2021-11-10 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2021-11-10
Time	16:00:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	committee
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: 11/10/21 PPS Board of Education's Policy Committee Meeting

00h 00m 00s
why don't we certainly i want to welcome um a new committee member uh danny page uh from speech um so welcome and i thought what we do is just just around the inside table anybody who comes in to present to the table if you're not at the table right now just introduce yourself when you uh come to the table so director green you want to serve my name is director herman green and i'm excited to be on eddie i don't know what else i'm supposed to say being here let's go human resources jackson library student after the board of education uh terry brady director of student transportation but not a committee member sorry great and i think um we have director lowry and she disappeared i'm here uh this is hayley lowry i'm gonna be listening into the meeting and participating virtually with my camera off because i am sick um i'm on hello everybody my name is michelle de pass i'm the chair of the school board and i'm also attending virtually um because i am not driving today i'm being climate friendly that's a very sustainable thing for you to do and i hope you didn't turn out your your board packet um especially the policy that we're about ready to it's all good welcome jonathan is there anybody else here nope um so we have a very full agenda and um it's gonna it's gonna roll out a little bit differently than i think we talked about at the last meeting just given um some intervening um conversations that happened and we do have on the first order um agenda item was the climate crisis and i'm going to ask um just if we have a brief schedule change to the two agenda items that should be relatively quick um and then um we'll go to the back to the right of order and the two items that i'd like to move up is agenda item number three which is policies for rescissions um we have two proposed rescissions being um that are planned i don't know do you want to speak just briefly for live staff was proposing that they rescinded uh i'd be happy to um uh 3.20.011 planning time um we'll start with that one it doesn't in recognition of the purpose of conducting the board may incorporate into the regular school calendar of time doing which students will not attend school it doesn't really provide a policy the board has that permission the board does that in our effort to streamline the policy manual and make the information useful this doesn't give much information to people who are using it last amended in 2002. the second policy for proposed decision is 5.20.080 evaluation of teachers this is all handled in the specific bargaining agreement which should be the source documents for that one um are there any any committee questions about the two proposed items for risk for to recommend to the full board for rescission okay um can i uh call for a vote on the recommendation um all in favor aye oh i thought we had to do the thing as we did what no it's it's less informal because it's just a recommendation can't actually formally decide
00h 05m 00s
issues so we're making recommendations to the full board i'm just getting ready to make motions so i'll just i'll just get ready okay director uh the pass on lowry are are you supportive of these to the yes yes yes any objection from cinderella yes sorry okay thank you um thank you so we'll those will ask um the board leadership to put that on the agenda the next meeting um the next agenda item that i wanted to move on and excuse me um please can you read do you mind reading the the policy numbers again please so it is policy three 3.20.011 that's planning time and the other one is policy 5.20.080 the evaluation of teachers thank you um and both those policies are in board books um with links to the actual policies so the next um agenda item uh was not contemplated uh but we have and that i'm going to ask that we move up which is the an amendment to the cafeteria policy and that policy is 5.10.090 and um we had a request last week from staff to um either amend or um or suspend the policy um and so um in um in recognition to what essentially what we have a federal law that we had made some changes to the policy and in whatever board that was that put this in the policy we have 50 pages of our cafeteria plan which is essentially an employee benefits plan and it focuses on pre-tax and after tax um expenditures but essentially we don't need this policy in and we shouldn't have it in our policy manual because it's just actually copying the plan and anytime i want you to plan we have to change the policy so as an alternative we have um a statement we have an amendment that is in your packet and essentially it would delete all of the contents the 50-something pages of the policy and replace it with the with essentially two paragraphs um and the paragraphs say in order to deliver on its mission and vision for the whole schools needs to attract retain support qualified workforce in support of that pps offers comprehensive employee benefits offerings including health and wellness benefits and flexible spending accounts um legally required compliance changes in district hectare fine will be publicly posted 10 days before plan changes are made financial implications the changes will be shared with and may be reviewed by the board changes to the cafeteria plan that represent new material benefit programs will be approved by the board um the district's factory plan will be publicly posted so essentially taking a plan out of policy which is not the right place for it and creating a mechanism that staff can recommend changes to to the plan and actually implement them after they've posted the changes and anything that's a new benefit employee benefits that's offered that um those would be approved by the board she got a call my dean is here this is i think you covered it very well it's the cafeteria plan is not something that belongs in the policy manual it requires amendments to comply with the law from time to time it doesn't belong there anyway it makes it harder to amend that when it is a policy and not just a plan so this amendment endeavors to make that happen and we have policy we have planned changes that need to happen by the end of the calendar year in order to be compliant so this furthers the district's ability to do that this calendar year as well as going forward do you want to add any of that
00h 10m 00s
uh sorry i got it i needed to take scientists about uh but the those changes to the plan and allow us to offer tax the tax benefits that are generally available they allow us to offer them to employees so the consequence of not being able to amend the plan would mean our employees would not get uh you know tax deductions so that's the timing importance based on the texture another question sort of a question so under normal circumstances i understand it doesn't get changed every year but under normal circumstances um just having a 10-day posting of plan changes is not a like any sort of hardship or anything yeah i'm going to look at our director benefits by gina hyde to confirm my affirmation of that yeah um and typically you know changes to your point aren't made very often this last year we had some related so some special exceptions that allowed us to make changes like for example to our flexible space was the last time was changed in 2015 okay so 10 days is fine you don't want more or it less without changing the cadence of you um is there any board committee member discussion or questions for staff i don't have any julia i don't either um jesse green do you want a move that would be uh i like to make promotion that we moved to a vote okay oh herman so just be clear this um it's so handy that we have the chair of the board here um because this in order for us to meet the staff's deadline um this needs to be on the next board meeting [Music] agenda and then the second reading in december and it would accomplish the objectives that staff the staff needs and raise is that right and then provide a lot more flexibility going forward and get rid of 50 pages of the policy manuals correct okay and i'm in favor of putting it on that would be this tuesday yes and then we would follow up after uh um process-wise after a comment period for a second reading or yes because we'd be removing something and replacing it so we're amending the policy and so we'd come back at the december meeting which um and have the second reading and adoption in theory of the um in time for the end of the benefit year they can make the change in time and it would set us up for the future that we wouldn't be in this position ever again right if sharon says it's great i believe her thank you i'll make sure we'll make sure that that gets on the agenda for the coming meeting okay um does this give us enough time to make sure that all the board members get to like get to see the information read through it and figure out if they've got any questions about it before yeah so i'm gonna send something out because i say i just found out about it last tuesday it wasn't something that was anticipated um but we'll send something out so that people can take a look at it um and raise issues at the birth reading and we also have another committee meeting in the interviewing time so people wanted to make some sort of amendment okay so the hope is that we wouldn't have any substantive changes to restart the first comment basically to meet them right which is five percent send something out um and and just for prioritization i would say you know don't read through the 50 pages but rather take a look at the staff recommendation yeah so don't read through the whole document because we're trying to um rescind uh resend and replace resend and replace thank you um committee members uh everyone in favor of recommending the amendment to uh the yes yes yes sorry can't find my new button yes okay great um thank you everybody and i appreciate uh the graciousness still love that we added a disney agenda
00h 15m 00s
we are going to go back to the climate policy and at the last meeting just as a way to reframe things up uh there's been i don't know six or seven months of uh policy development by the 2021 for lots of discussions draft you know draft 24 um changed clark ran a community engagement process um and reported last committee meeting on the the findings and that's was posted and so at the last meeting we set up a process by which um individuals who had committee members who had changes they wanted to propose could um a deadline that they would provide their comments by and then a staff deadline for uh comments on the comments is that so comments on the comments um and then we're gonna come back today and have a sort of final discussion and i think it's fair to say if you've seen the documents you'll realize that you're not going to get have a final recommendation today to at least that's my assessment and but maybe people might have a different assessment but then we're not going to get to a final um document to recommend to to the board yet because um in in addition to the staff comments on the comments and assessment we also had there was a discussion with the superintendent um and subsequently with staff on friday about you know a different proposed structure and essentially currently we this the committee this committee and its multi-year versions has focused on the policy primarily because that's the board's role and that um not so much the baby because that's a staff role for the implementing plans because that's really useful um and what was suggested and i i'm going to have us at a cert at a point here in the discussion to go through the staff recommendations i would um group them into like two main categories well three categories one just some substantive comments on the draft and then second there is um if you are looking at the document uh there is one that's a version 24 and it has green blue and red fonts on it and sure i don't know if you can pull that up just so people have a sense of what it is but at some point we'll want that hold up which which one did you like version is that virgin got too forward so essentially staff came back with three three buckets in addition to some non-substantive and seven different changes throughout the document but they they put some items in red of the draft policy and those are ones that staff um is recommending remove all together um there is green text there's not that much of that but that is remain a policy and as a blue it says move to policy move from policy to the administrative objective or the implementation plan and um yeah have mixed i've mixed feelings about it because we're so far down the process and there's been lots of community conversations and there's also been community engagement around the policy um however i think we should have the discussion and um see if you know from a committee's perspective um what what we think is important um let's stay in the policy if we agree about removal of some items and then third if some items are going to move from the policy of a.d and so i'm sorry but this is a really long frame up but if you look at the
00h 20m 00s
documents it's not a complicated exercise it's not a simple exercise to just get from a to b which is what we had kind of outlined last time and um from my perspective if at this stage after seven months that we moved things from a policy with demogenius going to the ad otherwise it's not really in the ad um so um that is the frame up and i've thought a lot about what the right order is because we have conflicting um versions and then a version that actually makes some secures potentially some super substantive changes i think the best thing to do is at the the most important items um dan that were commented on that use your judgment on like what what's most important or and if you if you agreed with the comment like let's just dispense with that really quickly and because if staff agreed with the comment then we're sure would be helpful if i walk through some of the rationale for why the proposed change why don't we wait till we get to that performance change because i'd rather like get your the do the homework do the homework first that's what everybody until last friday myself included thought the exercise was going to be so i think people provided input and um it'd be good to hear so the document you're referring to you're now referring to dan is this is a memo on the subject of climate crisis crisis response policy staff input on new proposals and so this is the the comments on the comments and the staff homework and we're happy to watch we're going to walk through each one and again the ones that that agrees with the comments and for that i will uh ask aaron pressberg our student program manager of sustainability thanks dan um so just for a high level context the way we structured this memo was to so karen are you gonna share this does everyone have access to it [Music] um so the first one that we're gonna go over is the initial reduction so previously we had written in there that we would reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 50 by 2030 and then going that's zero by 2050 the comment now is to move that timeline up to 2040 for that zero target um so we agree with it in principle but we just wanted to kind of highlight some of the barriers that we might find so most notably moving up the timeline does not necessarily mean that we can control how fast we implement the work so we're a little bit concerned that um due to different barriers such as construction capacity in the industry or funding or our ability to continue to pass voter improved bonds to implement the work there's a lot of barriers and a lot of all the dominoes that need to fall in order for us to to reach this goal um i'm not saying it's impossible but it's it's going to be extremely difficult unless we can secure our bond funding and we can make sure that the construction industry continues to boom and then we can leverage that in order to make all the necessary improvements um most notably would be building electrification so converting all of our hvc systems to electric fuel instead of natural gas fire and then of course converting all of our fleet not just transportation but all of nutrition services and maintenance do electric vehicles as well so serious cost implications serious timeline and schedule applications but it can theoretically be done if the right pieces are in place um now for the actual recommendation we we discussed you know we got a lot of feedback through public comment that we didn't want to invest in carbon offsets which i agree with but i think that it's going to be very difficult to meet the 2040 goal without having that option to invest in carbon offsets um so my recommendation or staff recommendation would be to keep it at
00h 25m 00s
keep it up 2050 without carbon offsets or move it up to 2040 with an option to make up the difference in kind of investments of carbon emissions any questions about the 2040 are there any implications that we don't like i would love to take a stab at answering that i think was the question what are the implications if we don't do this by 2040 yeah so in climate circles 2040 is a year in which um two really large things happen one is which uh in the united states we move from a white majority to a majority of people of color based on census data and the other thing is that it's projected that if we don't meet carbon carbon emissions goals by 2040 that uh we have like the the time on the planet becomes even shorter if we haven't met goals um establish goals and met goals by that by that date it just means the clock is running down from that date quicker than it is today in lay terms and so um a lot of climate policy globally is is kind of focused on 2040 the years 2040 and then 2050 or even 2030 and those are large institutions are grappling with this and even you know in glasgow the meeting uh the meetings over the last few days about climate policy um are showing that there's a there's an urgency um to to get this address as soon as possible um and i also heard a comment about should we pay for uh carbon f sets and i would say our money would be better spent rather than paying for offsets for our operations in in in in investing in the infrastructure required to reduce those emissions rather than the carbon emissions put putting off that payment to others or or just paying for for for um for carbon emission activities it would be better for us to invest as an organization in mitigating strategies rather than paying for bad behavior if that makes sense if i may um i think you know how your question around how it might impact schools specifically i would i would argue and i would say that the previous experiences in previous history in this organization leads us to to know that uh unrealistic expectations you know uh create a lot of political anointings um and we want to be thoughtful about how we have uh conversations that are important to the community that are addressing these issues with realistic understanding of what's in front of us so what you're hearing from staff you know is this this desire to to accelerate and move forward you know towards these these uh very important goals but it's also making sure that we understand that as a system there are systems upon systems upon systems that need to all fall into place in order for and so if uh and so if we don't account for those and we still accelerate you know we put up a 2040 timeline in this example you know and we don't get there what is what is the push back the unrealistic pushback that you start hearing when you start creating unrealistic expectations in the community it makes it makes perfect sense we can we need to both um support you know the most aggressive you know climate mitigation strategy and we need to keep in mind you know the impact financial operational the the impacts to the organization as well there's a there's a cost for for everything not even just financial so i i appreciate you i mean the reason i'm advocating for even keeping this policy in this committee for longer is that it's really important to get this right there is going to be a tension between like what can we afford what can we actually do what do we have the staff to do and and what are our lofty goals we need to hold both of those truths together and in the same bucket so i appreciate hearing uh i appreciate the the feedback because i think it'll make the policy stronger in the long run
00h 30m 00s
i would say the other thing is if we have an oversight committee we'll and after the initial benchmarking happens and the staff does their implementing plans we'll have a sense about whether we can we can hit that and so there's a lot of time it's not going to be in 2039 we're going to be like hey dan how are you doing on that and if you didn't do it like like there's gonna be some punishment i mean i think we'll be able to track it but also i think the other thing that we can't anticipate is like i think it's really important that we also put up that um this is all reliant on passing more bonds because we're not going to get there on schools we have so that that that's an important conversation with community it's like hey you have to do your part too um but the other thing is um because of what's happening around the world like the technological innovations that are that are happening um and the integration is just around infrastructure is that right now there's not an electronic solution that's viable and affordable but like the whole world's working on stuff like this so um i do think there are things that we don't anticipate that um i totally agree with director of the past don't waste money on offsets um this isn't a greenwashing thing but we if we don't put that out there and really press hard i don't think we can get engage in the same conversation that if let's say we have to do 2050 and then we you know use apartment offsets um so i i actually like stuff putting in the hero things that need to happen for us to meet that and it's aggressive and so people know that so we don't have false expectations but also we're really clear like hey we're going to need voters to pass bonds for the next you know 20 20 years because that's how we get 100 year schools for sustainable i want to add um just a couple comments and one is that one of the ways one of the ways we could invest we could consider investing is in developing the in-house capacity to measure and monitor climate emissions um and there's plenty of systems out there to do that and and training and the other thing is we could look at innovative financing packages which for instance the university of uh british columbia and bank in victoria in victoria i'm sorry um had a fantastic deal with i think machinistry and an hvac contractor where they looked at a 20-year financing tool which um the investments were kind of given to the university up front and they the university had a 20-year plan to pay off those investments um based on uh like 50 of what the saving what the financial savings were in energy costs i'm not explaining that very well there's a very large upfront investment to the university of british columbia in which they paid off are still paying off currently this 20-year plan that gives them a reasonable way to pay that those investments off by signing over 50 percent of what the energy cost would be with the difference between the delta between what you pay in energy costs without the improvements and what you pay with the improvements in solar and renewable energy it's a really um what it's a great financial tool to look into and it works for organizations um at least campus-wide if not scattered site episode 2040 the new language would be 2050 without paradigms that's the suggestion yeah yeah and like i don't i say i agree with director de pass about um the carbon offsets um but i'm not anticipating next year we're going to start buying carbon offsets because next year is just 2012 free right i appreciate like like you're saying i appreciate all the information that was laid out this is what it's going to take this is what it's going to look like this is what we would need to do and then with that i would still say we make the goal and then we set milestone markers along the way we go for it and use these are all the things that we need to do to get done set milestone markers along the way of how we're getting there and then reassess at a at another time but don't play it safe i mean to me to say let's no let's extend it by by 10 years because you know that gives us more of a chance or we could say push ourselves and run this thing into the ground and we're going to use this as the we're going to use this as our
00h 35m 00s
our mantra we're going to stand up on the top of every flagship and we're going to say we're going to get there by 2040. this is how we're going to do it and in order to do that it's going to take this this and this and this and you know we can't do this by ourselves we need every one of y'all chipping in and push it back to the community say help us reach our goal because if we're going to do it we're going to it's going to take everybody but i don't believe in the the scarcity mindset i just don't it's i believe in abundance there's there's abundance out there and if we want it we just gotta we just gotta go for it so i'm saying push ourselves and run it until the engine explodes so watch it blow up you're on the board preach do not make reach these goals what is your to the community so at 20 30 my response would have happened in 2030 actually because if we're setting milestone markers along the way and i'm on the board then i know based on the milestone markers of that we set where i need to be so i'm going to reverse engineer it like project management does using a gantt charge a gantt chart in order to do this we have to have this this this and this in place by then so i know at this date either we're on target or we're not so at that point i can already start saying look we're we're supposed to be here by now and we're not so in order to meet this goal that we have in place to get this ready by 2040 we have to expedite this this and this and so you technically are going to know that at 20 30 you're definitely gonna know it at 20 35 so by the time 2040 gets there because i'm so transparent with everything i got on black underwear right now that's how transparent i am i believe i'm putting all out there let everybody know so that we all know where we're at that way i'm not trying to keep nothing for nobody and everybody understands this is what we're going to do to get there this is what it's going to take and i'm not doing it by myself because i'm constantly every meeting i'm gonna come back to the committee i'm gonna come back to the community and say all right this is what we did this week this is what we're planning to do next week and go that way so so by 2040 they already know so yeah so kind of just one comment okay thank you chair uh and so i appreciate the kind of the the the parallel the comparison to project management and i hear i hear what you're saying i think the the challenge here and you know as a project manager one of the things that you always think about you know are is the pyramid right i think the difference here is a little bit that that we have forces that are outside of our control correct like beyond of what a project manager does that's right a project manager really has a scope he has that we can understand here we're dealing with federal regulations state regulations uh lack of funding you know you name the issue right and so what we're suggesting as staff is that we're not trying to you know and i'm the first one to say let's go bold let's go big let's go i mean that's been my my position from day one but we also have to be realistic and and and you know what staff is suggesting is we are looking at the different scenarios and the different you know strategies in front of us and it's going to take more robust things now it doesn't mean we can't accelerate right but that's going to take you know elected officials like you going to the feds going to the state and pushing pushing the envelope right so i just uh i think it's so i i hear you're you're i i agree with you i think it's just a little bit more a different type of impact here i wonder if that happened i'm sorry just one last thing is if we could say 20 40 for everything [Music] for everything besides transportation um it's possible i mean a lot of these questions are going to be answered once we hear our baseline data and we look at the whole picture i know that our building energy is our biggest emitter transportation's number two there's barriers to both to be honest and the cost you know for transportation it's more of a cost barrier for for construction and building energy use it's more it's cost also but it's also disruption to the school activities in school here you know so there's there's construction compacts that are going to come back the school day you have to take down too so i wouldn't say that one is easier than the other to me i don't i am like slightly curious about the um you know because he said disruptions to like schools and stuff like that um by like addressing the urgency because like you know we don't need this like imagine like
00h 40m 00s
when the next floor is gonna have to do with like flooding and like you know i feel like right you know that might be like down the line it might be like more difficult like yeah and i you know directed the past touched on that like kind of more on the global emergency and the impacts of climate change which of course um we all agree with i'm i'm more than saying that the feasibility of actually getting the construction of the work done is what i'm presenting right now um i agree with you on the the science and 2040 should be the target but i'm just talking about the facebook can we actually get the work done due to funding construction capacity and everything else that needs to be done so even if the the goal is still set to 2050 is it's going to be tough to recycle too i would think i mean it's hard to say because who knows what's you know what the industry is going to be like at that time or as we approach that date um either way it's going to be tough but i know for a fact that 2040 is going to be tough may i offer a comment and that's that we were just kind of socialized to our long-range facilities plan last night and in there is a facilities condition report and there's also a ranking of buildings that need help you know sooner than others we we're going to build to the whatever the the building code is the oregon energy code the oregon building code standards which are are are strong and and we could also like in the case of the kellogg middle school we could also say you know we like that energy code and we're going to up it a little bit we're going to exceed the standard the building code is a floor that you need to meet and so i'm wondering if in this policy we can offer ourselves some flexibility well this is assuming any improvements we do to the shell of the building would be done to the code right so if we're replacing a window we're not going to replace it with a single plane window we're going to replace it with a double pane r value u-value window that meets or exceeds the building code and the same thing for for roofing and for insulation and any shell improvements and so i'm wondering if we can you know rather than kind of discussing the merits of like when this has to happen if we can make it a goal that we exceed the oregon energy code for instance by you know as much as we can as someone earlier mentioned the technology for instance in battery storage uh for solar power panel which is emerging and some of these other you know emerging technologies in um compressed compressed air systems and heating and ventilating systems like the technology is happening right now that's what we're teaching in engineering schools and so i'm wondering if we can build in some type of a flexibility that is attentive to cost but also says we commit to exceeding you know the floor that's expected of us you know anybody that does any building in oregon i would like to have i i would ask you to hold that thought till we get to the substance of the policy um because i um i don't think it's um in conflict with taking a date and then there's a lot of strategies underneath or goals or directions that you can set so i would ask you to hold that um as when we get to that point of the spectrum that's um that works i um what i hear from i think from the committee is a 2040 but to be very absolutely clear that there are um things that need to happen in order for us to be able to make that and that it's a stretch goal and i would say to staff that once the uh that initial assessment is done that you can come but you can always come back because that's that's the conversation with the community that should happen it's like this is our you know our target right now and if you guys get more information or hear some other contingencies that are required um you know i think that's a great conversation that they have um but i would say what i think i'm hearing is that the 2040 um and with all your contingencies and uh sort of the criteria what needs to happen in order to even have the possibilities well i'd be very disciplined to like never end the sentence just 20 40.
00h 45m 00s
if these things happen then the next item um and this gets into i think dr green's comments about um the transparency in the whole community um we want to share the next comment um i will turn it over aaron again yeah so this comment was the second one is about establishing the committee um i don't know if liz you want to weigh in on this one too um but there were really no notes on it we just drafted some language here under the staff recommendation i think it was to give kind of a parallel structure to some existing board appointing committees that have a defined number of uh representatives that are appointed by the board that there's a reporting cadence to the board um so i think it was just we looked at some other parallel structures within the district yeah so this is very similar to the bond accountability committee cbrc is it somewhere similar it's similar i think the bond accountability is what we do so my and i'm interested in director lowry's um comment on this because you um you provided some language uh which i appreciate by the deadline um so i'd be interested in your thoughts director lowry my only comment would be nine percent is like a right on the nose i would have something like eight to ten or just flexibility director lowry do you have a thoughts on the on the committee i first appreciate julia you acknowledging that i met the deadline for the due date we all know how obsessed i am with um getting i um i was once i once took a personality test that said uh that i have a tendency to be an over promiser under deliverer so when i say something that i'll do something it's really important to me that i actually follow through and do it it's one of my like life goals so that would be my obsession with getting stuff done by the deadline because i don't want to ever over promise and under deliver so now you all have some psychological work on me um so you understand my crazy a little bit better um i think that um the i agree with um dr broome edwards uh eight to ten percent um sort of uh range um there uh is helpful i think that you know the goal of this was that this was i think the this committee was something that the folks who brought forward this policy wanted and that we have taken out at points during the iteration of this policy and that um i really wanted us to make sure that uh this committee um very very much um reflects the frontline impact communities um and that we're again once again really centering the racial equity social justice values um of uh this policy end of our district um so i feel like i i i'm fine with that and this sense of um rhythm i really appreciate looking at our cbrc um i think it would be really helpful to say pbs will establish a nine person committee um you know that it is that the language liz we use for cbrc or the bond accountability or is it the board will establish that would be my question that this is a board committee that is advising the board and how do we make that clear in this language the intent is to make clear that it's a board established and board appointed committee and i can't remember exactly how this compares to the ac language but the intent was that it was similar to that i think one of the things it does that this doesn't that julia suggested outside of this meeting to me was that it's a no more than 10 and i agree with her suggestion can we each then appoint like 1.5 people no i mean no it's the whole board it's like cbrc michelle where people would apply and then the board would appoint them or the same with the bond accountability committee but i would i would say can we change it instead of pbs we'll establish a nine-person committee could we say the board will establish just to make clear that that this is this is on and i think it's really important to make sure that we're you know this conversation about what goes in the policy and what goes in the administrative directive right and how that relationship happens in a healthy transparent way i think that's a healthy and better amendment it should say the board and i think there's no question it belongs in the policy any um issues with uh well either the underlying recommendation or the um
00h 50m 00s
the change from nine person to no more than ten and then making clear it's the board yeah i have one of them i would rather have like a lower limit so we don't have like less than a certain amount of people i think it's okay to have more people rather than less than what we want well here's the great thing if it's a board-appointed committee like we can control that um so if there were only three people on it it's like it's the board's responsibility to go get um more numbers so i i don't know that that's necessary i also think that too many people makes it really hard to be functional there's a point where you get diminishing returns for too many people on a committee like this so i'd be i would i would actually be fine sticking with nine actually um because then we with five members who identify as people of color um i'd be okay with leaving it at nine but i think that i don't think we need a minimum i'd be fine with tonight i think having five what the thought was to keep that maturity right okay that's that was my my question are we making correct because we and we want um the five is because we're wanting to make sure that the uh the people of color the black community is the majority and so then with that though i want to um i want to make sure that we don't we're not so quick to get it that we the it says two that two of the voices have to be students right so can we can we make sure because i don't want of the five for two to be students i want there to be five then the two students that we have two students so that way we know we're not losing because i don't want you to say we captured five and two of them are students and then all of a sudden students they change schools they move town parents move or whatever the case might be and now we've only got three so that's what i was thinking but i i like the like yeah yeah i don't know but i do like the language though i think that was a good um does anybody have an issue with that i just think you need to be clear about whether that time or eleven because five of nine plus two students is eleven so i just i think we need to leave it i think we need to leave it at nine and i um dr green i hear your point and then it's incumbent on the board to replace those students you know with students to make sure we're still in our five and and we do the a very similar thing with cbrc where we have people go off we have students go off and then we replace folks on that committee so this is a great thing if it doesn't happen uh director greene it's on the board so like we have the ability to control what you i i like i don't got a problem with that okay well okay so sometimes you have somebody resign and like it takes a cycle to get them reappointed i mean i just i think that's the goal is nine but you might have just transitioned people like transition yeah the last transition so if you say no more than nothing that gives us as a frontline community members well i said frontline community members but what the policy actually says is people of color i'm in favor of using frontline communities and like trying to reduce the use of people of color just for best practices it's better to kind of name the communities but i like i like the frontline communities because i think it's understood that those frontline communities are are from bipod communities and i think what you may be asking is like some sort of definitional so we can since we're not moving at this meeting we can um respond to that yeah other places only from like because i work in public policy and sometimes we will like refer to those as people who like may like lose their houses our homes are more effective by um the climate crisis which is not always in full color but majority is but some but like in a racial equity standpoint it is people of color so that's why um i'm going to ask staff new definitions to somehow to work on that i think we need guidance
00h 55m 00s
about what you want so okay those are two he just articulated the difference and so we need some guidance from the committee about which definitions i would like um danny you to work with another committee member and liz on the definition that's okay i think it's a great call out okay um but i also don't want to do it here in this meeting so [Music] do they have a chance to communicate just to come back um so the next um item dan is the scope yep that's an easy one scope one let's go to the intention of the language what when we said scope you want to let's go so stop that one erin let me know if i missed something i also wanted to um one of the revisions or the suggestions i made was to clarify what scope 1 and scope 2 means and draw a reference point to the epa guidelines so scope 1 are things that are direct things an organization can influence and then scope 2 are things that um are are outside are outside of the direct control so that would be the purchase of energy for instance or fuel thank you it could be added to a glossary if we put together a glossary of definitions for instance so the red language was added to the maximum extent piece of the minimized indirect use of fossil fuels so we support their team direction a little bit concerned about the language because it's a little bit vague and it might cause a trade-off in cost so we we recommend that we leave out that liquid but leave it as is so then i could just stay out of the energy efficiency and minimize the indirect use of muscles so i think you'll find out the class but increase energy efficiency that could mean like you know one kilowatt hour like hey you did it because i'm i'm thinking about almost everything we do we assess cost trade-offs and it doesn't say i mean i guess to me that the qualifier was feasible and so to me that was the yeah well it's not feasible we're going to do it and process a feasibility a feasibility um it may be to define feasible in the definition section to deposit so it's clear that helps yeah good good well feasible or um you know somehow having some sort of cross standard yeah i think the concern was okay if we define what is it what is maximum extent feasible mean and what kind of trade-offs are we expected to make because of that language for instance do we spend more money on energy efficiency projects and take money away from uh education or some other department those are kind of the main concerns so i don't see the board's role as making that call for you so after the staff does the assessment and then comes up with this implementation plans it could be we dialed up you know this thing over here and we're doing less of this over here because that still gets us to 2040. um if this said get rid of all of it or maximize it uh without respect to anything else to me that'd be a different thing but this to me just giving stuff the flexibility that we can dial this one upward i think just the sad concern is because the language is vague it's open for interpretation so does someone then come and was like hold and read this and say well if you're not choosing to always select the most energy efficient unit regardless of anything else then you are not maximizing which or if you are not using all of your general fund uh ordinary meetings to repair palpable funds on energy savings and you're spending on something else well it's feasible that you could have made
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those trade-offs and so i think it's really just that interpretation of one of the languages take out maximum it is [Music] this is definitely not fun but we're we're we're discussing like you know perception you're you're you're because your your response is someone may perceive that we should be doing more someone may perceive that we're not doing enough i can guarantee you without question without question 100 and i'm 100 certain on this and i'm never 100 certain of anything that no matter what we do right wrong we're indifferent somebody is going to perceive that we're not doing enough or and somebody else is going to perceive that we're doing too little so we're never going to win so i don't think it's going to matter to me if we just take out if you feel comfortable you're happy then we just take out maximum i'm not sure i know the difference between feasible and maximum acceptance to me to the extent feasible says because we're not telling you how to spend the money that's that's what i'm hearing clear we're not saying i want you to go out and i want you to buy this and i want you to buy the the most cost effective energy efficient ac unit that our money can buy and i don't care who you take from me just give me the ac unit so that i can be and then go out and buy all solar panels we're not telling you that feasible says it's your job to look at the budget and to know where we got to spend stuff and how stuff is going to go and where we need i need you i need to know that you have in mind to the extent feasible that we're going to be considering the climate and the role that we're playing and getting there by 2040 and all those budget making decisions and to the extent feasible you're going to ensure that we're we're doing that so when i say the extent feasible that's what i mean when to me if i say to the maximum feasible then all i'm saying is you're really going to be looking at this and the best that we can do you're going to give us the best that we can do i'm not going to be coming back to you and i know that these meetings get recorded so i'm on record right now and saying that i didn't say that but to the to the maximum extent feasible did you do it and then if you tell me yes then it's yes you know why it's a yes because you told me it was a yes and i trust that you're going to do your job that's why you're here so to if you don't like maximum i'll say fine let's take out maximum to be a stick feasible that's like i don't see i don't see it you can define i'm fine with the final teachable to me yeah i know when i see it um and the definitions the rover may hit the road with this forward appointment appointed committee who's going to report to the board on how staff and how the district is meeting these goals so as long as their interpretation and the understanding is that they are clear means that aligns with what the intent is i think it's where i'm actually i'm curious you know and i'm going to bring in uh our auditor who's behind you yeah because i'm actually i'm sorry to bring in the conversation but i'm actually curious from your perspective if if you were to looking at this policy as is with the word feasible and you were to do an audit of the decision again you probably don't know all the context here but what would your advice or recommendation or your thoughts be to the school board on the interpretation of that word feasible from an implementation standpoint jonathan for calling me out a little bit more specific like adding those definitions like if you were to define feasible then that would be i always think about policies from their purview if that one some point i need to audit this what am i gonna audit to what's the expectation and for me to the maximum extent feasible is very big it would be extremely difficult to audit to um i know not all policies should be designed to be audited with that as its own intent but it definitely would help to have a definition or something very specific and the maximum extent possible when dan was saying like that people are going to say you didn't use the maximum amount of funds i can see that personality
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so getting more definitions without a lot of value appreciate that i think that's that's helpful um so staff can propose a uh a definition for feasible and the other thing is you could also just um put some sort of uh in the class within the district quest constraints the reality for me is like i'm not going to be asking which life will be bought but like are you on track to 2040. what do you need from the district um versus like how are you doing because there's not a sub like how are you doing on each one of these towards the goal of 2040. it's like collectively it's getting there um okay let's go to the next one and just just at the standard we're gonna go for like 15 more minutes then i'm going to set a process for the next meeting that we're going to have if there's any public comment on this um and then we have a couple other agenda items and i i'm sorry this wasn't the big uh move something out um meaning that there was a request from staff that we uh go in deeper and look at structure and so i think that's right the right thing to do okay i'll keep moving us along one point two point two here and don't talk about that one as well yeah so you still want to do each one still going through each one right um so this one 1.2.2 uh the added language was in red such as standardized bins for cycling provided by the district um so this is something we don't have currently um at least the front end or interior bins it would require some substantial upfront costs to purchase the bench that required costs would not be large um we should be a great measure as part of this policy but we think it's a little bit too specific as far as policy language goes so we would recommend this would be more of an implementation plan or an aed item just the right language yes because that calls out more of a specific measure [Music] pbs creates a lot of stuff and uh as a city we're you know moving towards no garbage so to me it seems like a nation for us to do but it is a it's a prescriptive action that's um we're moving towards what party you said we're moving towards what like no getting rid of garbage i mean you know it's like you have recycling composting i'm sorry did you mean to move to the a.d that statement no i'm just the whole statement you know probably i'm just saying as a city we ain't gonna have no garbage as a city like every two weeks a week or every other week may i speak to garbage for just a second it's a it's one of my favorite topics it's like my second favorite talk to talk about i'm housed in the solid waste department um in my day job and um mandatory composting uh for food scraps is coming um for for big producers it'll be a letter will go out in the spring but that's something that we should anticipate and we could actually get ahead of how to do that and um as you've probably noticed um we need to reform the solid waste system for the city i don't know if you've like noticed the sofas and beds and strollers and garbage there's garbage piling up that process is happening but what's what what's definitely going to be coming down the pike is the food composting and so i think it would be behoove us to start to think about what we can do in terms of where we place trash cans and some of those operational like low-hanging fruit we can do because it's going to be mandated i believe in 2023 so we have time to think about carefully how you know and where and staffing and where you put bins and kitchens etc thank you for indulging me on my favorite section i was like write that down we need to get ahead of things because i'm in favor of this day the most exciting part of this is that one of our goals is also to create wealth generating opportunities for people that don't have opportunities and so there's an opportunity to do um what's been done like in other cities
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where there are like black and brown worker-owned co-ops that not just take the compost off-site they actually take the whole bin off the site and wash a bin out so you always have a clean bin so institutions like that they like a clean bin that's you know picked up every other week or every week so i think what i hear is a lot of enthusiasm for the whole concept and that we're okay moving the standardized bands to in the a.d because that is um a a way in which you can do it it's very specific yes yes okay so next item multiply 2.3 pursue zero waste strategies was added existing language was minimized disposable materials and fully utilized all materials before disposal and then more languages added a special effort to eliminate simple use items in school cafeterias i'm going to ask for help here our expert over here with me services so she wants to add more coffee next year sure um so my recommendation for this piece um was to change eliminate to minimize um so while i would say like our goal has always been to minimize the single-use plastics across the across the district um there are some infrastructure and facility constraints that we've been trying to tackle year after year um but there i think that if you're looking at from a whole district standpoint there are some significant barriers with some of our facilities that don't include kitchens at all and so that is one of the one of the bigger barriers and doing it in the complete elimination across the district you would see some schools without the ability to do that so for example um i've noted so applegate um the upcoming current use of twilighter um hollyrood um east sylvan i'm currently working on information with patrick and his team to try and uh make into a production kitchen um but we do have um sites that we're utilizing that do not have kitchens nor the dishwashing capabilities that allow us to eliminate some of our waste practices um the other piece of it is that there is some um tied to um i know many of you have heard me say and are familiar with how heavily federally regulated our program is and so that's tied to some of our food participants um we are exploring and advocating for different avenues um for example just today an opportunity to advocate for fashion mode commodities commodities are very specific and might be individual single-use items as opposed to a gold purchase so it allows flexibility for us to head in the direction of our value a little bit easier but some of those things will take some time and so that was my recommendation um for those of those businesses specifically so i'm wondering would you be comfortable with this language including efforts to minimize single-use items as good bacterias yes so i'm curious would anybody on the committee um have an objection to that shift yeah no i couldn't find my phone to unmute um because i'm wearing headphones um that's fine with me sorry okay and i also think um i learned a lot when we had the students who came and presented and then i got a super interesting email uh from whitney um about the um just the efforts that are being made and just like things we have to take into consideration like kids throw away like real silverware um and you know how we adapt to that um so i totally get with the students like hey we want to do something every day while we won't be throwing this away and it's complicated um so if you could share that with the committee members that you know it's just it's a good background to keep your mind like hey as we're trying to get to this goal here's some things we have to keep in mind yeah remember that email you sent yes um so and i think it ties into what aaron was speaking to just earlier about when we roll out um definitely having consistent uh bins and practices from school campus to school campus has is really helpful because if they see something in their elementary um setting that they can practice as a behavior and then build up into middle school and high school it re-emphasizes those behaviors um and we've been able to actually implement
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the district-wide organic collection in all of our kitchens across the district so we are um in line with our food collections in the back of the house and the kitchen areas and we're trying to find i think the information that um gary's kind of monica a good practice for that front of the house cafeteria um practice that um definitely takes a lot more effort and that's uh to what director remembers is speaking to have a lot of efforts to try and make sure that students are aware of all the different separation of the bins and some of the schools are really great at it they can separate food waste plastic waste collect the plates make sure they stack silverware into a different bin and so you can understand that take some kind of practice but we also have to think about if we don't have that practice and education for our students and the behavior created we will see sometimes the plates and the real reusable ones end up in the waste stream and that is both costly from a financial standpoint as well as from an environmental standpoint so we really want to make sure we have that culture and environment set up and student input um into that process so that you can make sure that it's uh really well implemented okay i think we're um thank you thank you and uh um all of our fleet to electric or low emissions vehicles um there was a comment added we have a target date for this 2040 2050 or 2016. um so if you want to add to this but i'll just start by saying you know this is more than just our school buses we have we have a hundred school buses that we own any amount of costs to invest in navy is pretty pretty high compared to a propane bus so there's some cost barriers there we also think about our nutrition services fleet security maintenance uh any other department that operates district and it comes with infrastructure upgrades such as charging stations and that might trigger line extensions and electric service upgrades and that kind of infrastructure as well so there's some downstream construction impacts that we um that will be you know considered into these these um transitions as well so do you have a date that you're proposing um yeah terry um in here um i think i'd put in there we would struggle to meet a deadline of 20 to 30 years um especially due to cost and one of the things that's unknown at this time is what the actual infrastructure of manufacturing of peoples is going to be we ordered our first electric vehicle last year and we're still waiting on delivery we have no idea when it's going to show up um so there's there's those things and as everyone's adopting these new goals the demand for equipment is definitely going to make it hard to realize the supply it's just hard to know where we're sitting at right now versus where we're going to be in 10 to 20 years so setting a goal is great as long as i believe what's dr during was saying continually assessing and reiterating those goals to know where we can actually get to so um this may be another place where we want to add language in like just so that um what the challenges are the kind of technology and infrastructure um i guess there's two ways to do it you can either qualify it um with you know like um just the technology infrastructure and budget um you know as that's available transition and then the rest of the statement or you can pick another date i i thought this because the language here said had some alternative dates you guys wanted a date but you also could modify it in some other way this isn't a gotcha exercise but this is a we need to be heading in this direction i mean every i like the idea that um that jackson sort of brought up earlier about the from a facilities perspective we talked in 2040 but from a transportation perspective we might be talking a different time because because specifically of that that issue electric vehicles they're not cheap um and you know it's it's harder to justify wanting to buy a tesla that's that's that's hard to justify i need to get me a tesla because i want to save the environment
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well i could go down here and get this used car locker so we ain't got money from tesla right now my family is not letting me have as much as i'd like to get one but we just don't have the money so i like the idea of saying but from a facility perspective we got this going 2040. from a transportation issue because of the different things it might be you know i think you would put in there 20 60 i really i mean that might be extreme but you know what i mean just we need to give ourselves we definitely need to give ourselves some leeway when it comes to the transportation yeah definitely so that's not recommendation it says 50 by 2040 so 26 27 but for 100 that's kind of just like opening by then i guess and we can reassess and come back yeah and i think there's still quite a bit of research that needs to be done in regards because it's it's still relatively new technology when it comes to school buses yeah it's awesome okay so [Music] either way and i think you're hearing widespread acknowledgment that like this is a big challenge but it's also you know an important um emission source so uh so i'd like to come back with either like say qualifiers or and then so i'm now going to propose a process for the remaining items so director of the pass since you are a procurement or you have some sustainable procurement background i'm going to ask you to work with staff on the 1.51 to see if there's they're proposing completely eliminating it i know you have some comments on this so if you can work with aaron and team on on that one to see if we can come to some language that i say something somewhere between the language and what understaffed elimination language um i would be happy to do that but i'm very bad at procurement so i thought you were [Laughter] there's a landscape that i know that i can i think i can push i could i can do the pushing in the right places okay i'm gonna i'm gonna skip 2.1.4 because i think that the comment was small i'm sorry i'm just going to get this 2.24 develop district-wide plans for how to address natural disasters such as wildfires flooding drought heat waves extreme winter storms extreme wind events and others and staff is proposing cutting this and one of the issues that i saw the comment like is is this our mission um but this this is what we've heard from our students and our communities i mean i'm trying to like summarize um what she's came back from your um your sessions and this was sort of right in that wheelhouse and so what the last thing i want to do is go out and ask the community what you think especially the impacted community and then be like well we consider it when we took it out um so if we think this is somebody else's mission but we know this is what our students care about then what like what role does it have it doesn't mean we have to take it on but it could mean that we you know partner with the city and the county or whoever mission it is um to do something that i would just be hesitant to just ignore the main comment we got back in the communication um is there any more clearing what address is the district should appear essential to that because i'm working on moving things offline to the next meeting what i would ask is for religions and maybe um jackson um and danny to like talk about what that means i say i'm not just not comfortable with a recommending to the committee that we just take something out the main kind of what we've heard back i'm also like recognizing we can't just add something to our mission that we don't have sorry for competency
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um i you know from my perspective from like where i'm sitting i think that there is a value in having this plus and whoever does it whoever the adult is um whether it's somebody in the system or someone who you partner with like an agency to be able to um make sure that that piece is addressed and i know we uh have been having a discussion on a couple of key points here um and there are these other bodies of work that are just as important to students and people in the community and um i'm not sure you know the you know walking into a classroom that when students are telling telling us goals or expectations that they need to see that um there is a specific name in mind the board needs to do this and so uh if there is a place where this limits for this to come true to come to life um i think that would be a responsible kind of transition and we're doing the work in this public meeting and through these documents to sort of work through and talk through um that nuance um and what we need to do to make this work uh possible and successful and so um i think there's an opportunity as this is work is continuous and ongoing that we're not just going to have a one-and-done conversation with students that you know that this this work uh so uh there's an opportunity to continue it in more ways than one and uh i think is important because the policy once it's voted on is it's kind of done but the the real work is activeness and so that will be existing outside of the policy um so we can kind of figure out you know uh this is what the information we know now how to illustrate that and sure remember tonight you know with my experience in uh in previous in other cities uh all of these these conversations uh these plans are really an interagency endeavor right this is not this is led by uh the county the city you know uh because you know those are the first responders those are the books that are really thinking through uh all of these plans and we play a pivotal role obviously as a school system so i would i would just want to make sure that we're clarifying uh what we mean by address and i think so i just want to make sure that and it may be it could be something like support the county's work or the you know regional planning they work to and then just put everything else out of that um so i'd ask if you could try and come from some language if that works um jonathan um let's see um three point two two i'm going to go really quick quick the steps on the recommendation was to change all subjects to all students unless anybody objects i just with the heads of that then 3.26 um staff supports the addition of the language so take that same thing with 3.27 staff supports the language um and then the last one is 3.34 and there's uh a this is the one relating to whether we specifically call out school gardens and um staff has proposed an alternative language does anybody on the committee want to work with staff on if who's interested in outdoor learning spaces and gardens i like outdoor living okay jackson so does everybody everybody has like assignments for the next meeting um given the time um i am going to spend more time thinking about how we take today's work and then combine it with um a recommended a recommendation or proposal say a proposal from the staff on where things live and the next meeting you'd come back and just work through that and that there may be some free work for committee members to be prepared to come
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in and um have a point of view on some things does that work for everybody it works for me okay um was cara or roseanne was there any public comment relating to climate yes pardon yes we have mike who else would it be so i don't have any detailed comments today but i'll submit them i didn't want to mention the timing of the information provided today more than 30 pages will post one day before this meeting and that's going to live how can the public track progress given this approach and how does this contribute to building community trust um at a high level i want to note four things one is please listen to the community [Music] second point is yes this will be expensive and it can't be an unfunded mandate and we shouldn't be considering that we'll be robbing dollars from the classroom and that just can't happen and the point is the third point is the community expects more accountability measures in this policy and you're moving in the wrong direction the fourth point is the community expects more specificity in the actual policy and you're heading in the wrong direction the board has to leave and be bold and then i'll just keep reminding people this time is of the essence we're two years into this process uh thank you for coming and participating in the meeting is there anything else before we close out that policy and again i um appreciate everybody's flexibility and sort of the change and the conversation uh superintendent do you want do you want to say anything before i close it out uh yes just thank you i appreciate the full discussion and i know that we're going to continue to develop this to be the kind of bold uh direction and policy that we want it to be um so i appreciate that i don't think i've heard anybody disagree on the objectives that um that we're discussing we just want to make sure that we're able to build a plan that's transparent and accountable and that we make actual progress in all of these different areas so i do appreciate that i think we share that that objective so thank you everyone we really appreciate your personal engagement and the staff working with us to nail something that we can actually deliver and that's i just want to say before because they might leave how much i appreciate all the effort and intentionality that the staff has put into coming up with some you know some different verbs working with what we have i know a lot of times um we don't you know everybody wants to beat people up the moment something negative happens but nobody writes that letter that said you did a great job and i appreciate all the work um and so i don't want to i don't want this to be one of those moments where we don't acknowledge all of the hard work that went into all the reading that you had to do all the processing rethinking and going back and forth with one another it does not mean that we always agree on everything but the fact that you're taking that amount of time to really go through it tells me that you're concerned you're just as concerned about this as as all of us are and that we all we're all trying to get somewhere so i want to take a moment um to make sure that you at least hear from us as a as a team that i we appreciate the work that that went into this one so thank you to all of you thank you for that reminder i i appreciate your leading on that too um director greene um and always for starting a love fest every time you open your mouth um i also really appreciate steps this is really important work for us as a district it's really important work for us as portlanders and it's important for us to um get it right not not not get it done but get it get it right in a way that we can both you know address climate change and uh you know consider the physical impacts of anything we do and the the the impacts of frontline communities and you know impacts asthma rates and and all of those things that that we're going to see um that we see when we have inequities in our in our climate response so
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um i appreciate um those who came to testify today and staff as well just thank you for engaging so deeply in this really important work and director brim edwards i know last night we were interrupted to hear about the soccer victory uh and so the reason i was 15 or 20 minutes late is because i was talking to all of our families in the vaccine line at fabion and so i just want a quick commercial we had i think over 200 students and their parents in line for vaccine shots tonight so glad to report that our first day of clinic was a resounding success that's fantastic awesome news fantastic thank you for sharing that it's the best thing i've heard all day i thought we were going to get another sports score uh but 200 vaccines is a great uh history school the greatest thing was the children were just so excited to get in shock um so we have some other agenda items i'm gonna try and move through them um i am going to move to agenda item number six because this is actually something we need to have a recommendation from the committee on and this is so in your pocket let's say it's agenda item number seven and you should have three things which are um this is for policy 5.6 0.10 [Music] um it's the administrative employee's terms of employment policy uh at a board meeting uh this fall uh director scott uh moved a resolution that went to spend um three portions of the policy and one of them was already um in motion so these are three areas the district was out of um sorry and um so the first one was a vacation that's already moving and then the second the second one was section three three a and c and it had the board voting on the contract for administrators and the historical purpose of that was that there had been um contracts that had terms of employment that were had excessive benefits um or that weren't equitable among non-represented employees and a distinction that this amendment is being offered makes and which i think all board members the 20 years since that was that policy was approved is that it's the superintendent's choice of who the person is of who gets who gets hired the appointment the promotion um it's not when the board votes on it the board's not voting on like do we want that person or we want somebody else and um but that's not what the language said um it could imply that the board like was making decisions on like who gets to be the principal of a high school or be in a particular um supervisory role so uh what this does this amendment does is it strikes the two sections which were suspended and the two sections um that were suspended said the board upon recommendation by the superintendent shall authorize the promotion of the existing employee or the hiring of a new employee into administrative position that's a and then c that says you know accept a state in this policy no administration will begin work for the district card the board approval of the employment contract exception shall be approved by the superintendent we're going to replace that with language that's very clear that just says the supreme it removes the board approving of the contract and it says the superintendent shall have the authority to appoint a sign or alter the assignment of and to transfer any or all non-represented employees in accordance with oregon law board policies and district administrative directives except for the employees of the office of the independent performance otters who are appointed by the board so just making making crystal clear that this is the superintendent's call and he left us or he's nothing um and i appreciate that clarity so you're supportive of this amendment is that yes i see i i saw a thumbs up also for the record the thumbs up um committee members any questions or um comments on this i have none i i just want to be really clear
01h 40m 00s
director medwards that the the concerns you raised about past history is very much distant past history and that we're not talking about um shenanigans that happened under superintendent guerrero's watch um what i'm saying with that complaint is the board was not has not been approving like no no but you said earlier on that the reason this happened is because there were inappropriate packages given in the past and so i just want to say that that was that was not the recent past that there were um questionable benefits given to employees but i'm aware of the my reference was to um the previous 15 years that i'm aware of different things being put in administrative contracts that were correct correct yes yeah but just that they were not during i just i just wanted to be really clear about that because i don't want that statement to to be construed as anything about the current administration this is an issue that came up then at the board member meeting about somehow this is specific to um a superintendent and i think having been somebody who has worked with 10 superintendents since 1995 is that absolutely this doesn't have anything to do with superintendent um guerrero at the time we try and craft policies that are timeless that cross sort of staff transitions superintendent transitions um so i am no mate and i think thank you directory for reason that because there was no intention to imply that um we needed um that there had been something that us prevented guerrero had done and i know you know that i just want to make that crystal clear to folk if anyone's actually listening to this policy committee meeting um and when we say the things that happen in the past you know the past is a long time so um just wanted to clarify that but thank you director brim edwards for shepherding this through yeah i mean we have things from the interim superintendents that were here before so i i it's it's not the way to surpass but certainly before um so guerrero suited has not broken any rules that we aware of for the record i'm since we're being recorded and we all just let's just put on the table what we're trying to say if you are watching this video the soup has not done anything wrong with this policy that we're aware of does that clear it up for you soon i i i love that you're making clear for our our public uh for the families and community there has been unlawful behavior uh of this leader uh i it the whole reason for looking at policies like this is we want to clean them up we want to make sure they're they're fair consistent standard and objective uh they protect the board they protect the district they protect the superintendent frankly can they make a listing to do can we make a list of like annoying things the superintendent does though like you know that's a whole nother policy that's for next meeting okay um thank you director greene [Laughter] so the um i'm going to skip just around really quick because one thing i think we can um resolve we have uh one two three four five six we have seven policies out for public comments um cara or roseanne do we have any public comment that should be considered no um i'm going to flag for the committee that um i have a number of information requests about the vacation policy that was changed in the last board meeting and um you know potentially might have amendments based on um based on that so just heads up and i'll happy to share whatever information i have with other committee members and board members as well um okay the i'm sorry one other thing just i need to know uh just timing wise um do we have public comment any other public comment at all okay so the last agenda item um and thank you everybody for letting me sort of manage this as we go oh no okay i forgot to ask before we move off the terms of employment for non-representative employees um for a motion director green that we that
01h 45m 00s
we recommend the amendment to that policy to the board and i'd like to make that motion that we recommend that policy support with you do i have a second yes okay um all those in favor of moving uh the policy to um the recommendation of the amendment to the full board for uh consideration say hi hi hi okay we've got the student reps uh as well so um director of the past if we could also have the agenda i think and i'm just being cognizant of director lowry wanted to meet every deadline i think in the policy it gives us a uh coming back by january 1 so if we have this on the next board meeting um we could potentially have the second reading there's not substantive public comments in december and we meet that deadline and director lowry wins again so when again she's been amazing by the way at um beating everybody doing it first so your life goals are in coming to fruition and really it's not about beating other people although i do enjoy that it's really about making sure i'm meeting the deadlines because i have a you know things can get away from me and then i feel like i've let folks down yes i have that same sense of competition it's not so much with others as with trying to beat my own record um as an overachiever so i completely understand that but uh you have a really good track record so far so far so far so that's noted um director broome edwards about that second item like included on the uh on the next agenda um so i'm gonna call people's attention to something that's in that was in your materials that uh we had a policy amendment to the civic use of buildings to say that title schools and csi and tsi schools would have um actually district paid for limited custodial services for events they had because otherwise they couldn't have events and so there's a report on that about the district sharing the information and then how many schools took advantage of that so that was an update on just where we were with that my only i'm going to just put a question i don't even answer now um a similar notice of this year and you know has anybody used it but that was really to create some equity that you can have these um schools that can afford to pay for custodians or have millions of parents volunteers to clean up but um other schools couldn't have school events or basically came out of their budget so i hope people can look at that and then the last item is and we weren't going to vote on this or move on it but it was more of a discussion item on the foundation policy and i want to thank chief garcia for the information there's a lot of answers um to questions i think dr green you asked who are the beneficiaries and in um and who used it like who receives the money from the equity grants and then also who raises the money um so i appreciate the detailed responses to the questions that got raised in committee about the foundations one so there's only two things i'm going to ask if anybody has any questions about the answers that um chief garcia provided and then also i had some questions as well about um structured so first i'm going to ask whether anybody has changes to our external changes any questions about the memo that was provided by robin about like what other districts do i think you can see here that most of them don't have fundraising for fte or it's central um and then again links director greening to who who has been raising money how has it been spent question i had about the uh if we're going to change the rules what would be the least disruptive and the answer was in a fiscal year did anybody have questions about that set of
01h 50m 00s
information director brim go ahead no go ahead a student was trying to speak my question was i think haley was talking about like last meeting with just a general policy on fundraising from parents just wondering yes so i actually sent out to the policy committee meeting um but didn't include you jackson or you danny because i didn't i intended to include danny and was going to hunt down his email and i just totally forgot so i apologize about that but i will send it to jackson and if you jackson if you give me danny's email um i would actually request that we table the conversation around this policy and look at um i think that changing parent school-based fundraising is going to take a lot of community engagement and i think with things we're doing right now including southeast guiding coalition and coded vaccine stuff that this is not an emergency issue and i would love for us to do a really good job around how do we deeply consider school-based fundraising as a global construct seattle has done some really amazing things um and i think there could be a really great opportunity to reform the foundations and look at all of it together so i would love to to say can we can we put a pause on this conversation for um six months maybe and deal with some of those more emergent matters that are before us and then come back to this bigger conversation about local school-based fundraising and how especially we address it from an equity issue yeah um the last meeting when this first came up director lowry you indicated that you wanted to bring a policy a a separate policy draft forward which i'm i'm open to um i'm not going to put a pause on this because actually i did try and um to you know focusing on the things that needed to happen most in this meeting which were frankly you know something that the full board gave this committee which was the terms administrative terms of employment um something staff brought last week on the cafeteria plans and then also pretty significant structural change so i i feel like i'm trying to manage um the committee's agendas in a way in which taking into consideration things that need to happen or we've been asked to do um i also know that the community a year ago or more than a year ago raised this and it's an issue that's been raised in the community for 20 years so i'm more than happy to have you bring something forward around on the other issues but i do want to continue to have the conversation and i say we're not acting on it today i want to jump into i am fully in support of pausing the um with pausing this work um temporarily with a with a hard uh due date because we're operating in the pandemic i think i've been surprised i think a lot of us in the entire system is has been pressure tested to an extent that i've never witnessed before any organization under the pressure test of opening schools and responding to covid and the changing information and the staff shortages i feel like this is a really really important conversation particularly and it's very of great import to me personally and that in order to do this well we need to have our minds and hearts set on that rather than disaster response i mean i think we've seen in the listening sessions we've been in the last couple of weeks from teachers we've heard from parents we've heard from staff that this we can't take on any more work we we literally cannot reasonably take on any more work i think the question before us is we need to look at what is what is urgent and what is what i like to call kid urgent which means you can wait you know your pink pants don't have to be washed today that's not urgent um oh sorry director to pass i thought you're finished yeah it's a it's a it i i really i i want to do this work well and i i i don't feel like i have the capacity to take it on and i know the staff the staff has told us that um really to ask for some grace um literally through the end of this month if you recall um in order to sort of get on top of some of these emergent issues um when when staff from the central office are in school buildings they can't give the attention to the work that this this body of work really deserves i mean
01h 55m 00s
this is a really key um area that inequity shows up in our in our system and it's important to do it right and not to rush it so we can check it off that it's done but to do it why and i think the other thing i wanted to say um building on um director lowry is that i also think we should keep the community group engaged in this work i i just if they're listening i just want to appreciate the few conversations i've had with people that have been focused on this this isn't to say this conversation is going away i'm strongly in support of doing it well and doing at a time when we have the capacity emotionally physically to do the work well and i would say that i've invited the foundation reform group to partner with me on rewriting these policies and they want to get together and i just haven't had part of it is my own personal capacity as well to do this work well um again that whole uh tendency of mine to over promise under deliver and i i just know that i thought okay i can work on this i started i said all of you jackson i just sent it to you an email about the work i had done in the research and realizing that to do this properly was going to take more time than um what what we had in the moment so um i appreciate your comments i'll take it under advisement um we haven't moved it i'm going to continue to focus on just like everybody else has different issues that they focus on i'm going to continue to focus on it i mean i to me it's rather compelling that i'm looking at the list of schools that are getting their fte paid for this year by the district and they're fundraising so essentially they're benefiting from the float it's like all of our highest ses schools so i actually think but it's also the last year i just want to make sure that that's that's clarified because operationally as we maybe do anything about it yet last year also so i feel like i appreciate both of your comments and i would say if everybody else please let me finish jonathan um so i when i went around the very beginning i talked to everybody about their priorities um and people had different priorities and this was on some board members list and it's on my list and the committee brought it community members brought this forward over a year ago and so i i appreciate your comments and i'll take it into consideration also just like when staff says we need to have something added to your agenda or the superintendent says you know hey we consider this whole different draft is i will take that under consideration and work with the staff and i'll happy to sit down and talk to chief garcia but this isn't the time to have a debate about what the agenda is is going to be so i appreciate you raising it and um directed to pass your interest in uh tackling the issue if i may uh i i want to appreciate both attorney pass and uh director lowry um and and i actually don't want to speak on behalf of staff um and make a conversation about staff's capacity because frankly uh our community our directors have heard loud and clear that our staff whether they're in the classroom or in central office we're exhausted we are exhausted and so i'm not here to talk about that i'm here to talk about the community our community is going through a lot of change the pandemic has created a lot of chaos in our lives and and and every time that we're asking communities small school communities to think about possibly changes to their enrollment uh or their boundary now we're talking about foundations and potentially getting uh removing those conversations we're also having different layers of conversations i don't think it's fair for our community to to to experience so much change happening one time during the middle of a pandemic and so i'm hearing from my community yes i hear you know there are pockets of folks that are wanting to engage in different discussions and that's important but i have to think about the 50 000 children i have to think about their parents i have to think about my staff i hear our educators telling us that every time that we're discussing these items it creates more stress it creates more pressure of the unknown so i'm asking i'm imploring to the to the chair and to the board to really reconsider how uh what what what isn't what is a priority uh at this time because it is really important for our community to to think about uh you know the help for us to have healthy and good conversations about really important topics i hope you're not implying that the board does not take into consideration the 50 000 students because that couldn't be further from the truth in fact i spent the entire weekend based on staff asking the entire weekend on monday and tuesday the staff asking to have things added to the agenda major changes made so um yeah everybody's stressed
02h 00m 00s
and i said i would take it under consideration and i i can i just jump in also so when when there's a when there's a level of trauma and stress the response is to not um keep pushing like the trauma-informed response is to say i hear you that sounds really hard how can we how can we make it so you're not you know thinking about jumping out of a window all day long how can we make it so you're not on the verge of tears all day long um i think the mental health of everybody in this room and anybody that's watching is really important and it is i i feel like we need to we need to move toward um a level of just kind of generative work and not like piling more and more and more the system's gonna break it's it's at a breaking point right now i should say i heard very loudly um yeah very loudly i'm also experiencing it in my body um and i'm just thinking what we need to do is we need to have a response that reflects what we're hearing okay which i want to say is and i want to say i'm going to another meeting right now and so i'm going to have to sign off but i wanted to make my my concerns known and my my hopes um that this work can pause um also known before i left i'm also okay not getting my way so um whatever you decide chair um but i just want to advocate strongly for taking care of the hearts and souls and bodies of the people that are keeping our system whole right now i think that's really important um response people are literally at a breaking point right now i i was at a meeting on monday where um someone literally cussed out people that were there to listen from the staff and and i i i can't ignore that so i would just strongly advocate for us showing up in a trauma-informed way and in a in a way that restores um the hearts of the the staff that are upholding the system right now um at a breaking point i'm confused because this makes it sound like this is like something i just added on this was at the very beginning and discussed that we would have conversation is like i'm not piling it on in fact a lot of the stuff okay we can stop the decisions like that's an easy thing to do we can stop the rescissions we can stop then have that have the board stop referring this stuff to this committee or undermining committee's work i mean it's i it's it's all of that what i'm saying is that when we have information coming in we can't operate as if we haven't heard that staff is at the breaking point and that's that's teachers that's administrators that's that's me that's families that students is i mean we're seeing the stress level of the adults in this situation tran we're seeing the kids act out and so as we learn more about what's happening it's important for us to respond in a way that shows that we have we've heard and that we believe people and so when i said the word piling on that was probably not the good i worked dude i think it's a good time for us to we need to we need to do triage julia i hear your frustration i'm hearing that in this moment and i i think that i think you've been incredibly responsive in this meeting shifting the agenda i think you've listened to staff what i'm asking for is to pause this specific policy because i i do not think we have the capacity to reform fundraising well in this moment that is all i'm that's all that i'm asking for and i said that i would take that under advise me advisement and if michelle you want to remove this chair you can i would not go so far as to do that that's not on the table at all on the table on the table can i follow everybody for just a moment because what i'm hearing we're moving now we're moving the the situation is moving everything is moving and it's going somewhere that things don't need to go um i heard i heard loud and clearly that there was a recommendation for paul's and i also heard loud and clearly from our chair uh from the policy committee that um that this was something that she would take uh under advisory but and also i heard loud and clearly from from some of us that this is um that the the the point that we're at right now seems to be a breaking point
02h 05m 00s
people are concerned about the the well-being the psychological mental well-being of everyone involved and then i also heard loud and clear that this is something that's very uh very important to our chair to make sure that things the the minority you know marginalized communities don't continue to get overlooked which is why you know this is something that's so pressing for her all of these things can be true at the same time and it does not mean that anyone is in a bad space it simply means that you know this is important and and this is important and so both of these things can be true we're not making it there's unless i miss something there's no decision being made tonight and so i think at this moment so that things and this is to me an example of of us being pushed um because we're asking for more and then we're asking we're asking but then we're saying no i don't want no more stop don't don't give me so there's a lot going on on both from both sides and so i just want to be clear that we're not asking anybody to do anything tonight um that no decisions happen tonight about this that i'm aware of anyway yeah so so paul's in this to have a pause in this dialogue is i think what needs to i mean why are we talking about something spinning our wheels about something that's not even on the agenda for us to be talking about right now thank you all for you know my mind you know for like all the work that was done and thank you for all the information and and now let's take all this stuff into consideration and let's come back with a refreshing mind because i i think right now is the conversation is leaving um leaving a place of being actually functional i appreciate your thought forward and i think it's i think a good point to end on uh so thank you director green for like pulling it all together and recognizing um i think whatever everybody's the different issues you got put on the table thank you and so the committee meetings 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 - Committee Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk0IYRijyKDVmokTZiuGv_HR3Qv7kkmJU (accessed: 2023-10-14T00:59:52.903034Z)

2021-11-10 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

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Event 1: 11/10/21 PPS Board of Education's Policy Committee Meeting

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