2022-01-26 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2022-01-26
Time	16:00:00
Venue	BESC/Hybrid
Meeting Type	committee
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: 1/26/22 Board of Education’s Policy Committee

00h 00m 00s
senior program manager at energy sustainability daniel chief board member danny oh uh danny cage uh student district counselor kara bradshaw executive assistant rachel lent paralegal [Music] um so the first item on today's agenda is the student product disinfluence policy is there any staff update it's the same as last friday okay so we're going to jump right in then to um the main event and um on friday we had a very productive meeting i felt of working through a a consensus of medical republicans and consensus amendment that um both staff and the quality advocates have an opportunity to exchange ideas and um to re-review the language in light of our community discussions and so what we have posted is the version 25 of policy with integrated in the consensus amendment that correct i believe yes it's a sweeping conclusion but i i okay and um so and as we left off there were only a few areas where there was not agreement and the other um issue we had is because of the timing of the meeting um we didn't talk about that either are the student rep assignment committee danny page or jackson i'm able to participate in anything else beginning of the time i apologize for that because we use my schedule meeting so that students can attend that conference of the school day um so following that meeting i um have an opportunity to come to uh to danny let's walk through the canvas and uh danish compose there were two sections in the student specifically in the c-section 3.2 um that he would ask us to revisit so we're going to do that today there's already been some exchange between um just a potential language adjustments um to to those two things that there have been agreement on restoring but includes and so i appreciate that um gaining raising this issue section and then there was one other section um was that there was a disagreement about it but it's not understanding there's no longer an instagram and we can't remove the solution so uh somebody else wants to talk about that i i'm happy to to summarize it since i was the one who asked me to go back to staff and understand what the issue was [Music] content and paper used and in light of the introductory language of explaining that these cost-effective alternatives over time is one of the factors of considering how how to implement policy mandates like maximize i think with that addition and frankly a dramatic reduction in these people because it's over and the distance learning when you look to your referral numbers the physical impact to schools particularly smaller schools that have that so i think we can manage it through better purchasing and some tools and support and it's also financially significant
00h 05m 00s
[Music] so um that is in 1.5 two and you've removed the solution yes and again that i wanna make sure it's clear that that staff very much supports using recycled content we were just trying to make sure that they were not running to any consequences or impacts that weren't uh serviced and vetted and i think as we got the senate veterans together we got comfortable with before i get to the uh language that daniel raised the sections where there is this agreement in three point two i thought we got a place where we can resolve yeah i and then everything else it kind of we come to a good place that would be like such a great case that's what i understand we we had a lot of conversation in the last meeting about this uh a designated sustainability liaison at every school but that is not in this graph so we took that to mean that it's not in here because there was agreement to take it out yeah so i know some things are gone it's because i chose so but i do because i think what will be important is that at least we um recognize where those were because i for today to say like hey everybody agreed on all this um i almost got there and i could never get up with anything but i just want to also honor the fact that like i don't want to say they agree to this whole threat okay i think there's a lot of compromise i thought this draft reflected the committee's decisions right not necessarily yeah i just want to make sure i know which we heard there wasn't a consensus um to move ahead because i agree there was like compromise on all sides i just wanted to know where there wasn't yet agreement and then maybe you made the decision yeah um so it's the three point it's um around this liaisons and there was one other one on that section so there was an agreement on the language about what was the replacement when we retreated oh okay i thought maybe there was but yeah i thought uh jane said at the meeting that she was fine with that yeah but i don't wanna i'm not trying to speak over some of those places but there were still some unresolved um pieces okay so i'll just pull that out because i um i say those were communities decisions i mean the whole thing was giving a decision like whether we agree what you're saying is when you possess this to the board you'll look down that we got to consensus with community partners except for a couple of issues which the committee then just ruled on right and then we put together this consensus amendment that was you know in large part reflective of where there ended up to be agreement between staff and the advocates and there were a couple places where we just made it follow yeah i think that's fair [Music] pull out a um dress so that i know the right one so this is in
00h 10m 00s
3.2 which is really focused on i think based there's a lot of focus on students here and so it's the um so-called respiration and revisions or the language we're looking at adding to 3.2.2 yeah and so as you when you look at if you look at an old version of 3.2 that the staff um first of all is a community we made a number of revisions to the overall goal which then made some of the samples duplicated right and so staff recommended when you delete totals that were duplicated which um the community and um and the advocates there were two on here though but um in a discussion with danny that he suggested we review i'm sorry it wasn't 3.25 3.26 and then also 3.22 um sorry that's wrong 3.23 so the original language study utilized an integrative approach to teaching that recognized the emotional impact of climate change on individuals and teaches emotional results and then the 3.26 was provide opportunities for students to prove the underlying positive economic crisis and understand the dynamic nature of complex systems and how they change and opportunities for them to practice using systems from their choices danny do you want to speak to um the importance of restoring um those ones and their revised states yeah um for the first one um about emotional resiliency it's important to acknowledge that um what we're going to be seeing especially in the next uh 10 to 30 years is an increase in depression and anxiety linkedin uh children and in people overall and um climate change and it's important that we are gonna because it is gonna start to be a thing that is starting to get diagnosed that they're staying more on especially people who live in places that have high climate extremities it's important that we are going to be able to address that as a district because we are going to um start to have students come in the counselor's office and have anxiety and have uh depression-based symptoms just simply based on the environment that we live in um and so that aspect itself is important for us to realize and tackle um as a district like how are we going to be able to recognize the impacts that this has not on our students just physically but also emotion emotionally um and then the one added around um understanding structural racism i think it's important because climate change isn't just a um it isn't just one uh a problem it's a multifaceted uh problem with it's very nuanced problem as well and the underlying cause of climate change is um colonialism so it's important that we our students recognize that especially um i had a conversation with a student at um harriet tubman middle school and they made a very good point about how for them to understand um climate racism they get to look outside their window and it's important for us to understand that right our students are faced with these issues but we as a district need to be able to teach them what you're seeing right now as a result of racism climate change and etc and so they have the tools to put that together um danny this is michelle i want to just appreciate you for bringing that up i i had never really considered the emotional impact on climate change as as i see it and i thought i'd see today you probably can't see this but um i have a gift for you can you see it um climate change is exist it's that same premise that um climate change is related to structural racism and a foundation offending foundational to climate change and so i just want to appreciate you bring that up so articulately and um voicing that that our students um will not only need to be become resilient to mitigate the impacts of you know emotional impacts of climate change but also to i hope that they understand that
00h 15m 00s
climate change didn't just happen it's you know slavery um colonialism and land taking is all um wrapped up in the what we see today on the ground what what we're seeing with the climate change even even here in portland with a you know 117 degree temperatures last uh last summer for the first time ever like we've never had a cooling season in this in the pacific northwest we've never had hair to use uh we've never had a cooling season like like they do in other parts of the country so i appreciate you bringing that forth so all the the language language on the second one 3.26 was originally focused on um giving students opportunities to probe the underlying causes but which danny talked about restoring it and then the language that was added and this is also nice thanks to michelle although she didn't know this um that based on that um book recommendation she made the um i was adding the structural racism that climate change reduced enforcement you should say negative impacts convergence on color um so it's broader than the original language that was deleted because the original language was more about the systems of this ad systems um racism um so i i think it's actually um a better formulation than even the original one i like the inclusion of the systems complex systems too because um at college or graduate school part of your curriculum does um is systems theory and actually using software to map and um you know and map systems and and and and use systems thinking lenses to solve some of these intractable problems i think it'd be great to start at the high school level to start talking about systems and and complex systems whether it's a system in the body a cell solar system or these complex plant systems sounds like they're doing some of that work already yeah any other discussion any discussion about potentially adding um the language that it's supposed to support yeah i think that that's fabulous say thank you danny for highlighting that awesome i agree okay um so uh we have two agreements to move that into a consensus amendment uh in the 3.2 sections and then um i i he took my asses is there anything else is otherwise i want to you know also honor the fact that danny and jackson weren't part of the i think you've been part of all the conversations along the way but um is there anything else that well i think it's been probably either about a year or past year in the making so it's i guess exciting to finally see something that we've been working on for such a long time and you're in the middle finals anything else danny that you'd like to race um no i think it's good and i am excited to get it out into the community and i'm excited that pbs is leading this there as i can tell there haven't been any other districts really doing this so i think it's amazing that we can be uh the role models for other districts [Music] [Music] yes they and this is something they're both very passionate about and spent a
00h 20m 00s
lot of time now trying to make um comprehensive and healthy so i'm gonna just formally ask uh for uh is there's a particular committee to move the consensus amendment into version 25. that's how we don't yes there are no further versions that's it yes yeah okay um great well i think i know that at times this has been tedious um i've learned a lot i appreciate all assassinations the engagement the community's patrons and working through it and the students keeping the pressure on us to keep this moving so with that we'll all right the second question will be um just maybe it's there you support to recommend this to the full board um for our first readings yes yes director bear edwards i just wanted to note that director green had just arrived and is moving over into the participants section and his hand was raised and attendees uh director i make the motion i only kept raising my hand so that i was praying somebody is going to see this hand action going up and down up and down like who is this weird guy that keeps raising and lowering his hands it's me begging to be let in i'm late but please don't keep me outside so i can i'm gonna lower my hand now and mute myself back i'm so glad that you haven't joined right now because after a year's work we were just getting ready to um we had two amendments um that we added in thanks to um danny's uh engagement they uh are centered on this student section so we added that into the consensus amendment and we were just getting ready to vote on whether we would recommend this to the full board for first reading or introduction so sounds if danny recommended it i'm not even going to fight it against it because the young man knows what he's talking about so if it's the if it's a danny k's recommendation i'm going with it okay so uh all committee members thumbs up thumbs up okay great um all right well thank you everybody uh for all the work at the last year especially to stop us appreciate a lot of stuff just about and um your recommendation on what kind of further engagement you've had a lot of engagement so far and maybe it may be like hey you have a lot already that i'd love to get your thoughts yes um so that would be at the february so we have um the next agenda item is policies in the public cloud period we have the student representative and distribution council policy that we disagree um no no jackson or danny teaching this there will be any from dsc or do you think blue okay is that that would move to a second reading adoption with the next okay yes thank you [Music]
00h 25m 00s
and then the diploma requirements were from last was from last night so i don't exist there's any public conference um some people are truly on the ball julia they can't wait for the comments yeah they're less than 24 hours i think i may have missed the thing that's hoping to catch up is that our first reading okay well congratulations to everybody's collaboration that was including um yeah so you just also like the appreciation for the staff because you know tens has been tedious and i know at times you've got your ore in the water and that has i think also moved move things forward and got us to a better like sharper crisper uh point so thank you for being all out the same conversely for our student leaders for advocates you know i i do what i appreciate about it is it i think sets bps apart policy i think from mugen go we've also agreed with the spirit of sort of an intention of the policy but then you sort of drilled it down the language that it provides clarity um so we're looking forward to you know this advancing this work moving forward director green happened to just drop in right at the right time so we could like you know run through the tape with the rest of us um so we're just going into the fun movie um so the non-discrimination and anti-harassment that's the same thing it just went out last night too right yeah in the department we didn't go into it last night but i think i'm wondering if you've been just for the community and everybody else since we talked a lot about essential skills during the high school presentation i i'll do you one better i actually after listening to the essential skills conversation and reading the language i think it technically works i actually think we should revise it further we should do it so i've got someone working on that and i it's a little late for me to show up with that opinion but that's my opinion about how others who want to understand that policy can better understand it i think while technically compliant it's harder to understand listening to that conversation well i appreciate this it's not that you're showing a plate without opinion but then like you continue to listen and revise and be thoughtful and i think that's staying curious and continuing to improve this was vitally important so we made we assessed whether a technical change was needed because of the legislation right what we didn't do well is figure out how people needed to understand the policy that translated and i think it made some more yeah i really appreciate that that's my team in the middle of the meeting last night i was going to circle with you after you adjourned this one but now statute right so that's part of the issue right but we need to make clear so that people who want to understand what they need to get into can read that and know what it means yeah i'm just like i think it's not working yeah so let's foreign of what are the code a speak anyways right now like look over like because we're one of the um states that require the essential skills um so there will be other states and whether we can do and if we should even state this skills perfect so for clarification this is coming from the state or it has the diploma changes that we're making and so the diploma policy is um the changes are from english to language arts to you know make it less racist and adding civics as part of the social sciences curriculum and then that the governor has suspended the essential skills component for two years yeah but our policies still have 2024 our policy still has a lengthy discussion about essentials even though the state has suspended it so i say this was more of a we know issue about why we even had it on our agenda
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but we got it we just did it for first reading last night but we're thinking we need to amend it further yes so that yeah it's going to take us to the again it's technically correct intersection c section e is very it'd be very hard to think about that so i have a question and i don't know if i should be asking it as part of this or something else but i'm gonna put it out there all the same last night when we were going over the um the high school diploma requirements section and we were talking about the like you know the language arts it it sparked something to me um that i know some of our um when i was working at um i shouldn't say working because i have never got a check from roseville um but when i was volunteering at um roosevelt and working with um a lot of our our somali families or families our refugee families they're all they're all having to take um like an english language course right but they have to take they're taking that because they're they're learning the language but then they also have to take like spanish or french or japanese or something else in order to get their their credits for taking a a language course is there a way or where would we start beginning the conversation around if you're taking english to learn english are you not learning another world language so how do we make how do we make it so that they can get credit for what they're already learning having to learn to do anyway instead of now we've got students that are having to actually double up on their on their um their language classes because they're needing to take they got to take this english because they got to learn it so they got to take this esl class and then they got to go and take french or spanish or so is there a way for us to start somewhere where we can start looking at what we do and our requirements to so that they can i just feel like we're making it harder for students we're giving them more and it's not it doesn't seem equal to me we have one educator in our own that's the superficial superintendent yeah so i'll do the best i can so to director of holland's point uh green green people with a beard don't you dare say we all look alike but i know it's you i don't know if um you're not sitting next to each other getting in trouble at a board meeting right yeah i know this and i missed it [Music] i don't know if the red line changed here around language arts is partly intended for that because it's speaking about students enrollment and language development to your point um uh separately there's you know elective options like world language that could be taken but you know i i think the essential skills here in this policy is is more oriented to that english learner uh in other states and this is a topic i did a lot of work on previously uh in another state you know there was it was a statewide exam that casey uh you know the folks needed the students needed to pass to to prove that essential skill similar to here and that's been waived temporarily um and i don't know if at the state board level they'll be sort of other alternatives um you know it could be s back it could be some other norm reference test uh or not uh we also see that the sat is sort of i think i heard in the podcast this morning there's dying to slow down uh and it's going electronic and it'll be more accessible it'll be shorter uh and if most uh we're encouraging uh haven't been encouraging it you know maybe maybe that's one of the measures that could be used to check off uh for that so you know what i appreciated about the conversation yesterday meeting diploma requirements is sort of a credit burning exercise and what i appreciate is sort of what i think i've heard is we want the pps diploma to mean something i'm not saying it doesn't mean anything right now but we want it to meet a minimal standard so whether you're a gen ed student if you're a student with special needs if you're a student with um if you're an english language learner so i i think to be also in line with policy now while this waiver is in place and how do we sort of also be aligned with the board's expectation is there a temporary pause do we wait to see what this a level conversation is um or do we want to offer some other
00h 35m 00s
alternative at this point i think it's probably something to debate but i think to get to the heart of some of what director green was asking about these requirements are in line with the state requirements so i think that conversation about how does how do english language learners fit into that world language category and what the clarity is there that's a question for ode they did actually revise their statutes so world language qualifies as any language that's not their primary language so if you're learning english in an english language development class that would count as a world and i think that's part of why we've changed it from english as the language arts because that's learning about writing and reading critical thinking rather than english as a language okay unless the state law changed but the world language is a pbs requirement not a state department there's any definition what i'm saying is that i believe the state requirement is 22 credits not the um not the 24 and that is that i thought yes they added the world yeah because i think that was on the board because okay here here is the thinking unless the state has qualities in 2005 the district added as part of our graduation requirements he had to have two world languages and the reason we did that is at the time every public university no it's in the same yeah it used to not mean it was it is now so then 24 credits required for 22. so it's so it's foreign three in algebra one and above in math science is three second language oh it's second language the arts career and technical education is three yeah so except for a total of 24 credits and then you also have to take health physical education six of electives and three social sciences because we have created because you've been actually all the public universities required you have two years of a world language tip for admission it's like why would we have lower standards like i would just say these are diploma that do not actually qualify to get into a public university so on our own we did that um so that career and technological education the arts are a third credit of world language that's actually the state but we call out the two of world language separately yeah so i'm wondering i [Music] and whether that's a good idea um to create some sort of flexibility because it does seem sort of like hey you have to learn to know three languages versus everybody's assessment too well i think since liz is gonna do some revision and looking at this it would be a perfect time to maybe pull this from public comment briefly without further comment but do some of this work that goes to director green's question about what does equity look like around this world language requirement that the state sort of has three it's world language arts or cte and how what is best for pbs students and i think that that issue around i do think our public has some sort of expectation that a ps diploma means that you would be eligible for acceptance into ufo or osu have some pretty clear communication that that two years of world language is a requirement for admission which is what i think we put it in there to help our students but we also need to be cognizant of those used for whom not to barrier yeah right so that's and that's what i'm looking at i'm looking at the equity around having our students who speak another another language it's like you're telling a latino person he they have to take spanish because they need um they need two credits or whatever that's that's dumb and so english people english learners don't have to you don't have to learn english and you it's just we're making somali families anybody that doesn't speak english is have i feel i could be wrong but anybody that doesn't speak english is happen to work twice as hard when it comes to the language classes because they have to take they have to take more than one class yeah so well but they also come to us with more multilingual capacity too right well that's kind of saying instead of a steal by literacy there's a deal of multi-literacy now because we do have people who are literate and trilingual mm-hmm yes i don't think we want to set up a local you know grad requirements of course they should they should be aligned with any minimum with the state expectation but you don't want to disadvantage the english learner and so i saw i've seen
00h 40m 00s
this happen prior district is you met everything else but because your esl class didn't count as an english class it it automatically forced a whole population of students to have to do a fifth year oftentimes to take that to complete their english course sequence so i do think we need to sort of explore and see how the state is thinking about defining language arts versus english for world languages and so yeah i'm thinking about the world language because when i think when i think language arts i'm thinking that's an english class like i think that's english math science i'm i'm thinking about the one where we say world language world language could be spanish it could be japanese it could be french it could be whatever other languages that we as in pps have um educators and the ability um to offer but again i'm just looking at some some students have to actually learn english and can that can that count because they're actually having to learn english as a world language not language arts right and some districts are thinking about the question on and what about american sign language yes yeah i've heard that too first conveying language then it should come for credit yeah i've heard that conversation yeah and i i take i take asl as my world language at my school yeah i did that in college as well as my third language um my fourth language so how i'm gonna put a pin in this conversation is uh thank you director green it's very timely for you to raise that issue um liz is going to work with staff i'm coming back on something with the essential skills and then um also uh liaison with this superintendent i'm glad whether it's policy language or something else um or it's more complicated or i think we should have us no having been down this road before but there's going to be guidance we'll want from the former as far as uh how to what extent is it implied so having been in this conversation before where you know we also had ambitious graduation uh great improvement goals you know we made it more rigorous by saying uh meeting uc csu requirements was the minimum for every student um and secondly it needed to be we were going to track on track off track and we were going to attract c or better not just d or better and so just as another measure so given the conversation we were having last night those are a couple of thanks for raising that uh that's a really good issue for us to think about with our graduation clients all right um there is nothing uh i'm under legislative for regulatory and private policy changes for this meeting although we've got one account yes um blank for people get another one there and then um do we have any color comment no we don't uh is there any other business okay i don't think so we're gonna wrap it up and again just thank you for the committee um for all the hard work change version of the one document because i don't care i think we might have to load up a frame and take it to your house so really good work take a piece of artwork that was really that was a really um great effort just the consensus building both sides of all sides yeah the advocates are i think we have a really strong um platform to launch policy when we get to the intervention and support for the staffs
00h 45m 00s
classic ones my favorites okay

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)

2022-01-26 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

Documents / Media

Notices/Agendas

Materials

Minutes

Transcripts

Event 1: 1/26/22 Board of Education’s Policy Committee

Sources