2022-06-22 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2022-06-22
Time 16:00:00
Venue BESC Windows Room
Meeting Type committee
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: 6/22/22 - Board of Education's Policy Committee Meeting

00h 00m 00s
absolutely give us about a five to eight minutes so my name is kat davis i'm the advisor for climate justice i'm working on um helping to curate the climate crisis response committee in response to the climate crisis response policy that will be overseeing the implementation of that policy at ips so the application for participation in the committee closed on june 15th and we received um 70 applications so that was pretty impressive i don't have zero reference but i find that to be a good um amount a little over 20 of which were students um so we just i just completed the first round of review of those applications and i'm now passing on that review to our um selection committee that will be helping to narrow down our selection and we should have those choices finalized by um the middle of july something more specific share a more specific date but any i guess any questions that's kind of where we're at right now sort of in process but it's closed and moving forward with the target to have um that brings you to the board at the first meeting yes yes that first august meeting for a vote and we'd be able to onboard that committee before school starts thank you for that work i just talked to director grady he's gonna join virtually okay michelle's on her on her way thank you um so let's see um i wanna wait on the religious and cultural observations so um that the two because i think you're the one and i are like well aware of yeah uh so wait so uh who is the paul who's the policy translation oh you are where that work needs to start and we'll start over the summer as staff putting together the first two chunks of the work plan the first section is what are the current policies that are important to be translated and already in good enough sheet so we've already translated the complaint policy but that's an example um and the second chunk of that work plan is what are the policies that we need to move up in the cube for updating before they are so they make that important and uh made updating and we need to bring that to the community but the policies because of the format they're in they're not like the rest of the web page where you can just click on the right i think there are two issues that's the technical issue but the way they're loaded they're they're almost loaded as a pdf sure that's not true they are loaded as people okay right never get those right um so they can't it's not like the rest of the page and i don't know if that can be fixed or not the second problem is that those translations are not very helpful but it's interesting if there might be a if that's better than nothing for those while we're in this transition phase of working through the plan i forgot one piece of the plan which is also to build in on the policy page in the in the five tps translated languages if you need help please go here to probably funnel them to jamal as my guest that will help answer questions about policies i think there's a problem they're trying to solve in the policy questions also so there's a kick out if that work isn't done yet at least we give you in one of those five languages access to someone who can help you put this on the website right now no but that's what we talked about in the meeting is creating that that's so well that work is being done slowly and it's like all of the policy and it'll take time that we have this
00h 05m 00s
place for people to go get help or if you're not one of the five major languages i don't know i don't know i don't know what the mechanic mechanism is to tell you that in your native language wouldn't you just click it's not in your language if it's not in your language well okay but it because it's not a pdf i'm not talking about the length just you're talking about like the base like a general a general if you need help here's how right and i thought on the on the that's really dangerous i'm gonna be dangerous with you so let's go for it okay so if you're just like on the website if anything that's not a pdf you can click the like changing so wouldn't that be i see what you're saying yes you probably can do that sorry yes okay that's a nice little one so that way we can just kick people you the translation stuff so that's in line with what joining us that is correct you do my last song but it looks like good nike yeah well i wasn't talking that's an awfully young director um we were we were 21 when we got married where we turned 21. oh my goodness beautiful picture um i am going to just skip for a moment again hoping that um and wait for michelle to get here um with a question about um do we have have we had any public comment on any of the three um policies in the public period it's the school site council's monthly policy and liability claims handling yeah okay i'm just curious how come the number of the policy changed the complaint policy changed it was backwards if you recall we had it yeah typically we have the policy in the 80s underneath he was supporting it but for some reason before our time came before the policy itself um there's also um seven rescissions that have been first read is there any um i'm gonna i'm gonna go into just i'm i'm betting i'm with you okay i'm gonna keep keep going um herman we're we're waiting for michelle um for the update on the religious and cultural observances policy revision update but i'm going to go to we have um see we have one new policy revision and that is the workers compensation self insurance and if you look at the liability claims handling this is we we're making some very similar updates to it which is um updating some of the language but and primarily um increasing the uh the threshold at which the board votes from 25 000 to 75 000 and it has been a long time since we updated it i want to say i'm going to guess somewhere in the early 2000s yes 2018 okay so it's a pretty straightforward very i say very similar to um the liability claims does anyone have do you want to provide any other um commentary about how it changes it's designed to have a parallel structure and governance threshold as the liability so
00h 10m 00s
it's just cleaning it up a little bit making a little more streamline making it current and changing those approval thresholds and also providing for the quarterly reporting settlements which is the same as the likelihood was there um herman do you have any questions about that i do not we have a majority of the committee here um are everybody okay we don't really need we don't need a motion uh but is everybody okay with the recommendation to the um have a first reading of this of this policy with the full board i'm okay with that okay great then we have um two policies three policies for um recommended for decisions a risk management program and um if anybody has looking for something in your spare time you can you can go and actually see there there is the risk management um web page where we can get information um it's a lot more than the policy yeah so there's not there's not really a need for a policy so again provides a link to people are interested in it hello michelle um just to catch you up we um there's no public comment on all of our our policies and decisions after first reading we just referred to the full committee earthquake the um workers compensation revisions um so i don't know if you had any objection to that okay and now we're just into the to the rescission so we talked about the first one which is getting rid of that policy which is really unneeded because we have a pretty robust um risk management page the second policy first precision is the student transportation uh policy those are mary would you like to give the rationale for the recommendation um it doesn't provide a lot of significant or needed guidance i mean we are required to provide transportation by law um we have other policies that dictate how contracts are approved the same way i mean i think this represents um special medical or behavioral protocols identifying student references and we're required by law to serve students with special needs so for all of those reasons it's just kind of it's a policy that doesn't say anything that we aren't going to do any objection to are people uh supportive of moving it to the full board uh with the recommendation yes herman well i've got three so i'm gonna move on to the next one so the third um uh recommended decision relates to capital projects and if you read through it it really is just a description of [Music] directing staff on how to post things for on the board agenda which we don't do for other contracts and we already already have a very robust purchasing and contracting policies so this is unnecessary any questions still trying to get the meetings everybody supportive of moving this to the full board for recommendation for precision yes sorry yes all right um so we'll send those to the full full board for decision along with the revised policy then uh now that we have feedback michelle you also um went ahead with the climate um application of your family with yes so did we we have a roster of like a large roster of potential yes cat was here and kind of described the number of applicants and the process and everything so i figured it was okay for you to mess up yes absolutely i can't wait to see that to get into that looking
00h 15m 00s
yes really good meeting with students and two board members everyone who was there to talk about jen was there and yeah thank you i remember the screen that's what i was doing um to talk through the criteria for identifying which religions we would under which religions we would find observances that there had to be some non-religious criteria for identifying those and we looked at population concentrations kind of like we do the district languages we're going to translate so the data is uh i wouldn't say as per seen as census data it's not a question that the census asks but we've got some county level data and we've looked at some other sources and i think it's fairly it all tells about the same story um so was that just i'm sorry i missed the first point they're just gathering demographic information trying to figure out the percentages of populations that might respond to a certain world religion right right and you won't be surprised to know that there's you know a lot of unaffiliated with me but their holidays don't show up so um which is interesting in itself because i put something i made this joke and julia [Laughter] and so then there was a conversation about the next steps for identifying um which holidays in those religions and there's about a one percent population threshold kind of a working draft the structure um and then we have the conversation about why it's important to have an educational component to this of how people understand what the holiday is and why it's important to that woman so it's not just a single statement but also this is this is what it means to this particular religion and i think there'll be some other i predicted some other communication strategies that follow this work when it's done for the upcoming school year thirdly there was conversation about the um the scope of impact we talked about school-wide events and activities that are within pps's control as distinguished from classroom based activities for which uh observing a sincerely held religious holiday it is uh you're entitled to an excused absence so something's just classroom based that solves that but school-wide like um parent-teacher conferences the same list we've talked about plays assemblies concerts um there's a there's a chunk that we don't control like um osa sports uh ib testing i believe there'll be other stuff there's probably there are still some gray areas like pil sports and there are pieces to sort out those are the kind of three buckets school-wide classroom based you don't control the next steps are for me to document what we talked about and bring it back to that group to figure out where the questions are and make steps but that was a that was earlier this week what's really surprising is that just the lack of data on religious affiliation yeah yeah i told julie this but not but with you i did some further research last night trying to find other sources for city of portland there are some but that it's hard to it's hard to find the source data that tells you it's here in time or that it's reliable but it also doesn't tell a dramatically different story it is and then unaffiliated was the second largest if you bumped those two together correct they were yeah they were pretty close to each other each other and then the other religions had very small perspective
00h 20m 00s
is unaffiliated unaffiliated with the denominations or at least like not not or it's like not affiliated with surgery yes so in the in the i would imagine portland's kind of pretty yeah in the church we call um the northwest and like vermont it's called the nun zone because when people are asked their religious affiliations yeah the majority of people in the northwest and places like vermont if you ask what is your religious affiliation they would say none so it's 48 in multnomah county like as we think about this the cultural practice of religion right so like church nerdery what we see is that like the churches in the south the united methodist church have larger larger membership numbers but similar or lower attendance numbers whereas the methodist churches in the west have lower membership numbers but about the same attendance numbers so people are more likely to affiliate but maybe they don't practice in the same way like it's very interesting like what does it mean to have a religious affiliation and how does that play out culturally across the united states that is fascinating this is i can geek out about stuff good friday is a holiday right like no work or anything yeah because it's like a cultural religious wall street closes down [Laughter] so it's interesting to think about as we think about this i think what we talked about in the group was looking at i think it was um people who identify as muslim jewish and buddhist are the other kind of three and so really being thoughtful about cultural and community practices that would necessitate that that would make those or you know would make those celebrations easier for our students sure yeah yeah and we did know the like sort of euro-centric view of our calendar which means that julie and i both identify as christians so eastern christmas are already taking care of well easter is a sunday christmas is already during winter break so those kind of high holy days of the christian calendar are already sort of off school so what's how do we continue to have that conversation oh yeah the other thing that i thought was interesting in the conversation is like that by getting out of the calendar we take the responsibility off of the student to be what that even is and so that part of our work is to do some education and communication about why these things are important and that we honor our students to celebrate them you know who has an amazing calendar is planned they have an amazing multicultural i mean on every day there's something without them it's really good and you can sign up to be on your mailing list and it just adds inputs to your google calendar yeah we talked about pbs could just do that yeah right we actually have a name of a person that does this well yes yes we could same thing i have a curiosity question um when when we get around to asking questions yeah go ahead uh herman we're at that stage so um and just in thinking about this and you know we're looking at it from the calendar perspective my question is going to be i don't even know how i'm just going to start talking and smart people help me out um are we opening ourselves up to um a lawsuit of some kind i know that some years ago we stopped we stopped wanting to say you know around the holiday season um in pps you can't put up things that say merry christmas because it recognizes um christ in christmas um and so you have to say like happy hanukkah and stuff like you know hop um thing or happy holidays and stuff like that and so now by doing this are we are are we now saying that it's okay to recognize every other major religion that has different things that come up with the exception of christianity as where you know now we're going to say that this is you know this holiday and we're putting it on the calendar as this holiday or we're exposing it as this holiday but when it comes to anything related to christianity and recognizing the name of christ that we we now we can't say that so i i'm i'm just i'm a little conflicted
00h 25m 00s
trying to understand how this is all going to how this is all going to play out and if we can now go back to like we were at some point told that we can't even put up snowflakes um and different things and so how is this going to um play out beyond the policy but in practicality how it lives out on the day to day in our classrooms with our in our schools the director green i want to assure you that no one asked the legal department whether there was a legal problem with snowflakes so we should probably align on that but if there's not a snowflakes are fine snowflakes but we'll look into it's more i think the issue the cost i mean so i guess whatever lawyer would tell you is you can never stop anyone from suing but the question is is there a viable basis to do so and what we are trying to do is have a policy that acknowledges um religious observances without giving favor to any particular religion but having religiously neutral criteria for selecting which holidays get observed so i i christianity is not excluded from that it's just already because christmas is a national holiday and because the districts and schools are already closed it doesn't it's not in play for the purposes that these conversations are impacting and easter happens on a sunday every year so it's so those of the assuming that those are the two major christian holidays it's not that they are giving uh being observed less or being treated differently we just know the answer to those already in the construct of what we're trying to solve for these other observances what what we're working hard to do just say again is figuring out what the neutral criteria are for selecting the religions that have holidays that that we want to be sensitive to now this is for this year not a change to the formal district calendar this is direction to schools um and the district but really to schools to be careful but i got mindful of these holidays and work around them and scheduling school-wide events um in parking areas but it's also just helpful to have it on the calendar as a notice um we had kids who weren't eating in the lunchroom all of a sudden and one of the like ea's said to me like before i walked into the lunchroom like just a reminder ramadan started so we're gonna have some of our older kids choosing to fast and and normally if we see a kid not eating we'll go up and say hey what's going on like are you not feeling well did you not bring a lunch like what's going on but it was like oh we you know to be respectful and to know that that's going on um so we don't suddenly start harassing kids very well intentionally but but causing something awkward so herman my response to the whole like are we minimizing uh the christian faith i think for me it's it's about for so long christianity has held a somewhat like dominant place in society and then no no no no i'm sorry i don't feel like we're minimizing the christian faith no no no that's that's not i i'm saying that our what i was asking was more around the legalities around supporting and so because i i would i would wholeheartedly agree that um mostly for for the most part christian holidays have been widely known and widely accepted by by most um businesses and organizations so that's not i'm not in no way saying that i think the question that you're asking is like that's more like so if you put on the calendar um that you know and again uh forgive my in my my ignorance i don't know a lot of the the other uh religious um holidays i know we have them i just don't know what they're they're called so forgive my ignorance in that um but if we put the that holiday on the calendar as it is and then on um when it comes to to christmas or easter it's not listed as it is like christmas or x and and it's replaced with xmas or something like that are we now exposing ourselves to someone saying well you lifted their holiday full name and you didn't list our holiday full name so now i want to sue the district for showing partiality to the muslim faith over the christian faith because you didn't list christmas you put extreme ones that are on school days right christmas is listed we should treat all
00h 30m 00s
religious observances and holidays and equal terms as the district and we can't control what other people how other people might list them but on the district control documents we should so we should treat them so theoretically you'd have like two weeks end of december first of january as winter holiday but on december 25th it would say christmas and on christmas is a national holiday comes out september 25th it wouldn't say right does that answer your question yes yes that that's that's exactly again i'm just looking at it from the the legality i'm really trying to figure out you know i love what we're doing i mean i absolutely absolutely love it there's no part of me that's going to contest any of this i just want to ask questions about like i don't want us to get sued and then somebody quote me as saying you know herman greene did this because him and ali are pastors and i don't know yeah i think this came from from um we have a video of the students bringing this issue forward and they are still playing okay well i understand what you're saying herman because that you know is are we pushing some sort of religious agenda but i do think this is from our series happening in the u.s our students especially our jewish and muslim students who are saying we are struggling can you help us with how we schedule our calendar in a way that's respectful i do major world religions it's not like you know we're not you know i do think i always wonder what school districts in new york or places that have like in minnesota has a large muslim american community african you know what are those places doing and i think we've gotten some people that are more multicultural i can't give you a broad survey but i do think it's places we've looked they are there are more holidays that are observed in those communities that have more religions represented um and sometimes the school year is longer extends farther into the summer because they have more than enough services so that would be the trade-off i mean if we so this next year we're just going to put a note on the calendar asking our principals and our staff not to schedule things on those days but if we and then if we want to have a bigger conversation in this next year about the calendar for 23 24 we might talk about do we want to take young people off we want to take eat off and if we do that then we that means negotiating with our labor partners it means extending the school year so there are some pretty big conversations that's why we can't do it this year he's already sort of negotiated the calendar we've gotta like talk about it now for twenty three four future yeah that makes sense yeah but like dearborn and detroit yeah uh well i think that's a great question you asked herman and i think um also i shall be mindful of liz's responses like we can only control what the district said but it's not necessary and other people may misinterpret it so maybe that is a reason why when something gets rolled out that it comes with a like faq or um some sort of background like here's why it looks different and here's why in the past when we didn't say christmas or didn't have it on the calendar that it's now on the calendar because we've gone through this process and here's what it means um but it there there will not likely be mistakes i mean there will likely be people who interpret it differently than us but maybe not active or talk about it differently okay anything else on that topic uh thanks for the ongoing work thank you for my question so the next item is a longer update and overview of the community engagement around school-based fundraising and so we have a couple items there was a number of materials that were on um that were posted and robin are you going to provide the presentation or is jonathan i am he's he's uh he's here okay yeah um we also have some public comment um and we have four people signed up or is it three then one written three or four we we also i'd like to just direct people's attention to also in your inbox you have some public comments around this agenda item that was
00h 35m 00s
submitted by sylvester who is the incoming pta uh president at scott and to participate in a roundtable but can make it today so you have some public comment in your inbox as well but we'll start with um the presentation um by step go ahead like introduce your name and title and okay um hello my name is robin ferrone director of teaching partnerships um i wanted to give you a little bit of an overview of uh the meetings that we felt and then some highlights from the report that was provided to you i also have copies if anyone would like paper copy of the report so we um the goal was to do some targeted engagement from to communities we hadn't heard from yet on this issue that we felt like was lacking in our in our full view um so there was a meeting held with the district student council um and then two targeted parent leader engagement where we asked administrators and uh directors if they wanted to invite parent leaders from the roosevelt and mcdaniel cohorts and then we held the meetings at mcdaniel mcdaniel high school and one at roosevelt high school and then the feeder schools from those who attended those that meeting in their neighborhood um and it was it wasn't like broadcast anyone it was like targeted you know to the parent leader so a lot of the parents who came are actively involved in their school community either through the pta or some sort of pto or other organ unaffiliated with pta from organization um site council i know was mentioned at least once uh or actively involved in volunteering in this school and we provided in the materials the slide deck that we presented um we didn't go slide by slide we presented it by way of background um these are all the um issues that we've heard talked about at the policy committee this is the background we also provided that website link it's like a google site where we posted links to documents where you could see the background of all the different types of fundraising that happens across the district um and then from from there we we wrote up notes um detailed notes and recordings from all of the meeting and came up with these three themes that are in the report um and then the final and i'm going to go over that a little bit and then the final piece was an administrator survey that we put out through our admin portal which is like a interoffice newsletter type thing and that had the four questions that are listed in the report very open-ended questions and then the bulleted responses are a selection of representative quotes from the administrators in their own words um so that that is kind of by way of background what that piece was and that was um anonymous so we so that we were you know hearing what administrators thought of the policy without necessarily their name attached to their opinions can i ask about the anonymity because i'm really interested in how surveys are like different people handle this differently was that done by a third party or how was it anonymous no ip address sometimes you know where you know we're fully google here so it was a google form where we did not collect emails because you can select to automatically collect emails of every um response and so we told them that that was not being collected and so it came through just um you know in in the spreadsheet okay and then you also in the preamble said this is anonymous because we're doing yes and they had an option to include their name and i would say a handful of people included their name but most responded anonymous okay thank you yeah
00h 40m 00s
and so we have their responses to the four questions per person so we know what like one person answered each of them but we don't know um and we also allowed um uh like business managers could respond to so it wasn't just principles so okay whoever in that school may work with their fundraising house that's great i appreciate that i think all of our buildings are different for a lot of our different buildings have different practices so that's really smart um and uh director bram edwards attended uh the the student engagement and the two parent engagement as well um so can i ask one more question about that those special thank you for talking about like the feeder schools into mcdaniel and roosevelt did you hear from black and brown families um yeah and to what degree do you think i mean i'm just curious because i'm doing the same type of work um for my day job and we're starting to uh well we're starting to see patterns emerge and and that's where uh we have community members speaking on behalf of kids of color but we're not hearing from the families of kids of color and so it's just a nuance that you know when we say it for my work we want to center the voices of people of color we want to hear from them we don't want them to be represented by someone that is not from that community and it's really an important nuance we're talking about climate change and centering voices of our most vulnerable so it's just something i i'm trying to bring a little bit of awareness around um because i think it's important we listen to who has the lived experience and background yeah and and the voice to advocate i mean i can only i can only report on what i observed it wasn't something we asked people to disclose um but so it roosevelt um we had we had low attendance compared to the responses that we were expecting so we had four out of 10 people come and i would say one at was the person of color and at out of the four okay and then at me so it's 25 out of four but only 10 percent if everybody's attempting okay yeah well yeah i don't know who else would have been represented but i would really be interested in sharing i'm just saying i'm i'm i'm really interested in hearing from the communities from from the kids that we are under serving that's all i'm saying i i feel like it's really important because it was a small small group um everybody got to participate as much as they want and the individual who was a representative of um cesar chavez did participate okay and they can't they can't speak for the whole community either right so you know if they're a latinx person they're not speaking for everybody you know so so having those numbers is really important i'm talking about this from a research perspective and from like actually trying to implement you know we it's time to move from talk to like let's do something a little bit differently and that's not you know any judgment on you i think this is great that you've heard from people and you thought considered the feeder patterns but i i kind of my ears turned off when i heard roosevelt and mcdaniel but they perked back up because i thought i heard feeder pattern i didn't hear like at least a quarter okay and the handout i didn't think to include it in the in the written report but on the very back page i added the list of schools that were represented um we have this in our so right it's in the board book at this very last page that is some schools so you know we can update that on and a couple of them had more than one person from that school but i only listed this school once i mean it sort of gives you a representation of the school that we've heard from there were also some people who had multi like either because they had kids or staff who had multi
00h 45m 00s
school experiences which was interesting and so like a very wide divergence of experiences and a couple that um [Music] at the mcdaniel meeting that had students in pps and then they also worked in a different um looks helpful in pps too that's some experiences yeah um so so i'm just thinking like um this is definitely school-based but there's like some of our partners actually work with these families like the black parent initiative sci um um it's a great way latino network yeah to hear from families that go to our schools so just maybe that's what i would be thinking too michelle poic um in those let um if there was a way that they work with all black families that live in all of these every every one of the clusters that that you guys are just talking about they have black families majority black families that live in those neighborhoods come to pretty much any event that they put on so if we were to host something or allow um allow them to host something and then bring that same survey um i i think we get a larger pool yeah no i appreciate the comments and the suggestions look i agree uh we we we definitely want to hear from more uh communities of color staff or edu families of color you know i appreciate director green director hollins for uh sharing some uh names of folks on uh in your communities um many of them joined us uh and so i think it's gonna take you know all of us working together to to really lift off those voices thank you jonathan yeah i i just always want to make sure like we talk to black families like it's okay to say black family and that we that we hear from black families because of our our our achievement so which is why i mentioned i forgot about poic but poic is a great one i've actually at the city job i've posted things there too very well attended pizzas went along with everybody you know it's really close it's right up the street very good participation rates we also did give participants a fifty dollar gift card to fred meyer and appreciation with their time that's excellent we disclosed that in the invitation that's excellent and provided through that job thank you and that i attended that meeting and i would say that all the pts event things that i which have you know i've been doing a lot of yeah robin did a fantastic job in terms of outlining um child care dinner and actually paying people participating and so yeah i think meaning that i just wanted to mention that again i thought it was great that's excellent that's those are all best practices for getting you know people in the room that might have a longer way to come so i appreciate that too um so so the report outlines kind of three themes that we that we pulled out the collective impact model being the first um with a strong interest in and how do we begin to shift towards a district-wide fundraising model and utilize the fund for pps maybe to bring communities together around targeted goals of fundraising or meeting unmet needs um in schools through through that method and there it kind of goes on here there's some suggestions around how that might work and there was definitely um i would say a feeling the majority opinion was that school foundation should end or phase out but there was also an opinion about maybe raising the percent that goes to the shared funds so that that is called out here in the bullets um 50 was mentioned more than once by participants was not something staff product would it be um i'd be interested in you know looking at how that works out like dollar wise per building you know if we could just have like a model you know what what's the change from the 30 what's the final outcome when we increase that percentage by 20.
00h 50m 00s
does that get us closer to what we're thinking or is it more needed well my question like so i think this goes to the heart of some of the questions like what is it that we're thinking i mean are we thinking that and this is the initial question like what what do we as a board think about foundations is it something we want to i mean that's what we're trying to get at and so is it is it that we i mean one of the conversations we've had is that when you look at the staffing dollars and this is the point amy has made a couple of times when we look at our budget but the amount for people is lower at the schools that have foundations because we're focusing on an equity budget and that's as it should be so when we reduce the foundation at those schools the money does go to other schools that are getting an investment already which is equity and what we need to be doing and what's the impact on those other schools and the one place like we don't consider foundation fundraising when we do staffing except for in october when we do the right sizing right like or whatever it's called when in october we look at and say the enrollment it's like this school has i mean well we all know about glencoe because they've been coming to our meetings and very passionate advocates for their students in october we might look at glenn cohen at the district when i say we not the board we don't do that part but the district might look at glencoe and say they they have the highest class sizes we have an additional staff person we're going to give it there but then if they look at a school let's say well inside experience there that has already fundraised a foundation teacher for that third grade then they're not going to put the teacher there because they already have that person filled because they've fundraised for it so so that's one of the pieces too as we think about this there are some there's some complexities to it and i think you know when i read this i think where the move towards i love all the like the collected impact the how do we build together that's the thing i've been saying about pta all school-based fundraising how do we build together for all of our kids rather than thinking about my kid my school but thinking about the global how do we care for one another um which is why i actually like the foundation fundraiser better than the ptas because foundation at least has some equity impact where our ptas only run raise funds for their school so how do we do this through all of our school-based fundraising and it's hard because we can't we don't have any control over ptas but that's the way your risk yes till the discussion to let robin finish because the predominant so we they got this slide deck and it was presented and in some cases it was like here's some of the solutions sometimes people knew some of the potential solutions conversation and so i think it was a pretty without um any sort of like steering group one way or the other a pretty open discussion and i would say the vast majority of people were and so are we going to let robin finish because i feel like you interrupted what i was saying so you can make a speech because so if we're going to have her talk though that's how i feel yeah i was talking and you said let's let robin finish and then you started editorializing fine very uncomfortable um i'd like to hear this stuff i don't know if i should leave or if i should just stick it with it but this is please stay with them this is this is um it's it's irritating in a meeting to have this back and forth um especially because you're probably off work already and you're here with us i'd like to hear the rest of the presentation as well thank you i'm sorry for the information so but i don't know that i really called out here we had very open-ended questions you know when i talked when i'm talking about this discussion um so the questions were what could responsible fundraising look like in pps how can fundraising be more inclusive and contribute to a stronger sense of community district-wide and what changes would you like to see related to fundraising and to any guidelines for parent groups that are currently fundraising so that was what we put out we we had um people talk amongst themselves and then report back and then we had a group discussion so these themes that we called out weren't likes directed but they were more like how the conversation went and what issues were coalesced around and it was reflective of very similar in the two different meetings i would say overall um so the
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second theme i just wanted to get to was around the community building um because and then this kind of yes it is somewhat of a collective impact model but it was also about um not just money you know and and how do we work together and um help each other and support each other and um people expressed uh gratitude for the opportunity to come together and to share ideas amongst each other and wanted to know if there would be continued ways to do that if we can facilitate that um and then there was um some different opinions about yes let's continue doing that within our cohort or maybe let's bring in other schools that that we um maybe there could be a more listening session so that there was sort of some different opinions about whether people really wanted to to kind of do that all in one room or not um so um i think it's a more nuanced thing that we kind of have to tease out like what what would that look like if we were going to continue to do community building next year around these issues not just about like the policy itself and how to change it but like how do we help our schools get what they need and not constantly be asking parents for money um as the only solution and and what could that look like a city-wide kind of movement that's cool yeah so i can i just want to flag this sentence the disconnect between fundraising to provide families with food codes or other versus basic needs yeah versus other schools fundraising for staff and fun things such as field trips travel and other extra extras creates animosity i think that's a that's a really important note from the community building aspect and what what some of our schools are fundraising for really basic needs of kids yeah and sometimes there was sort of a tension between like should we like let people know maybe they just don't understand like maybe and then like but wait we don't want to you know we don't want to put every all our needs on display and we don't need sympathy or you know that term whoever said poverty parades yeah yeah yeah yeah very wise yeah so that that is sort of a a challenge i would say in in them in the model of the district-wide community building um and then the third theme is around increased transparency and um you know the ability to kind of understand like there was a lot of well i hear this is happening or you know are people really contributing a full one-third of everything and and how do we know and where can we see where the money is going um like how can we when we go to pbs.net we can't just search foundation and find all this information so how do we know how to find it and to understand the complexities when we brought up things like contracts and playgrounds and field trips and other things that parent groups fundraise for their you know where would we find that information um and as staff we're thinking we're not really collecting all of that centrally right now we do for the foundations there's a lot on the fun for pps.org but still that may not be completely accessible to all and easy to find so the fund for pps they issue an annual annual report or end of the season report or something but it doesn't get down to that granularity where we can see i don't recall i haven't looked at it a long time but i don't recall that it was very clear but yeah much more change overview but on the fund for fund for pps.org there are spreadsheets you can find if you go to the local school foundations tab and then down to the bottom and then it does have a spreadsheet of every school foundation what they raise and their one-third that it goes to the pps parent fund but again like people wouldn't necessarily know how to find that if they hadn't spent some time on that website and i think the lack of transparency just from my lived experience the pta of the well in didn't pay for the field trips themselves they gave that money to the principal's discretionary fund because it was a liability issue if the pta my understanding was from oregon pta that if the pta paid for the field trips and if something happened the pta board was liable so we donated the money to the school and the principal so when we talk about transparency
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that those players get really complicated yeah yeah then there's student body funds um yeah yeah very common and the google site that i um linked in the um in the report you know it's a hyperlink we also did some research to pull pta dollars by school like looking up on guidestar um and and when you look at those next to the foundation dollars you can see that it's a lot of the same schools that are able to raise for foundations are also raising a lot of pta and so people were also expressing you know the differentials in like materials like ceramics class at roosevelt they don't have enough money to have the nice materials that they expected should be provided to all schools across the board without such a reliance on parent fundraising that creates a different experience for students i would say is a part of that as well it wasn't just around the foundations issue well i think you're right director members that what we're hearing from our community and i know what the reform pbs foundation group has said it's the the desire to to look at how do we do whole group whole district fundraising and and i heard you say how do we phase out individual foundations this may maybe a majority opinion we heard in these conversations it was kind of interesting because um yes and i think then the conversation there really was there was this strong but really a strong sense of like we still want to raise money to support like classroom teachers um with things like supplies i mean then there was this huge like between what some teacher allotment gets but there was a sense that at all schools that was a way that they could actually support students is by directly providing supports to teachers and so there seemed to be like that is something we want to still continue to do um i say that there's a big disparity among what each teacher got at different schools but it was there wasn't anyone who was advocating like that that is in a way that is a parent group shouldn't help their school yeah is a sense it kind of helped everybody that's that's right director prometrics i mean i i heard that loud and clear as well and i think that you know that that's what was if i'm honest i think that's what was difficult for me to to grapple with right kind of two different rules for two different processes even though the impact is still the same uh on the other side in other words there are schools that we have educators who are getting a thousand dollars in at the beginning of the year versus a 200 or a 100.50 you know dollar gift card so the outcome the output is still the same and the impact inequity is still the same but what was really really difficult for me to grasp is how we how there was there was a desire essentially what i thought were different rules uh for different pieces um and and so i'm just you know i'm just bringing that forward as a as part of the conversation i think if you look at like the administrator survey with with the parent input side by side it was kind of like if we could get our basic needs met by the district we wouldn't need to keep doing all this parent fundraising i mean so like there was some talk around the teacher supplies like if we could just have a standard amount then we maybe you wouldn't have such a differential of like teachers want to go where they're going to be most supported and have like the same administrator and so like it gets mixed up in a lot of other issues around like keeping keeping your staff and in the schools and the high turnover that we have in school communities and issues like that how money contributes to those challenges as well i mean there were also the issue of playgrounds kind of like hey because it seemed like more like that's a discreet goal and we have like a scrappy people could
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like make it happen but it wasn't as sustained year after year we're gonna have the auction to raise this huge amount of money like we can't do that but maybe if you gave us like a discrete like goal that is something that has like long lasting benefit like like so they didn't seem to be uh we should stop that because that seemed different than the pain because sometimes you can't get your needs met then you're gonna have to like figure out a way to get it done that's sort of not that that was how people wanted to spend their energy but if if they needed something they were willing or a lot of them go to businesses and i'm really excited to see like a lot of folks are saying we need to get our state to fund our schools adequately i mean that i think that's the bottom line is that we know that i think the foundations came in after measure five and it was a desperate attempt to deal with the gap in funding and it's all this time later and it still hasn't been fixed so we can spin and argue about foundations or and or we can put our energy to how do we actually get quality education models do we have an idea um when you you brought up a turnover administrator turnover does the turnover amount to higher poverty schools i think there's i mean i know i know i know the ones that are in my neighborhood yes yeah but i'm just wondering globally if that's the case i think it's also true of teachers like if you look at the years of experience of teachers you become more concentrated that's it for my report thank you evan i really thank you for your timing in there to tell us how great the engagement was that's super important and i appreciate you all for really doing the due diligence to get from folks i really appreciate the way that the report was formatted by theme and you know just observation and it was really good thanks questions or director green do you have any questions about the engagement i'm hoping um a comment that we um don't stop here with our engagement that we that we actually listen to more diverse voices specifically black voices i think it would be important to get you know i don't think we're done i hope i hope we're not i would rather i would rather um do a great job than to rush through this rushing yeah i'll just for the record this is like pandemic which made it difficult to do so yes i guess i don't want urgency to be it's it's urgent there's no urgency but i i do want to want to put it on the record though that can i just finish my extension i say i don't think there's urgency but i want to recognize because i don't want jonathan robin to think that like dismiss what just happened because i think they did a great job i think they did it as soon as they could yes once the pandemic made things happen because i don't i don't think that meeting those meetings would have been the same virtually so that's that's all yeah i'm not disagree with you i'm just saying i don't want to i don't want to dismiss like that wasn't enough because nobody said that was yeah so i want to just hold my face that yes but we heard a lot of choices and so and i also want to recognize the community advocates who have been asking us to look at this for several years if not decades okay and i want to continue to say that i think that i would i would be more satisfied if we heard from from black family yes that we haven't it's not a criticism on the work the work is excellent um you know the focus groups are great paying for child care paying for having food at the meetings participating the city actually um offers a hundred dollars per meeting for any community member coming in uh to to provide their expertise or their lived experience so it's a hundred dollars for meeting with her it doesn't even matter the bureau so i i think that's great and we we have a um we need to hear from black voices so i would like i would like to so it's a it's an and thank you for your work and
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and i would like to see the poics and the jefferson infinity groups and you know i would like black parent initiatives and these um and also just i just want us to be comfortable talking to black families i would like to see us make a change to this policy by before the budget cycle for next year so that we give our school if we if we decide that whatever i mean so when we change this it'll it won't go into effect until the 23-24 school year because we're starting in 22-23 okay so any if we make changes next year they wouldn't go into effect until 23-24 correct i mean right but i think i would like to see us move on this policy so that we don't delay it another year right so that we're able to say to our school-based partners and to our community advocates we've made changes we've made reforms we've made adjustments on that timeline so yes we want to include more voices and do more work and we want to we do want to move with some forward motion because it has been for a while that's great um because the budget this got adopted did have inequities in the staffing that was provided to schools um both for the schools in the middle but also if you were a neighborhood school adjacent to a focus program they got staffed differently yeah um they didn't have to step to the maximum which um neighborhood schools did so director edwards thank you for bringing up that uh to the staff uh because of your uh look at this and and bringing this into our attention we are going to be addressing that so we look forward to to addressing to your point of possible inequities that may have existed and i want to appreciate you particularly for pointing that out i do want to point it out that i'm not advocating that they have large class sizes just just for the record i'm advocating that other neighborhood schools not have large class sizes so yeah i think i think as i pointed out an inequity that just has been existed in the system so i just right and we we have to address the parity of it so i totally agree between the parity between neighborhood and dual immersion so again appreciate your your uh your recommendation in looking into us um any any other questions or discussion about the community engagement and noted uh directed to pass your request for additional engagement um from black families we could say black families yeah but i was in science i'm sorry i'm still yeah i didn't mean to assume you weren't going to say that um so i want to thank jonathan and robin for what you did it's great and uh jerry do we have any public comment i have nothing um so i would love a little bit of flexibility just but no more than three yeah i will um i will do my best um i um my name is maya playa von gelder and last name is spelled v is a victor o n space capital g-e-l-d-r-n my pronouns are she her i'm current and incoming vernon pta president i work closely with our sun school staff our families and black students las familias and our other affinity groups at vernon i am very aware this is outside of my testimony planned but i'm a very aware of the space that i take up in this conversation i'm a native hawaiian who has fought for racial justice and equity in education housing everything my entire life for my own people in my own land so um my i immediately go to our families of color work with our specifically our black families not to speak on behalf of them but for them to inform me so that i make the decisions and the and they have the perspective because of the things i learned from our community um
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i am able to work from home and i am able to drop my children off with family too so that i can hear these things so while i was not planning on speaking tonight when it seemed that there were still spaces available i was asked by the group of us from the round table at mcdaniel um along with the other parents to sign up for space and superior um i want to thank dr breme edwards for consistently attempting to bring up this discussion to bring this discussion to the forefront of the conversation and director holland who isn't here for taking the time to come to vernon for our families at black students event talking with me briefly at the event uh about specific this specific issue about fundraising um somehow it seems to be a conversation that is like an off-limits conversation we table it i've seen it tabled over the last few years consistently um it's a big conversation i understand that fundraising is a hard conversation we risk alienating some communities by even bringing it up as they fear for all they'd lose if things were to change but the thing is we risk even more by not doing so can you imagine the communities that don't have access to funds like others do they've never had these luxuries in the first place let alone risk losing them how does pbs consider this to be the time for equitable education yet continue to foster an equitable inequitable funding system there is a reason for the district determine differentiated funding model it specifically allocates more staff to csi tsi and title 1 schools for for a very good reason we all know that image that illustrates the meaning of equity for people to understand who don't understand it those boxes that give a child the foundation for trying to see over the fence the differentiated funding model is set to provide the opportunity to start off with every child saying of events does that mean different size boxes yes it does but equity that's what we're working for we're not talking about equality we're talking about equity and that's how it has to work when we allow schools to pay for positions that are not all all that not all schools are afforded those with resources continue to reach heights that are unattainable for others we cannot have this be the case of public schools we have schools that struggle to raise 50 000 yes concluding statements yeah completing statement lincoln raises 900 and raised 965 355 last year between their their foundation and their pta fundraising we have schools jefferson we have ml martin luther king jr that don't raise anything that on their 990s with the irs file zero that is not equitable and it never will be and we cannot let those boxes continue to stay the same size as the same children again and again are left behind thank you so much for being participating and also participating in the round table thank you virtually we have mongali robasa good afternoon my name is magalia ravasa my last name is r-a-b-a-s-a and i use she her pronouns i'm a parent at wrigler elementary i spoke to you a few months ago and i'm also the new incoming pta co-president at wrigler as i mentioned before because of the multiple historical systems of oppression that the majority of regular families face our school does not have a foundation nor does it have a robust pta structure capable of significant fundraising and these same systems of oppression put our students at a disadvantage when it comes to learning which is why equitable and not equal funding is essential i participated like maya and others in the round table at mcdaniel last thursday with many parents from other mostly title one schools and while we were very appreciative of the child care the food and the payment and the compensation for our time we were disappointed particularly those of us from regular that no interpretation was offered as that excluded many veteran parent leaders from our school community on a similar note i appreciate dr director de pass's insistence that more black families be part of the conversation i think that is urgent and very needed as a group we were united in our stance that parents should not be able to pay for teachers at individual schools this was very clear in our conversation and this is a fundamental first step that must and can be taken immediately we don't need to wait for a holistic reform to make that immediate change beyond this key problem we were united in our concerns about the many ways that pta and foundation fundraising severely exacerbates inequity the current fundraising policies and practices perpetuate a system that pits so-called good schools against bad schools wherein these good schools are more protected from problems like principal churn something we faced at regular repeatedly
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unfilled teaching and staff positions instability of enrichment offerings and mismanagement or inability to manage the funds that we do receive the current fundraising system perpetuates a deeply problematic model of charity where wealthier school communities have control over if and how they share their resources as parents we want fundraising to be guided by principles of solidarity not charity where all school school communities have agency and dignity as part of a united and collaborative district and as dr beth cavanaugh's research shows the proposal for 50 revenue sharing is unacceptable and i want to know and make it clear that at the mcdaniel roundtable at least there was no mention of the 50 proposal to my recollection nobody proposed that or suggested or supported that we want fundraising to shift from the current siloed model where parents fundraise for their individual children at their individual school to a collective community-wide approach to both fundraising and distributing money the district needs to and can set the tone for this creating a mandate that schools stop hoarding resources thank you very much for hearing our voices and for creating the space of these round tables we now ask that you take steps to act on this information the board has a responsibility to respond to the findings from these roundtables which overwhelmingly support fundraising reform and ending funding of fte by local school foundations pps has a tremendous opportunity to create lasting transformation and to be a leader nationally so now is the time for us to put our commitments to equity into action thank you for your time thank you very much uh for sharing your thoughts with the committee today also virtually is daniqua hello my name is daniqua jamila rasheed i'm a parent at roosevelt high school and i attended the pps roundtable discussion at mcdaniel high school last thursday as a parent organizer i wanted to speak today to make sure the voices of parents are heard at the round table participants repeatedly stated that the current system of fundraising and especially the foundation policy is deeply flawed and extroverts existing in equity across pps as a group we were united in our belief that parents should not be able to buy teachers for their schools it is unethical and it is unacceptable we call on the board to act now to prohibit parent fundraising from being used to pay for fte we also have concerns about other issues related to parent fundraising and want to call on the board to make changes to the existing policies and practices to create transparency around staffing and programming at every school and how staff is paid for this will help our community better understand the needs of every school and allow us as a district to provide for every student in our decisions last week many parents share their concerns about differences between raising huge amounts of money to pay for teachers field trips and rich programs and other educational opportunities and those schools who are struggling to fundraise to meet the basic needs of their community members things like coats food housing transportation etc the grants from the fund for pps don't even scratch the surfaces of those schools needs and increasing the percentage of wealth wealthy schools contribute won't change that charity does not equal equity there is no dignity in being handed a small cut of a wealthier school's funds we want to be invited to every table to work together unite for all students united for a strong and better pps thank you for creating a space to hear our voices now that you've heard from us we ask that you please move on these issues let's work together to create a greater equity for all pps students thank you thank you so much for uh joining us today and also your participation um at the round table thank you also is jamie painter hi everyone thank you so much for having me today i was not at the round table and instead i will be sharing the remarks from my incoming pta president celeste grover i am a member of the scott elementary school pta and the mom of a kindergartner i'd like to make one suggestion before i get started as a new participant if there was name tag so we could see who was speaking it'd be great for the audience to be able to see who was saying what but let me get started
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i'm going to read from celeste perspective but my name is celeste grover i'm a parent at scott elementary where i'm also the incoming pta president because of the multiple historical systems of oppression that the majority of scot families face our school does not have a foundation while our pta has been active and a strong presence at our school for several years our main focus has little to do with fundraising instead we are committed to being present listening and cultivating a community of mutual support the limited money we do raise goes directly back into our school community to fill basic needs ensure equity between our dli and neighborhood programs and to bring our diverse populations together to build community partnerships in addition a lot of our time and energy goes into advocacy work to ensure scott the mcdaniel's cluster and other pps title one schools are receiving equitable funding and attention as a school community we simply do not have the capacity for additional fundraising efforts i was one of the participants in the pps roundtable at mcdaniels last thursday with community members from other pbs mostly title 1 schools as a group we were united in our stance that parents should not be able to pay for teachers at individual schools this is a fundamental first step that must and can be taken immediately beyond this key problem we are united in our concern about the many ways that pta and foundation fundraising severely exacerbates inequity the bulk of parent fundraising relies on the unpaid labor of women in our school community we are in favor of a district-wide fund for fundraising for staff but it felt harder to extend this model to all parent fundraising we need transfer transparency first and then we can address all other parent group fundraising reform there is no reason to wait to reform foundation fundraising parent groups should be required to submit a report to pps for every fundraiser possibly over a certain dollar amount that details the amount raised and how the funds will be spent parent groups should also be required to meet district y to review and discuss the data with a lens on equity and work to create a system for sharing wealth some of the people participating in foundation work or contributing to foundations may not understand how their contribution to the fund for pps is distributed nor how the dollar amount actually impacts schools receiving funds the requirement could come from their form of board policy 7.10.020 parent groups in the schools some scott staff members have expressed concerns about sharing their opinions on this topic because they are afraid of how it will impact our school they agree that it is an overall inequitable practice but this must be balanced with what it could mean for our students especially those that continue to be underserved this fear is exactly why reform needs to occur to make funding more equitable so our teachers staff and administrators don't have to rely on the charity of wealthy schools to provide our students with their basic needs while most of the money raised continues to provide for those who already are already provided for we really appreciate you hearing our voices we ask now that you take steps to act on this information pps in our state legislature has a constitutional responsibility to find a way to fund all of our schools to make them great parents can and want help with that process and will be more successful if we are unified interaction we must start by reforming policies that perpetuate privilege at the expense of our most marginalized communities these policies are an obstacle to the right of every student to grow up in a community that provides a good education and opportunities for growth to every child equity facilitates equal prosperity thank you so much for your time today your time is uh thank you for uh sharing celeste perspective um and also for the no we normally have placards they just aren't here today so um thank you for reminding us how helpful that is we all sometimes know each other um but we do normally have placards so sorry that we didn't this meeting um and that it wasn't clear too but thank you for calling it out because we need to be reminded and thanks for um sharing us testimony i think we also got that in writing i do have it in writing yes thank you jamie and i love your i want to be wherever you are outside in the green that's beautiful okay thank you um i see director hollins has joined us and um gary i'm wondering are you here to listen or do you have something you want to share or be part of the discussion just to listen great thank you for joining us today and also thank you for suggesting some names of people to participate in the round table um we had a good turnout and um you brought additional community people in so thanks for the support for staff running that um so that concludes our roundtable i had i did have a question um
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about one of the the themes that came up about transparency and um and this may not be an answer now question but more of uh how would it happen so one of the things that we've talked about in the past um just like the fund for portland schools is a separate independent 501c3 that ptas and ptos are 501 z3s and that they have their their own boards and they do their own things and what um where's like the point of intersect and i do think um the conversations that robin and jonathan and i had identified some clear intersects the staffing the capital improvements contracts field trips but i guess my other question would be i don't know that we could just flat out tell a separate 501c3 here's what you have to report but i'm i'm wondering if for example if a school says to all their teachers the pta is going to provide 200 per teacher to buy supplies whether through policy or district guidance it could be and that needs to um you know when the donation whether it's in-kind or cash is made to this to the school that that becomes sort of a reportable event so if if our staff are accepting or our schools are accepting something of value that that seems where the and again i'm not a lawyer so i don't know what the nonprofit statute are but that may be the place where we get the transparency so it's not like we have the ability to you know say who your board is or anything like that but if if you're you're going to be doing you know x and giving transferring money or goods into our schools that that is something that we need to be transparent right i thought when you started you weren't asking questions i think you asked questions let me try to you know i am asking a question because i don't i don't have anything right i'm just trying to think about this question of people wanting transparency but also that they're separate 501 so so no separate entity can force pps to accept something pps says no and pbs can say here are the conditions upon which we will accept these things right so i think you wanted that i think that's a pretty straightforward lie but the administration of that is i think where the rubber meets the road and think about what kind of thresholds or rules or documentation you would need to make that administratively successful and productive but you i don't know entity has any ability to force pps to don't we have a rule that i mean we already have in policy i'm trying to find it a rule that says that parent groups if they do something that's over a certain dollar threshold there's 5 000 but we don't enforce that policy yeah and i think what i'm um yes that's correct but i guess i'm trying to get out and maybe this is a like come back and share with us how you think it could work because i knew there's operational issues yeah but the whole prospect of you know we're requiring a separate it's my understanding is that pbs couldn't just flat out require like because you exist you have to register with us and give you your 990. um but i do think whether it's it's a cash stipend or gift cards or in kind that yes could have a policy if this is these are the conditions under which we will accept it let's get right and so i guess i look at that that is potentially one way now if a pta or foundation raises a whole bunch of money and just sits on it um i mean but then they get into trouble with the irs that there are rules on how much the nonprofit can have in their holdings right well then we'll also see it the 990. um but if the thing if if the i did have heard this you know we heard at the round tables um it's been raised before like how do we have a better sense of what that is and i do think that jonathan and robin um just in their own sort of gathering of information the 1990s it was um eliminating what the information said but i i guess i'm trying to get at the one of the themes that you know because i think you can't do anything about something you don't even really know what it is transparency right i mean because it could be like hey after we look at it there's this school that gives each
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teacher fifteen hundred dollars in a stipend um to buy supplies all year or to have past parties or whatever you know whatever it is and this school has 150 and then there's a po there could be a policy decision like you know we think this is the sort of max you know for school or it's that this is where might do what we did with the field trips instead of limiting them on one end providing some sort of phone on the other end but it seems like getting the maybe the data and seeing if there is a way to do it legally you say get get the data the data of like what's what's going into our into our schools getting at this by asking our administrators it's providing a level of transparency i mean even if it could be a dashboard of some type because i think when it's in black and white it makes it really clear um you mentioned the 965 000 and 37 cents or whatever it was 355. yeah um i mean that's that's huge so yeah that's cute i mean i know like king school is king elementary but i i appreciate i appreciate the suggestion about you know needing the data for ptas i also think we you know let's let's not let's not let's not play around we know that there are inequities in ptas and i don't think there's a mistake about that we know that there are more inequities i would argue in ptas and other places than in lsfs and so i think let's not let's not let's not let's not hold back just because we don't have data we have a lot of data that suggests that ptas i mean we have research national research we have local research that suggests that there are inequities in ptas so i i don't want to get stuck on we need all this data to make a decision um so i would encourage the the board we know what what we that there are inequities in ptas and it's it's our i mean we heard it loud in here from the public comment we have to do something if we if we're really truly addressing the inequities let's address it let's not let's not hide behind data uh searches yeah so um jonathan i i actually i'm not i'm trying to figure out a mechanism of how it is you create a nexus to suspend the school i'm not i'm not trying to just collect data but i'm actually like where is the nexus because if if there's not a nexus i don't i don't see how how we set a policy so this is what i'm i'm trying to figure out what what the nexus is for us to be able to asset because just just as another um my understanding of nonprofits if they're separate they haven't they have a set of rules and pps couldn't just tell a non-profit so we couldn't just for example go to the latino network and say you have to give us a third of your fun fundraising uh or whatever i mean because they're a separate 501 c 3 which is what ptas are so i i'm not i'm not sure we disagree i'm trying to figure out how it is that you even would have you understanding what my question is i think i'm not because i think i keep answering it enough clearly not so we'll know i'm actually responding to it so keep [Laughter] my question wasn't clear because um jonathan um response because it's not a date of delay it's where would the nexus be say if you were to say they need to provide fifty percent or some other number you would say the condition i mean you could define the conditions upon which you would receive the donation and i think that's probably limited only by our creativity and what we would want that to be i mean i exploration purposes if you give you know a hundred dollars if you want to give a hundred dollars to this school pta for this school you also have to give you know our condition for that is that this also be given just right i mean similar to the foundations i mean i think pps is in control of what it receives those actions may limit dollars that come into the entire district there are consequences to those they get to make their own choice in response to that they may figure out what are the relationship pieces in the school but i i think the parameters are pretty broad for pps setting the conditions for receipt of donations into
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that's right liz and uh in my previous uh uh district uh we laid out a number of conditions for any nonprofit any 501c3 uh that in order for them to do business and business in the in the broader sense of the word um they had to do a number of certain things so so there's precedent nationally around the world that you know government can do to to to to tailor this and i'm happy to provide uh the the committee information from previous districts some of those social justifications bring up the issue too like they're raising money with our school name and we what about when we don't see the money so there is also like that's still a question to answer so i think there's two pieces to it there's like how do you do it legally and i don't i'm not asking you to answer anything now because this is like a surprise question and then um second um what are the operational pieces that would be at play like i say it's it's it's really easy with things like contracts um and capital projects and staff because like it can't be affected they can't do it without pbs's facilitating it and so i guess that would be sort of that's the non-legal side of it so that that would be the question i would ask and like how how do you how you could do that right and i think um robin and jonathan in consultation with building administrators are the best people to think about what is what is a reasonable administrative structure for that to receive an account that um doesn't take more time than the value of the donations might be worth it doesn't create a black market system where there are secret donations coming in that tries to be built in a relationship of trust and cooperation those are all the kinds of things i think that conversation would want to entail not just what does the forum look like but how is it building the right kind of because the pta and pps care deeply passionately about the children around school how do you build the right systems to work together but i i i can't tell you what they are i mean i do think the building admins are really critical in terms of defining how that could work for them as you add more to building admin plates one of your samples i'm not saying anything very profound no i i but this is like the i'm thinking through because i think the first reaction was like hey we need to want everybody to register and it's like we're independent um and so it's a deeper converse conversation about it and we do all the time um say if you want to participate in something then you know hear it here are the set of rules like i i sort of my question is like could psr do that without any sort of policy guidance i mean yes and so that that's another piece um i do think ideally all situations aren't these are the top down rules from the district is different than let's talk here's the problem we're trying to solve how can we collaboratively but it doesn't give you the greatest deal short and long and i and i do think there's i mean so what i just thought when i think i think you're right julia that we need to get information about how our schools are utilizing funds and i think we do have the ability to to put some limits and guard rails on that you know if we say okay you can only give your teachers a 500 stipend well then i know people are gonna figure out ways to work around it so if we can have people on board from the beginning as we move towards equity how do i know that because i know schools that do it i've seen it i mean my thought is okay we limited to 500 well then that means other people like people donate supplies to the class and that doesn't count as money so that like there's all sorts of ways so if we have if we have it collaboratively from the beginning maybe there'll be less of that but i do think you're right i mean i do think we need to really move how we accept money i think that's a brilliant thought julia as we begin that yeah i think it's a really important thought i think it also um jonathan can weigh in here because this department further conversation but i think the district has one sense of what other supplies the district
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provides and we're hearing that there is this sense from others right so whether it's pta provided family provided district provided how do those work together what is the district's point of view on what should be in every classroom without those other right and so not to chase them away but to have one of the equity questions is are there are supplies showing up in the right places in the right quantities right jonathan is that fair encapsulation absolutely [Music] so um that would be um i'd be interested in the people you named yeah so i just yeah because i i do think um it's it's not as straightforward as the other pieces and and yet you know i disease so sometimes the district has come up with um or are non-profit partners a not things like school house supplies which didn't provide that and i mean i guess one of the things that i heard that robin you touched on which was the theme is like how do we get out of the silos of my school so even like the school supply is like how do we have something district-wide that every you know kid doesn't just get the 8 crayon box but gets the you know 64. and like you have a no no 300. nobody gets 300 or whatever i never got nothing right now i think my concern with this whole conversation has been like i think that the fundraising for staff is a huge question if we're going to allow that but then my concern about doing away with foundations has been then how do we ensure that money doesn't all then just flow to ptas where there isn't any equity because it so it's like we have multiple strands and i think that's that's something you've been really thoughtful about thinking through julia is how do we how do we continue to promote a radically different culture around fundraising and i think your three areas of note and all of you who spoke that collective impact the community building and the third one off the top of my head transparency are really key to like the way we want to go forward so um i want to just be clear that it's to me i'm not or eliminating foundations or pta right or anything else those are just mechanisms yeah what i'm and this last budget cycle really drilled it in is like the buying staff is really inefficient and it so like that's what i'm vote that's what i've been focused on not the mechanism because you know when you start um say in a world in which you couldn't buy staff well some people like why do we have a separate foundation we'll just use the pta and and then you have a mechanism for that so it's it's not like a foundation in and of itself is not is not the problem that i'm focused on it's the what they're allowed to buy because it's the most fundamental thing that pbs has to offer and that is like and that's the thing that makes the biggest difference to a student which is a qualified teacher in the classroom or additional educational supports um so to me it's like it's a distraction to be focused on whether it's a foundation a pto a pta a um a booster club or whatever um and i think it's gonna be it's gonna be complicated because i say the other things are are big tangible items that right but that they can't like build something without a permit that pbs you know gives them or they can't buy a staff person without putting the money into an account telling a teacher you're gonna stay um so if uh other committee members are okay with it we'd ask um staff to come back with a what a um you know what kind of model any and again i think we should look at it in a um in an entity-neutral way because that's not the that's not the thing that's the issue it's the divine yeah but but i answer these other questions because they are just a lot more you know like hey we're going to buy 15 baseball hats or you know whatever it is and then you know i guess the other set of rules are the are the foundations that all those entities are those also like the field trip entities or is it how does that interplay with the um the school account
01h 50m 00s
you know account and so that seems like a relevant piece as well so you write the field trip check to the school or are you writing a foundation you maybe get a deduction but it's the same you know it's money flowing in i guess that's the other question i i would also use to the team come back with the recommendation and i think i think it would also be beneficial to look at um like what we can do now um when we went to when i observed the round table discussion at mcdaniels um overall um especially among our like title one schools they're saying no to buying um staffing but you know they don't have this you know we we shouldn't expect our you know communities to have the solutions to uh fundraising but there is things that we can do in the now like long-term goal uh our short-term goals and things that we can do in the future yeah and i appreciate director brent edwards what you said about you know uh or you know being neutral or you know or blind if you will to the entities because i think i think to your point i mean i think you know where i where i sit in this in in the or you know and as i think about this i think you know i appreciate you know your your look at the macro when we think about staffing i think about the micro where you know again if we use the the paradigm that is being used around parity and some schools have something that others don't you know i think about the experience of kids who don't have access to uh you know extra field trips or the the more expensive base uh baseball or basketball or the you know uh the all those extra things that we know makes the school experience more joyful and i think about you know what happens when you know uh the at the micro level you know there there's there's discrepancies right and and and the inequities that that creates so so as as much as again as i also i appreciate the look at the macro but again at the micro when susie is getting you know more things than than another student at another school uh is that is that is that is that the type of organization uh that we want to work for and be part of i want to also just solicit something that i think is embedded in all of this that with equity being the overarching goal and the top of the hierarchy of means but we are also i think what was also embedded in this discussion is a desire to have to have fundraising and contributions from the community to the schools so i just want to make sure i'm not or do you is this a statement of we don't value that because that's it fundraising has been a part of school communities for a long time so i just want to make sure well i think i think it's nuanced because i i didn't hear um individuals saying we want to get rid of it but people said we did it we do it for different reasons and i think and some of it's community building some of its essentials that's what i've what i've i heard uh but it wasn't like we don't want to have it because we we see ours we see students show up with needs and teachers show up with needs and we want to that's fine so the system you build could disincentivize for incentivize right depending on your so that is that an accurate statement what i said is like there there was still a sense of we use it for community building i mean like for example scott it was like we don't have any events that people can't afford our point isn't to raise money at some of those events that we're community building um and we raise money for essentials um so i don't think it's getting rid of altogether i think the difference is like and i'm probably the wrong person to say this because i have a bias but like the sense was but when you're buying a teacher that's like i want you to get the equity at the top assume you can satisfy equity big assumption we are not saying we are trying to but that is not what i feel that is not right and we're already trying to encourage how you how you make tax advantageous places versus not like i mean those are questions and you think about structures what you're trying to incentivize or not so that's what i'm just i didn't hear that um i just since when we were at the roundtable i just wanted to put one thing out which is that we did speak quite a lot about actually just doing district flight fundraising where we all fundraise as a district and that money gets disbursed equitably throughout the schools
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so we fundraise for field trips and that money goes into a pot which then gets distributed to the school uh kids are going to end up in school together somewhere you know kids at our school are going to go to jefferson or mcdaniel kids at their school are going to go to grant or jefferson kids at the other school are going to go to mcdaniel or grant our kids end up together and so if we are saying we only care about our only our children like my fourth grader and kindergartner then that's the way that we are fundraising now if we are going to think about how the education and the support that we're giving our school is going to affect their education on the whole then it has to affect all of the children in their school in their district in their communities because they're going to end up together so if kids regular are not getting music and kids at alameda are getting music and they all end up in beaumont together who's going to be playing music in beaumont there has to be a way that we think larger than our school pta and i know you said very specifically ptas care about their schools i know that for me and the work that i do and for people that i work with in rpta we don't just care about vernon we care about king we care about bobby and we care about people we care about scott we care about kids in our community because unless i'm willing to say i only care about my kindergartner and fourth grader then the reality is i care about other children too and that needs to be addressed and the current way of fundraising only for our schools means that grant ends or let's just say i already brought up lincoln lincoln takes home 600 000 to spend in their community where jefferson does not have that support and that's not okay so i'm constant at the time all right and so there's um an anniversary dinner i appreciate um there's two things um that i want to do i want to um ask for ask for two minutes of public comment and i'm sorry i didn't um see it earlier and i know you just flew in and came straight here to this i want to hear that but also i also want to recognize um gary you had your hand up is there something you want to um to say or to comment on yes and i'll keep it quick um and i i'm off the equity issue with the funding piece um i do wonder if we talking about staying children centered if we are looking at ways to be equitable um what impact do it have first that we say we don't want any of the funding going towards teachers what what i guess what repercussions is that for those schools that might lose those teachers like what impact is it for those kids at those schools do you want to answer now so then they they get what the staffing formula that pbs has provided provides the equitable staffing the equitable the staffing formula that currently exists so is that is that a negative or positive it's a reduction in stem is happening because they've actually added to their own staffing but from the district from the district standpoint they they're getting what other schools with similar demographics will get so it's not that they pay for staff and that then reduces what they get from the district it is they get what goes through the formula but we can share more information with you um i actually had one last more thing before death and we will let you go i just want to make sure that the committee members were comfortable with um what yes happened to us well director can i sorry really quick director holland i appreciate the question i think you know um we'll we'll get back to you with kind of more uh a thought you know a staff response on on that question um and on all work with the team to look at you know possible impacts that that would have just uh to to address your point thank you that was it hi i'm ben cavanaugh and um i just really quickly because these materials are published i wanted to have a chance to just provide a little context that um this these documents i can't remember what it's titled on that reading materials but the background numbers for community members um i was asked to model what it would look like if the um with the relationship between school
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demographics and fundraising dollars would look like if the uh percentage required contribution was increased to 50 i know that's something that has come up often in discussions that number um and so i just wanted to provide just what's in this packet i wasn't comfortable just providing one alternative um so i did a whole range because i can never just deal with other things so this also provides a look at 75 contribution and two different versions of a district-wide model now all of these are obviously theoretical models i there's examples based on a low fundraising and a high fundamental year and they're also broken down by um great bands by k5k middle and high school so um the first page is correlations which i just wanted to put out there while um we can see that how relationships are strengthened or weakening based on that percentage uh statistical significance is really not useful with only 82 schools you really need more like a sample size of 500 or something so while there's valuable information there i just really want to direct your attention to the uh the bar charts that show more about the distribution and um those are the ones that show the grade bands and in those the schools are arranged in order from the highest to the lowest or excuse me from the lowest to the highest percentage of historically underserved students in those buildings so um the the schools at the on the left side of the chart have the fewest historically underserved students all the ones at the far end of the chart have the highest number so um there that again shows the difference between what the distribution would look like at the 33 sort of baseline where we're at now a 50 75 and then the district-wide options and um one thing that i thought was super interesting was how you don't really get the lower um or the the school serving more um historically underserved students to a similar dollar amount as the higher the current high fundraising schools until that like 75 point of view and then at that point what really stands out is that at all the levels you've got this group of schools in the middle somewhere between 8 and 20 schools depending on what you're looking at they're really getting nothing because they're not they don't have foundations they're not fundraising but they also don't qualify under the current grant formula so that doesn't mean the grant formula couldn't be adjusted but so that's what these are based on and that's why it looks like that thank you that was really helpful any questions about what's in there you can email me um and happy to talk about this all day as it goes on that's something that the heat map doesn't highlight that if you're if you're in that middle zone you're going to probably have higher classes no no eas because you don't have the mechanism for the relief nor do you have the district support thank you thank you for providing that again thank you for coming in at the last month and with that we're adjourned sorry we ran over that's okay my dinner class was seven i booked in


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