent pps across the country is this piece around a prepared to lead a socially just world that's that's powerful right and we have the characteristics that our community has outlined for us that that make that happen and so uh as many board members know uh how do we arrive at our uh our vision lots of sticky notes a lot of sticky notes yeah so over 16 000 data points over 35 meetings with uh community groups in all languages we work very closely with our racial equities justice partners we went on learning journeys and really brought together a dynamic set of community members to really think about uh and envision a future that we could be proud of and so just uh you know many of you participated as citizens as as board members as students and so i really just appreciate again that this vision really serves as our north star it really serves as our destination it gives us a clear uh destination from where our community what in terms of what our community wants in terms of our students in terms of our school district in terms of our educators and that's really important and it took us a year uh you know rigorous here but it really served as the backbone for how our organization one thinks about community engagement but two you know lives into really serving and listening to
00h 10m 00s
uh communities of color particularly our black and indigenous communities as reflective reaction so with that i would turn over to danny who's gonna co-facilitate today uh to talk a little bit about the mission statement i have just a really quick comment um i love the graphics i'm just wondering um for those people who can't see the one point type um what that time period was it was roughly 2018 but did that did the process start in 2017 um i guess let's see under student summit yeah the student summit started in december it was in december of 2017 i think 2018 2018 and it finished in the spring of 2019. yes yes so december december was the first there was a student summit that launched it really it was important for us to launch the vision requests with students at the center so we were at cleveland high school uh where we hosted uh students or actually the dsc were the ones that that hosted uh this summit uh with us and that really launched a series of events uh so absolutely so starting in november or december of 18 18 it was approved and adopted by the board in june 2019. all right um so as we think about what jonathan talked about the vision statement being future or organ said we really want to sort of dial into what is a mission statement a mission statement like a vision statement has the power to be catalytic has the power to be to be inspirational and to compel people to think what actions can we take what actions are we taking to to really realize the vision statement um the the point of difference between the vision and the vision mission statement for tonight is is that the mission statement is oriented to what are we doing right now as opposed to the mission statement that is really future oriented um and so what we wanted to do right now is to think about a mission statement that has three specific elements one of cause action and impact and so if you look at the mission statement uh that is the current one you'll notice that it is every student by name prepared for college career and participation as an active community member regardless of race income or zip code pretty good um however now that we've had time for our community for our staff for for all of you to really start to think about the vision and how our mission statement can be more closely aligned with the vision what has been proposed is the following the mission of pbs is to provide robust inclusive joyful learning experiences that disrupt racial systemic systemic inequities so that every pbs student is prepared to leave a more socially just world so if we go back to those three elements of the cause right who what and where that causes every pbs student if we think about the next element of our actions the present day actions that we're going to be anchored to help us realize that vision statement is providing robust inclusive joyful learning experiences that disrupt racial systemic inequities and then that last component of the impact is so that those students are prepared to lead a more socially just world i appreciate the color coding on the cause the action and the impact that was made very easy to digest all right um so what we wanted to do is take you through uh some discussion questions so that we can start to arrive at uh a finalized mission statement so i guess the first question that we wanted to ask you is in terms of the proposed mission statement um do you feel like it's compelling is it compelling enough to really declare it is it is it a compelling declaration of our current purpose and our values as a school district but wait we never asked just one simple question to be a three-parter uh does it reflect our responsibilities to our students and families and if not how might we strengthen the statement to reflect our purpose and values in alignment with our community and foreign vision pps
00h 15m 00s
reimagined so why don't you take a couple moments to think about that and we'll kind of open it up for a discussion about number one is it compelling is it a declaration for values and our responsibilities do you want us to jump in or should we have silent reading time oh no i was like we'll give you a couple moments but please jump in so the things about that i like like inclusive and joyful which i think is more inviting what i am concerned about um or i i'm trying to say it's so it's indirectly referred to is that we talk about is prepared to lead a more socially just world and then one thing about um i guess what i think it's just like our fundamental mission is like kids need to learn how to read math um there's some really core things that are only the school district is going to provide or should provide and that's our core mission and i i don't see it exclusive explicitly in there like the best because if i'm if i'm a parent and my student doesn't know how to read are they gonna be prepared to lead a more socially just world so so for if i if i could paraphrase for you it's not enough of a declaration of our educational purpose right like it's kind of the core of it in terms of the action another thing just to throw out is um you know i think everybody has their own um career and life life plan and for a lot of people it's not necessarily to be the leader it's to be like i want to be a good team member and so in some ways like applying that everybody has to be a leader versus like some people want to be team members or there's something else but so i i'm not i think some people won't see themselves in that or like that's not it's not the piece about the social justice world is more like that's i want to be a contributor but i'm not i'm not the leader so you're worried that the word lead is more socially just inclusive enough for the different roles right because um yeah i just think leader the vast majority of people i think often are tell me what my my role in the team is it's also kind of that introvert extrovert you know i'm like i want to be the first person to talk in the room or yeah i think it's learning style how you how you position yourself in space might not be as a leader okay do we want to do more than disrupt do we want to like um and something something more destructive than disrupt all right because that like disrupting doesn't mean you're ending it or addressing it just means you're disrupting it but so maybe a different verb okay um what about smoker folks is this compelling is it a compelling declaration does it does it elicit enough information about our responsibilities students and families my favorite three words in there are robust inclusive and joyful and i think for me that captures that learning experience that we want students to have i mean the superintendent talks about rigor all the time and i know that that's one of our you know huge foci how do we have academically rigorous strong programs that help our students to to succeed to hit those goals of third grade reading fifth grade math etc so i love that robust is there and then inclusive i think definitely goes to not just our racial equity work we're doing but i think also the lgbtq work that we've done as a district and so i think that and then i think this you know director bailey was here he'd be talking about spence so it is all students all of our students and then joyful i think it gets to what we've been talking about with our social emotional learning and that idea of that you know school should be a place where kids belong and feel connected and feel nurtured and there's a sense of joy at school so for me that really those three words that we hit a lot of what we've been trying out for the last two years of what we want the day-to-day experience for students to be like so i really appreciate that that's like what we need with them great so i'm hearing a lot of uh residents with the values of being compelling around the values all right other folks i'm also feeling
00h 20m 00s
very like um leading with the values i like that joyful and systemic racial inequities are in the same sentence i feel like we need to use those words to be very intentional about what our goal is but i also kind of agree with what you're saying about having stronger language and that's actually just comparing to a mission statement that i heard this weekend and that the mission is to fundamentally change the educational experiences for students of color in the us so it's like fundamentally change the educational experience it gives me a really clear idea of not how we're doing it but that that's the goal the end goal um so i like the idea i like the idea of strengthening the word disrupt and and and using a stronger more of a robust uh word but i love the word joyful i i think in the absence of joy and you know a lot of our kids show up not joyful but if we can provide that space for all kids i wouldn't think i would feel very accomplished yeah that's great other folks is this a compelling declaration of our values andrew can you all hear me is that a yes can you hear me we can hear you now yes thank you all right oh excellent no i appreciate all those comments i actually i think the um julia's comment about lead is a really good one and i don't know what the right word is there maybe contribute to a more social justice just world um but i yeah i i i would agree with that and then i i actually do find just disrupt to be a powerful word but if there's another one um i'm i'm i'm all on board with that as well um in terms of like you know we're willing to say that we want to end um you know the uh the systemic racial inequities you know that that that would be great i mean i think i think i think what we have here in the draft captures a lot of that but the suggestions so far make a lot of sense i'm having a little bit of a hard time hearing you just a scoffs louder yeah he's doing it right now great thank you yeah thank you so what i heard andrew is that he agreed a lot with julia around sort of like the contribute versus league um that he he liked to disrupt he saw disrupt was powerful but was really open to something more disrupt destructive um and um [Music] i think that's that's all that i heard as well yes yes that's right that's right you got it thanks dude thanks danny uh anyone else jackson did you have anything that you wanted to just tap he i just asked him a question he answered beautifully and so now i'm putting him on the spot okay so what i would what i said was it's great if we're prepared but a willingness to act on what we're prepared to do a willingness to act to be pushing that vote on being more socially just as something i'd like to see courage courage to willingness to ability to yeah so so it's it's not just a willingness but also the ability to act on that to take that contribution or leadership role all right and i think okay so i'm not sure how i want to put this out there because i don't want anybody to feel like i don't i don't like value all the work that's going into it um but i know protesters who can't read so i don't really care if you know how to tear up or disrupt the racial system and you can march on the white house and tear some stuff down or you know march on school i don't care i don't care if you know how to do that because i know protesters who can't read i have to help them with their bills you know it's just basic stuff so when i when kids come to school you don't you don't come to school to make friends you come to school to get educated make your friends a byproduct of what happens while you're in school but the reason that you come to school is to get an education so that you can learn how to read write do arithmetic understand some sciences and some some weird stuff like that learn to blow something up in a chemistry classroom so that you can figure out what two things not put together or whatever doing that kind of stuff and while you're doing that you generally make friends with other people who like to blow stuff up or do whatever it is i know i can't just keep saying blow stuff up because i don't want folks saying that but you you got the disruption because you were learning right and so i want i would like to see i like joyful learning but i would i would want to see like i like the go back to the thing the the big uh the big wheel i like those pieces where we're talking about the different aspects of what we're doing and how
00h 25m 00s
we're going to do it i just don't know how you plug all that into three sentences because you only got like 60 seconds if that in an elevator and you got to spend 15 of those you know i'm saying just you know formalities right so then that text so i'm just well you're the perfect segue because i want to go to the second question if we could just everyone take them all in like do a take a camera remember all right now we don't mind could you go to the action to slide 10. so this is what we do right and so we've heard from a couple of folks around what we do wanting to strengthen them so when we think about the action pieces in the proposed mission it really is providing learning experiences that have certain qualities and uh in in service of disrupting inequities right that speak to our values around racial racial justice so i guess the question i want to ask you which is question number two on the slide deck is does the proposed mission statement uh articulate what we do and what differentiates our work at pbs and its impact on students so kermit director green you were the perfect segue into question number two because i think that that's some of it right because i i think and we have this for those of you who participate in the vision we have this exact conversation where there was this this difference between wanting to make sure that the basics the core core knowledge is achieved but also wanting something more right like what there's something about the quality in achieving those the approach to achieving those basics that we wanted to articulate in our vision and that's why our graduate profile is so much more than blowing up stuff in science class although no no shade to the blowing up stuff in science class right so i guess the question as you reflect on the question is as you think about what would differentiate our district what's differentiating the work in your leadership in our district does the mission statement those those words in orange does that do enough to describe both the learning qualities and the learning experience as well as the approach to that and does it have a tight enough connection to the graduate profile i'm wondering if there's like a from what julia said there's a sense of like the core competencies so like you know teaching kids to read kids to do math and then you know as they get to high school level like jackson helping them hone some of those skills that's sort of the ideal progression um but i think what julia was saying about those core competencies that like that we're teaching kids to read and write and do math and then build on that to become leaders so is there a way to capture some of that so i wonder if a word like robust inclusive joyful comprehensive learning experience like what's a word to say like and i don't know if robust should be rigorous but or like there might be a sentence there like a word to say this is like [Music] yeah because it's sort of like you want and maybe as you start with inclusive and joyful which is like what kids like and then the robust academics because i think we automatically think that that's what we're talking about when we say robust or rigorous we're talking about the core academics yeah but i don't think everybody else necessarily makes that so maybe being more explicit but not leading with that because then that'll just like kill some kids like yeah sometimes comprehensive than captures that we're doing like it's yes we're creating social justice leaders who have learned how to read in potato but like that we're teaching both like the basics and the the advanced pieces of that i don't know how to capture that you know what comprehensive is the word or just trying to hear what y'all are saying yeah i i feel like this is one of those areas where we're going to be preparing ourselves to have those discussions where you know we all bring this these different experiences together and for me i'm assuming we're an educational you know institution that will teach kids to read um and i think that what you're saying is that some parents are going to want to see we are it's in the it's [Music] we haven't taught our black boys to do advanced math so we need to say that's what we're going to do yeah yeah and i think our goals do that our goals do but admission how do we connect that to our mission statement in the 60 seconds in the elevator can you really do pleasantries in 15 seconds i can't [Music]
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so i think so so maybe if we so i i think we're hearing that sort of like wanting to marry core competencies along with a joyful approach we've heard that joyful and inclusive are particularly compelling but we need equally compelling academic rigor comprehensiveness quality uh that so we'll we'll kind of move into there is biting at the bit i'm really interested to hear what the soup was saying well i i i was i met with our facilitators before this meeting and you all almost pervade a set of comments i said that around look i know we talking shorthand i'll just pick on the first adjective when we say robust i think what we mean by that is a high quality well-rounded education where students are literate that they are critical thinkers that they uh have a requisite core knowledge and skill set like we're an educate we're school system k-12 they have to have those things while we're doing those things we want the experience to be positive and joyful we wanted them to have the equitable supports to have the same opportunity to have success and thrive right and so that's all so i i it's great to actually hear that we're thinking of this similarly because i don't want our mission statement to be easily substituted for any other school district right right it has to be compelling but it also has to capture you're right for our families that we don't forget what our core responsibility is but we want to do it in a manner that prepares them to engage be aware of think of and maybe lead you know the kind of world i appreciate i really like the that we're sort of taking robust and unpacking robust because i think that's that's uh really important so i'm going to move us into another oh sorry question um a question but i did i listened to the superintendent and i really agree with the rigors and i think we should start with the breakthroughs um kind of go down a rigorous educational learning environment i think we're a school and like you said we want to provide an educational component first and i think rigorous is a great word to use to let folks know the seriousness of what we're trying to do that's my two cents well and it starts with the same letters so [Music] so um so what i was gonna so we've talked a little bit about the educational experience and sort of like the approach and then the core i think the other thing that i heard from folks is the the disruption and the sort of tie to racial justice and as you know i'm very interested in this topic so um so so we the i think the first thing that we the first thing i heard was that disrupt may not be destructive enough and then we got to hear from director green and the bombing so we've got um the right uh sort of mindset but then i think the other thing i heard was an undertone of sort of like is the is the disrupting um does there need to be a sort of uh complimentary sort of rebuilding um right so uh when director went with chair to pass uh talked about the sort of rebuild like uh now i'm only thinking a rigorous rebuild but when you you said this the the mission statement about the future state that is really different um and so i think that's kind of the challenge in racial justice work on the one hand we're disrupting and on the other hand we're trying to build so um does anyone have any suggestions about that or are we okay with disrupt racial systemic inequities in addition to the academic part destroy i mean i've been thinking about language a lot and you know we spoke about this today where um i remember like raising my kids i never said you know don't go the street because it was like rock street instead i said stay on the sidewalk and i'm wondering if there's a part of that disrupt piece that needs a clear vision of what you know and actually in racial equity work i don't know that i've i've heard a clear vision of what an equitable society looks like you know i mean none of us in the room have experienced it so um i'm just wondering if that's an additive piece that would would add to without being too wordy yeah that's i think that's an interesting point myself it sounds like a double negative yes to say what we want rather than we want to stop i i've heard you know in just in different leadership trainings that you know the mark of a really good leader is to
00h 35m 00s
um to create a vision and then be able to communicate the vision um because you can't like like you can't make a piece of art if you can't envision what the play is what it's going to be in a week if you get if you're given a lump of clay you need to be able to ideate you know in a week if i manipulate it it'll look like this and i can paint it and look you know completely different and so it's spelling out that um communicating that vision and that i find missing sometimes with with racial equity work um it's like i'm tired of talking about like the systems everybody knows the system's you know not set up for everyone to to be successful in but what is a system that is set up to you know well everybody has a chance of you know getting to the success that they envisioned right one i think the added challenge is that the mission statement is now right it's now so as we think about like the temporal of what's happening right now um i think one of the additional challenge of racial equity work is that there is quite a bit of disruption right and so i think there's a there's a responsibility to be transparent about what is happening right so it's not just education as usual it is education with a disruptive bent towards realizing the vision so i think there's maybe if you if you wouldn't mind is there a way to um is there a way to maybe when we think about the experiences that disrupt or destroy or whatever acknowledgement of the inequities but maybe there's something that we can do in that every pps student that is more aligned to our theory of action um where we sort of uh sort of point out our vision more more around centering some of our uh like our you know our black and native students for example because that gets us closer to our our belief that if we center a black and native students we'll get to that that that sort of future state that we want theory of action but then is that not um future also future oriented um let's see so i think disrupting is what is happening now and centering on black and native students is happening now so that when we achieve our vision particularly black and native students that centering of it will help us achieve the build a system that achieves like the um graduate profile so i guess i'm struggling with the use of black and native in it and like we're going to help them get to where like it's up it's on all of us you know and maybe even particularly white students to be versed in disruption because the system preferences including our systems you know preference you know white students i didn't want to say that but but i'm wondering if we can i like the use of every student but i'm wondering i i don't know if i like that especially our black and native american students called out but i was gonna you went a different place than where i thought you were but you were talking about the future and i think that the prepared to lead i think our students are already leading and i think we saw that from like those what was it fifth graders who spoke about climate justice i think we see it from um you know the if you saw the art show that our students did around black lives matter and some of the the work they've done i think our students are already leading a more socially just world so i wonder if as part of our mission statement we're not going to wait till they turn 18 and graduate to make a difference in our community our kids are already making a difference in our community so i'm wondering if that prepared to lead um are we like they're leaving it now what our contributing continue to lead continue to contribute continue to yeah i was thinking challenge to challenge to instead of saying just leave maybe like challenge to rebuild yeah yeah but i think to have it now instead of the future because our kids are already doing this challenge to rebuild a more socially just world now yeah i mean the con listing specifically black and native american students does line up with our goals but i do think you're right there can be like a paternalistic piece there too a little bit yeah thank you for yeah so so can i ask a question to understand so so when you say that we call out especially black and native students you feel like that the reaction to that is the it puts the onus of the responsibility of black native students or you feel like it's i i feel like it would be important for all students to be encouraged to um prepare to contribute all students yeah whether that's if we're going to differentiate
00h 40m 00s
who needs more help you know bringing their voice you know to the table um or who needs to be helped you know maybe not leading you know that it you know every student should be encouraged to be able to contribute to a more socially just world for me for me it looks like it puts us out of deficit it's a negative context i mean calling out black and native students aligns perfectly with our goals our vision uh it's where it is but but i'm also very conscious of the language that we're using and this is about our success yes every time we um open our mouths we're talking about black and native students as if it's on them that that that they're not achieving and that the same rates our white students are and so it's just i'm very um i don't know if i can articulate but it feels like the black and native students feel something like this so i think um so it seems like we need to play around with the placement of the actions because i think the the um ultimately the actions are the actions of the district right so it should we need to make sure that it doesn't read like that the students are having to do the actions right the impact is the is the this is the sort of every student um so if we go back to the slide about our our cause every pps student right that's the that's our cause right that's where we're centering uh the work um and so every pps student particularly black and native students is the centering right the impact is prepared to leave that if we center the students if we focus on every student particularly centuries black and native students then students will be what will happen what's the impact of the actions and the cause on the students right and so this one i wonder jonathan had a really good suggestion is that maybe if we take away prepare to lead a more socially just world and go to realize go back to herman's suggestion of realize the graduate portrait so i feel like that um because um i think i'm just trying to view it like the so the spectrum of families that we have and i even like within my own family of like what your expectations are it's like oh my god i hope they can get a job they come out with like the skills to get a job out of like it's not gonna be a problem like they're to be able to do x but like i feel speaking of myself with one child that like there were times when it's like okay they just need to get like be able to read and function in with like some basic skills with basic skills or like hand skills hopefully when they graduate and i think we have to be careful not to jump be look over that because i think that's sort of the most basic thing that almost all parents are like yeah i send my kids to school because they're going to get an education and then and and these other things but if they get the other things but not the education okay so i'm doing some uh i think we're close on something so um i heard from uh director collins that maybe if we lead with the robust rigorous comprehensive like we get the business uh done first and then we uh have the approach second right um and so he's gonna he's gonna do the magic and then i'm gonna read it that's what you do john pressure okay so why don't i'm gonna ask you guys to do something because uh just close your eyes for a moment so that way you don't see the edits so if everyone would if you wouldn't mind just closing your eyes i'm gonna read uh i'm gonna read in my nasally sulking voice the mission statement okay so we're in an elevator you hear the thing chime and i say oh yeah i'm with pbs the mission of pbs is to provide a robust rigorous comprehensive high quality academic learning experience that is inclusive
00h 45m 00s
that that is inclusive and joyful and disrupts racial systemic inequities so that every pps student especially our black and native american students realize pbs's graduate portrait i wanted to be we make the most delicious ice cream on earth it always puts a smile on your face there you go we build the safest most reliable eco-friendly cars on earth right like it rolls off it makes it clear what our aspiration is and what we do every day would you take some [Music] comprehensive or high quality take out good quality because i think yeah i think we can yeah i think we're staying high quality high quality [Music] um i also um learning experiences that are inclusive and joyful and disrupt racial systemic inequities so that every student especially our black and native american students realize i will take that out i just really don't like it okay attains it but the word realized actualized whatever the word i can't read the blue even if it says i can't either the graduate sorry i'm not so colorblind um but oh there we go um how about something that's like that's a little bit i think kind of insider it's like the what we know what the graduate profile is like actualizes our vision for our graduates um which is more like plain speak versus and like that yep we could like link to the thing right yeah that's the that's if the elevator gets stuck it's still a little nebulous and if i can steal sort of a note that this past year about how to make this a really active statement not being redundant about the mission of bps is you know we ensure every student receives a rigorous well-rounded education and [Music] the equitable opportunities and supports so when i used to read the pps mission statement that's at the bottom of it's still on some people's emails it says every student by name i used to like yell at my computer like but my student's not getting that but it it did give me like a sense of like i knew what pps was saying they were going to do i mean for two of my kids i said yes at home because it's like no that's not happening every student by name and i think you want parents to look at it like what what is what are we saying we're gonna do for their for their child and what they're gonna come out with and so i i think being the way that you had it before is more or the way that you just for changing it's better so we ensure every pps student is provided rigorous high quality academic learning experiences that are inclusive and joyful and disruptive systemic inequities so that every pbs student actualizes so i guess do you need we insure can you say every student will be provided their rigorous we definitely want to get closer to the teachers
00h 50m 00s
we provide every student a rigorous high quality academic learning experience that is is joyful it should be learning of experiences is inclusive and joyful and disrupts while disrupting while disrupting that's good and it should be is it learning experience or learning experiences um i guess the one question i would ask is is it a learning experience or is it multiple learning experiences for every student i think multiple learning experiences [Music] is it only academic is it just learning experiences there you go yeah because it's everything danny jonathan is is it learning experiences inclusive of social emotional learning or are we calling out academic do we need the word academic we need the word act gary what do you think about i i heard you i heard you respond should we take away academic we kept rigorous you can't pronounce well in its academic learning experiences is that redundant no but no no well but i i think the question that we're trying to get to is do we want to add something about social emotional right that's what we want to get to do we want to say academic slash social emotional learning but i don't want to take out academics because i think maybe you can put something into what we want to accomplish because i still don't understand man looking at this i'm trying to figure out well by us doing all this what are we hoping to get and i don't know maybe that's at the bottom you don't understand the bottom line yeah i'm understanding the bottom part so where it says let everyone keep us to actually vision of our graduates i don't know [Music] [Music] [Music] i love our graduate profile i think it's awesome and i still go back to what michelle said about this is a statement about how and that if we talk about our vision for our graduates it's like what about our third graders now our fifth graders now they're not graduated they're on the path to that they're moving into that but um if we just say graduates i feel like our kids are already making a difference in our world so how do we say that rigorous high quality academic learning experiences that are inclusive and joyful while disrupting racial inequities so that they actualize [Music] is there something around a successful environment for all students is there something that rewards creating creating that successful environment say a little bit more yes sir so what i said was that we needed to balance the disruptive racial inequities by because that is sort of negative but we need an outcome which would be to create a success oriented environment for all students i love that i'm wondering if uh if andrew is still following us has anything to say thank you michelle for checking can you hear sorry all me thank you and we're so glad that you're here with us how's the lamb yeah not quite there yet but no i'm glad i'm going to join virtually for the conversation is okay um
00h 55m 00s
um but before we do the elevator i think we need some more inspiration so can you take us to the wheel the real life and actualize the graduate portrait we're talking about this is the thing right so we're going to take a look at that we're going to do some like hypnosis situations so we're going to take a look at that listen to the snaps okay everyone got it do the click did you want us to snap if we heard something that we it's liked much uh it's too much pressure okay now i'm going to so right now close your eyes the latest version and you tell me imagine you're in the elevator okay so the doors closed here we go uh we provide every student with rigorous high quality academic learning experiences that are inclusive and joyful while disrupting racial inequities creating a successful environment for every student yeah i like it i can live with that one yeah it's the right length i love the items are you gonna be able to see it when you go to school don't look at the screens high quality joyful and inclusive academic experiences you're getting closer we provide every student with rigorous high quality academic learning experiences i i like that i mean i know we don't have the impact then right yeah yeah that's the one thing we lost it comes along because we have the inputs well i think the impact [Music] i think the impact becomes every student so it's still every student uh in terms of the impact it's at the top and at the bottom yeah oh i mean uh in terms of the cost in terms of impact yeah so what is it what yeah i like that actually good job thank you so can i ask you one last question as we think about this um back to the two back to the questions uh so as you reflect on the mission and the vision statements uh what does it say about pbs as an organization so as you think about that what are we putting out there as an organization could you say that again as you look at our as you reflect as you quietly reflect as you're on task if you finally reflect on the mission of the vision uh statements uh what do they say about uh pps as an organization what does that say about us and i guess the next question is is that what we want to save i have one quick question of course we got rid of every pps student i'm in favor of keeping out pps just because we serve students outside sometimes yeah and it's just focusing on everything yeah i like getting rid of people yeah [Music] this is this is pbs can i add a little wordsmith uh i don't an environment a successful environment do we mean a supportive environment and then so we don't have to repeat every student can we put it up front we provide every student with a supportive environment that ensures a rigorous high quality academic learning experience no i like it disrupt preparedness i like the pairing as well the supportive successful what do you guys think supportive success is successful what is the successful environment yeah i look supportive i know we mean because supportive implies that you know it's differentiated okay so the difference is this if you have a supportive environment
01h 00m 00s
it doesn't necessarily mean your eye is on making the child successful but if you talk about a successful environment you have to include the supports to get to the success so it's just a little broader got it okay so why um so close um because i'm just scarred by um part of some of my experiences at pbs because like um what i'm concerned about is like the end doesn't end with like the outcome for what we want for the students of the environment it's like here's what we're going to provide and you know i've had some of my kids teachers say like i was teaching just they weren't like i was too busy teaching to help them um and so it's more like okay i kid you not um and so it's more like hey we we we did this but like they just weren't learning and so it puts the onus kind of back on the student and i feel like we're just missing something at the very end about like and we're going to do that and here's what you're going to get i think that's the jackson hour timer actually to change the ending to be creating an environment for every student to succeed suggested that there's there's some impact that sort of ties it back to the to the original statement around leaving the more just world but is there something that can anchor this that students succeed outside of pbs right so whether it's whatever it is so can succeed in the broader community or in the community or something like that well i i think that that word successful is also i'm the daughter of an immigrant and you know it could be very narrow it could be doctor lawyer not working in a restaurant and so i like that it's i like that it's not specified um the generality of it feels more inclusive for fun so i'm looking at the thesaurus for succeeds accomplish benefit flourish prosper thrive triumph win i i just might be a family jonathan can it be an environment for every student to succeed that was the most for every student yeah for success for every student we provide every student with rigorous high quality academic learning experiences that are inclusive and joyful did you have a suggestion mark restaurant rich perhaps i would say a vibrant and vibrant environment for every student to achieve excellence or demonstrate excellence [Music] should we do the close our eyes again yeah we're going to make shots okay so the door's closed we provide every student with rigorous high quality academic learning experiences that are inclusive and joyful while disrupting racial inequities creating a vibrant environment a vibrant environment for every student to demonstrate excellence [Applause] i was trying to play the elevator door open again but apparently you have to listen to an
01h 05m 00s
adversary what do you think about this what's the um what's the sense of this one is it compelling does it does it elicit the sort of inspiration that we want is it uh is it reflective of the values can we say this with pride everywhere we go regardless of your rule at pps can it fit on a t-shirt [Music] i can see a yeah exercise with each uh participant with one of those words and trying to create the sentence that is hilarious yes can i suggest three words to delete because they're appearing at the end now that every student with at the top [Music] last iteration felt a tad long yeah and it talks about what we provide who we are you could even just do we provide a migrant environment for every student to demonstrate accidents too i like thinking that can i can i make a friendly amendment um because i like to be concise but you can tell me i feel like if we have two short sentences as opposed to one uh one long one friendly amendment you can you can uh you can kick me out uh that are inclusive and joyful period we disrupt racial inequities and create vibrant and create vibrant environments for every student to demonstrate excellence time for two sentences two sentences they're short which will help in memorization mission statements i've seen some mission statements i'm not lied to you i've seen oh i like that to create organ create inequities to create vibrant environments too that's great okay one last oh no i was just gonna say i was just gonna say one last question like can people live with this very i'm saying do you want to do one last elevator and then are we there okay here we go and then the test is can dr burke recite it after the elevator no pressure but i i believe in you i really want this for you thank you we provide rigorous high quality academic learning experiences that are inclusive and joyful we disrupt racial inequities to create vibrant environments for every student to demonstrate excellence sean close your eyes and tell us what we just said we provide high quality academic learning experiences that are inclusive and joyful we disrupt racial to create vibrant experiences environments for every student to demonstrate excellence you forgot the word rigorous but other than that we'll take it and it'll fit on a t-shirt yeah says david we're gonna get some t-shirts we'll have those soon well so i think now we're uh we're at uh the chair's question is this is this the mission statement that you can incorporate into all of the all the work moving forward and this is this is right now yep and this is for now so like i'm a person that sometimes like okay i'd say like for tonight yes but it's like um i always wonder am i looking at just through my my lens so we have like 28 lenses here um you know are we let me see something do we want to put it out for like as a draft just as a did we completely miss something
01h 10m 00s
um before like this is the final well i mean i think that's a that's a your question makes me do a wondering i wonder as you're reading this for all of you as you're as you're thinking about this what other perspectives are you bringing into the room right so we all have our individual perspectives i was very clear about what my sort of perspectives are um what uh maybe we should sort of go around and surface amongst yourselves like kind of what perspectives are you thinking about in doing this because i think that can help inform an answer right so and i think it's okay if you're like i was just thinking about me um but as you think about this is there other perspectives that people are bringing and thinking about as we're thinking about the mission statement so for example i would answer for david i imagine that he is thinking about the media response as well as a t-shirt situation like the font size yeah so what are some other perspectives that people are bringing into the room as they're considering this i think when i'm looking at it i'm thinking about families that may have felt left out in the past like i'm thinking about families who may have felt like this school system hasn't been working for me it hasn't been focused on me um i'm i'm the invisible student that's there every day that's that's sort of what i'm thinking about as i'm as i'm going through it and wanting to push back as far as like the academics and i don't care that they can do this i want to know that they can read and so that's sort of what i was the land i was trying to come from and do you think that hold on just one second let's let's hear all the perspectives and then we'll okay let's do that other perspectives that are bringing that you're bringing into the room i've heard a lot of pushback on the vision the vision doesn't call out academics as robustly that it has a lot about leadership than like the kind of person but that that basic about like can they compete full read um so that was part of my thinking as we looked at the mission statement and then pulling in you know some of the community feedback that i heard in that visioning process about the kinds of things that mattered to people who were at those meetings about you know and i think the high quality piece is something and then that again for me the joyful that you know i hear from so many folks the social emotional and then i get back to inclusive with the sped families that we want to have high quality academic experiences for for students that are special education students as well and that that that's something i've heard time and time again from that community is that it's not about just like babysitting it's about providing rigor to all students regardless of their educational status great all right other folks other perspectives i i guess you know i was like being uh funny but i also i like as we were thinking about this i was thinking of like [Music] leaders of our rsj partners and sort of how the mission statement is both inclusive of their work and also kind of differentiates roles it makes me wonder if we should those are all people that i've known and worked with for years um and they speak for our communities that are the least well served and i'm just wondering if if we would run it by them like look at it for one minute and and you have like one sentence feedback or are we okay like i feel like i feel like um the perspective that i bring is is represented it's going back to what you said um director green was about those the families that are invisible students that are invisible don't show up to the meetings don't even write an email don't even know that we have an email address maybe yeah so it's those students that we i feel like i feel like they would see themselves in this statement and i think about i think about the 9 000 staff that i get to work with that we all get to work with and as they read this you know i see them finding ways to connect you know and it's explicit that we're about racial equity uh right network we're here to construct racial inequities um that we're here to provide inclusive and joyful experiences and so whether you're you know a teacher looking from a classroom or the janitor or the superintendent you know how are you living into that statement and i think it really it gives me a lot right it gives me a step i i can envision this um on the wall of every classroom i know like for my own i've used you know like mission statements just to keep a north star you know you're sitting there and you're working at your desk and they're like why am i here you know having those existential questions questions of yourself it's to do this in case you need a reminder yeah and it's on the wall so it's you don't have to memorize it so i guess going back to julia's question right it's sort of like if we
01h 15m 00s
think about the multiple perspectives that are at the table as well as the other perspectives that we're trying to bring in um do you feel like this needs more vetting or do we feel like this is something that we've we've really tried to bring in those other perspectives those folks that are sometimes invisible our partners our staff students families so um what i tried to bring this is like a viewpoint of like a parent of a student who wasn't successful in pps and because of like the academics and just a variety of other things um and like other parents i know who've like maybe been frustrated with this system because like for whatever reason it didn't serve their students well and i think this gets at it um i guess one of the things that i sometimes get and i i don't know one plus for some of the things that ailey said um just what i heard from parents like after the visioning process it's like that's a lot of edge you speak or like kind of insight like you guys are insiders like we use robust and that's a code word for rigorous academics and so i just i wonder it's like if i were to like talk to just like you know regular parents who aren't involved in any like education policy or you know that they you know drop their kids off at school do the best i can to support them is like are we are we using language that's accessible and that's just like a wondering i i have that's sorry i think it does i mean you know when i think about i mean i'm translating it in spanish right like i'm reading and translating spanish how would i talk to my mom about this right and it does right because i think it goes to kind of herman's point right like my mom has a sixth grade you know fourth grade education you know but she knows what i i mean she doesn't know what high quality is because she doesn't have a degree but she can imagine right because she sees me joyful when i came home as a fourth grader or kate you know saw me excited to do my homework and so in that way i think when i'm talking about it when i look at it it does speak to that they may not know the lingo they may not know the research behind it but they can feel it it's really weird at a higher academic level than the first than the existing one right it goes from there's more plain speak in the current one this is more of a graduate level and it's beautifully the language is beautiful but that's a that's a choice i think one of the things that like jonathan was talking about the staff i think this is a really tacky statement and that like there's lots of stuff that like people can stick to so you can if you just look at sort of like rigorous right like there's there's a lot of folks who can when you think about like what's happening now in service of the vision there's like a whole set of stakeholders and holes wholesome folks that can unpack liberals right rigor alone right you think of like russ and the systems performance group you think of like our office of teaching and learning right like this is it's really tacky right high quality academic learning experiences right you're like oh my gosh let's just dive in there right i think about like our early learning partners and some of the pre-k work that we're doing around sort of like what what does that actually look like it feels really tacky like there's so many things that you can get in there and sort of stick to and so i think one of the challenges is how do you how do you sort of inspire while also being accessible and i think there's there's trade-offs but in looking at this it feels really tacky like you know i think that there's a good thing about that there's so many things that people want to climb up to in that work um you know and i think we are maybe a little bit on the scale right of the right of nerd on the scale here but i think it's 7 30 on a thursday night and folks are kind of like oh yeah this is like this is what we're doing this is exciting well i think every family regardless of the education you have regardless of you know i mean my dad just wrote me uh i shared it with the superintendent um saying i hope you remember your grandmother moving over here with an eighth grade education emigrating with an eighth grade education with two kids and i hope you draw strength from that like that she moved here not because she wanted to leave things to do every every family wants a high quality academic and some people move continents for that yeah i think from what um from like if we're looking at like a worriedness the the um and i think about it like write it so that a fifth grader can understand it the words rigorous and inaccurate so the only two words on the page that i feel like they might be like what does this mean you know so when you look at so but high quality you're gonna know what that is academic learning experience you know but rigorous they might like what does
01h 20m 00s
that mean um in equities they may be like what i mean i get it but and it reads good i don't like it don't get me wrong i don't have a problem with it i just like it um the only thing i was going to say is what we're talking about i see it in every classroom i feel like as a board we need to figure out and vote and say we want to do it and we want it in every classroom and every school we want it in the principal's office we want about 12 of them in every hallway and everybody should have to have it period every day i want you to see it that's so that we're all reading and seeing the same thing um but if i were gonna like from an educational perspective like uh it's worthy the rigorous and um inequities how do we say that and uh use something that a fifth grader would understand so if it's gonna be in every classroom then we got to think about the elementary school that is going to go in right and the elementary school is going to have to look at it and try to explain it to the kids and their their third grade class rigorous and they like what is that so we're gonna put rigorous up on the wall with the definition and when they leave at the end of the year they'll understand what the word means i don't like any i don't like the racial justices or racism because that's real easy to say well i'm not racist i'm not in just but in equities right like that starts to talk about privilege and so i think i think racial injustice and racism actually are cop-outs for white folks so i think racial inequities is a much stronger word it goes to our deeper values and i think we need to teach it to all of our kids on the other hand i think about parents of color racial inequities sometimes feels like you're dancing around the racism justice is something that i think a lot of people connect with right justice is wrong anywhere in equities i mean i like racial i obviously like racial inequities but um but i think the same side of that coin is then for white people it's like well i'm not being racially unjust that's just how the system is right there's a there's a cover there that i don't actually have to change i'm a nice person i'm not this is not an injustice this is just happening right and justice is george floyd being murdered not you know how my school gets more it's over there so i mean but i see what you i mean i think michelle you've all talked about we need to name things for what they are and be really clear so i think that's important but i also think there's a distance in it that nice white people do so but i'm happy with that racial activities are racial injustice or racism are all fine andrew do you have any thoughts to add no i i mean i feel a little bit like i'm in the elevator so i'm in a good position no i like it a lot i mean i think we fit on something really good i i it's a really minor thing i might take out the word vibrant um i mean i like the word vibrant but just in terms of of you know we disrupt racial liquids to create environments right um vibrant is one of those where it feels a little bit like a like an added word to me but i don't feel strongly about it um just doing a time check it's about 7 35 and um you know one of the characteristics of white supremacy is perfectionism and i guess i think we need to know like is this going to work for us it it does for me i feel like we've worked with it we could do this all night but i'm really happy with where it is right now and that's yeah it works for me [Music] um before we close out i just want everybody to acknowledge um yes it is happy birthday to you there it is [Music] jonathan for an excellent facilitation but really really nice job on giving us something to respond to and making it so we're not here till 10 o'clock tonight i think the work was really really productive [Music] excellent


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