2022-08-09 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2022-08-09
Time	18:00:00
Venue	BESC Auditorium
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting 8/09/2022

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[Music] [Music]
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all right
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let's go ahead and uh get started
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good evening everybody we've got a
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quorum so we're gonna we're gonna go
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ahead and jump in uh this board meeting of the board of education for august 9 2022 is called to order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on has been posted on the pbs website under the board and meetings tab the meetings being live streamed on pps tv services website and on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times so good evening thank you all for being here tonight um tonight director lowry is joining us virtually hello director lowry director to pass is absent and i know um director greene is on his way i think he's stuck in traffic so he will be here shortly uh before we get started just to share a few reminders um we ask that all members of the public attending this meeting tonight treat each other staff and the board with respect and do not interfere with the ability of the board to conduct its business those wishing to display placards signs and or banners must remain in the auditorium foyer behind the seating area and please do not block any attendees view of the proceedings also please keep walkways clear and aisles clear and in general we'd appreciate if you can just be mindful of others in the room and the words that we all use and be aware of who's watching including some of our children okay moving on to the consent agenda the board will now vote on the consent agenda board members if there are any items you would like to pull for discussion we will set those aside for discussion and vote at the end of the meeting um ms bradshaw are there any changes to the consent agenda um yes there was a contract removed from resolution five six and the revised resolution was posted prior to the meeting great and i'm sorry i missed the last the contract removed and from resolution six five five six and it was posted prior to the meeting thank you uh board members are there any items you'd like to pull from the consent agenda for tonight no i have one i want to just note that small change um just for the record and then just a comment but you don't want to pull it so during discussion okay great um do i have a motion and a second to adopt the consent agenda so moved second great director constant moves and director broome edward seconds the adoption of the consent agenda is there any board discussion on the consent agenda director from edwards yeah i just wanted to note
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um there's a contract for curtin mcconkie that has it as a tbd for the amount and it's actually a fixed contingency uh thank you so just to repeat myself the curtain uh mcconkey uh contract it's listed as a tbd when it's um actually a fixed uh contingency and then the other um item just a flag for uh potentially a future discussion or maybe just um to get an update from the superintendent is um the world language and dual language immersion materials that um it's i'm glad to see him it's great that our students are going to have those materials um there's a note though that because of uh going over budget it's a 450 000 from the general fund versus the bond and given that we told um voters that we'd have sort of the full suite of materials k-12 all subjects uh paid for through the bond just would be interested to see with whether this is just a one-off or longer term whether there's some adjustments we need to make um if we're not going to pay for it all through the bond and what those trade-offs are so great thank you uh any other board discussion on the consent agenda all right ms bradshaw is there any public comment no and uh this is gonna be just sort of a rookie day so bear with me uh we're now gonna vote on the consent agenda but you said there was one resolution pulled correct and i missed the number no it wasn't polled just one contract within the resolution it was the um music one great thank you so we're still voting on resolution six five five five through six five five eight yes perfect all right so when we are now gonna vote on the consent agenda uh all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes uh all opposed please indicate by saying no and student representative mcmahon yes thank you and are any abstentions all right the consent agenda is approved by a vote of five to zero with student representative mcmahon unofficial unofficially voting yes okay we now turn to student and public comment um before we begin let me just take a quick moment to review guidelines for public comment first the board thanks you for taking the time to attend the meeting providing your comments public input informs and improves our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen and we promise to do that tonight our board office may follow up on board-related issues raised during public testimony and we request that any complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide to the board or superintendent please email those to public comment all one word at pps.net again that's public comment at pps.net when you begin your comment please clearly state your name and spell your last name you'll have three minutes to speak and you will hear a sound after three minutes which means it's time to conclude your comments miss bradshaw do we have anyone signed up for student or public comment we do i'll start with joseph jeffrey clyde welcome joseph clyde c-l-y-d-e my pronouns are him and her what i'm a labor activist and a school bus operator with safely transported kiddos over 12 years in the pps district i have established relationships with students parents teachers school administrators and other operators during this time i'm speaking up because my of my rejection by the student transportation department without a reasonable adult explanation of being rejected after applying at three employment opportunities within the district in the first 12 months 20 the first months of 2022 a career i have spent more time and effort on to remain teachable than any other skill sets i have attempted in the past i feel some of us have been wronged by pps student transportation hoping you will investigate the transportation unhirable lists and other practices that eliminate qualified operators like myself from working in the pps system with no other
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explanation given in a labor management meeting of union reps have directly asked student transportation about the unhirable list and the question was ignored how can i have gone from such an excellent example quote unquote uh to other drivers from econ to a condemnation letter two minutes already what's that oh it's start sorry you're still you're still fine so unhirable list and other practices eliminate qualified operators like myself um the uh from sorry um from march 10 2017 from student transportation signed by the director to unhireable without notice until 2022 national statistics rate school bus operations 70 times safer than the family vehicle school bus operators are safety specialists constantly keeping the kiddos and the public safe by using our safety training operating a school bus requires more of the operator than any other form of transportation except aviation i took a 21-month break from 2020 to 2022 in january of 2022 i applied directly to pps with an online application and was told by hr after applying that student transportation picked up picked it up and that i would be um that i would be uh not moving forward with that my second choice was my former employer for a student but i was rejected there as well i was told they were hiring candidates that better fit the skills and qualifications they were looking for my third choice was student transportation of america my current employer i was hired this past march in portland with the intention of working in the 2022-2023 school year for their contract with pps i did my retraining in tigard driving a route there till the end of their school year in may i was told by the sta manager greg price that pps transportation sent him a list of operators who would not be allowed to transport pps students i and several other operators are on that list during this time i was applying to return to work there were as many as 43 uncovered routes in the pps system in my investigation the two words i heard ah time up not being hired are unrel un unhirable and trouble that is not enough for the safety specialist i'm waiting for an adult response from the director of student transportation the number one question is what egregious wrong had i committed between 2016 and 2020 that i was never informed of until may of 2022. thanks very much thank you [Applause] susan putman welcome hi my name is suzanne putman p-u-t-t-m-a-n hello board thank you for the opportunity to speak to you all in person my name is suzanne putman and i am the parents of three pps students i am here tonight to advocate to the district to reinforce your mission of partnering with families and staying committed to educational excellence specifically i am here to advocate for complete progress reports this last school year every single progress report we received for our middle school student was incomplete english no grade no comment mathematics no grade no comment science no grade no comment core classes like these are fundamental to my child's academic development how's he doing is he working hard enough is he committed is he engaged are we supporting him encouraging him challenging him are we demanding academic excellence no grade no comment what kind of message does this send to him what kind of message does this sent to us over the last year we repeatedly inquired to our teachers school administrators and district ad administrators our teachers were silent our school administrators told us they would look into it but we have yet to receive a response we elevated our questions to the district level still no response the entire system has kicked the can for almost a year regarding a fundamental requirement for schools measuring and communicating academic progress recently we did receive an informal response one that we were shocked and disappointed to hear we were told that teachers due to their union contracts do not need to issue
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complete progress reports in fact we were told that we were lucky to have received any grades it was further explained to me that unless the student receives a d or an f educators can lead the grade empty is this correct am i processing this correctly pps educators are not required to provide complete progress reports don't we provide them a paid workday per quarter to prepare progress reports i am concerned that pps has lost its academic focus over the last year i've received over a hundred communications from pps on non-academic issues like community services covid social justice advocacy for walkouts and plans for excessive heat temperatures but on the topic that most interests me academics and how my kids are doing academically i received no grade no comment complete progress reports are a fundamental building block of education school board please hold educators accountable by providing complete progress reports please send the message to our kids that their hard work their dedication and perseverance to earn good grades is recognized and valued thank you thank you [Applause] chris walters sammy larson hi i've actually never done one of these before my name is samantha larson and i'm here today speaking as a very concerned parent and new parent of portland public school district i've been curious and wondering when did politics become more important than our children's education i came across an article written on july 28th about portland public schools titled that portland schools are now teaching young children about infinite gender spectrum as i continued reading the article goes on talking about how middle schools how middle schoolers are learning in science that quote different persons have different genitals that they're not specific to any gender because gender identity is about how you feel about yourself inside along with that another lesson states that you cannot see gender because gender can look any way and that they can use whatever pronouns that they want and what world is this considered science in reality through the use of science in a hundred years from now they can look at your bones and based on your bone structure can be determined whether or not you are male or female it is ingrained all the way down to your dna when it becomes acceptable to not only completely ignore science and biology but to teach this false narrative to our children your jobs as educators is to educate why is the school district not interested in actually giving our kids a real education i would like to know who came up with telling our kids that quote gender is something that adults came up with to support to sort people into groups many people think that there are only two genders boys and girls but this is not true there are many ways that to be a girl boy or both or neither neither literally my mind is blown you guys are sitting here sensationalizing gender dysphoria which may i remind you as an extremely rare and serious mental disorder it is not your job to be promoting hormones which can render these children infertile for life or life-changing surgeries that are permanent when it has shown that 60 to 90 percent of kids who identify as trans no longer wanted to transition as an adult and that is why you may ask it's because children don't have the mental capacity to make informed decisions on such a serious topic nor does teaching our kids this has to do with education you're taking your powers as educators way too far and have no business replacing an education with this but the wealthiness goes all throughout subjects another article from february to uh february 12th of 2021 states how the oregon department of education thinks that math is racist that somehow it's rooted in white supremacy to focus on finding the correct answer or showing your work when it is not only appropriate to show your work in school because that's how you are showing that you're understanding the material um because in the end there is only one answer when it comes to math two plus two is always going to be four it's not going to be one it's not going to be five it's always going to be four how's it okay to teach your kids the opposite
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also how is it okay to hand out anti-racist reading titles that include me and white supremacy white fragility and why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism why i'm no longer talking to white people about race or something about black lives matter memoir how's it okay to try to combat racism with racism we live in an amazing country that literally it doesn't matter who you are it doesn't matter if you are purple or yellow or whatever color religion race you can come here and have a great life and that's why people die coming here to live here wrap up your comments so i'm just curious is there any way that we can get a full um list out of the curriculum that's being taught to make sure that my kids actually being taught legitimate math legitimate science social studies thanks for your comment um let's we're going to direct that specific question to um uh to roseanne powell who's our board manager and and staff can get back to you on this specific question thanks for your testimony all right thank you david borden hello my name is david borden b-o-r-d-e-n i am a new employee with portland public schools maintenance department in the electrical shop uh thank you for the opportunity to address this board my statement pertains to extending the quarantine pay on a saturday in late may of this year i tested positive for covid it was quarantined for five days for the first uh three days of the following week i received quarantine pay that pay made a difference in my benefit package it also made a difference in my paycheck and my ability to not infect my co-workers students and all portland public schools constituents in late june i was exposed to covet from a family member and i began to exhibit symptoms i stayed home day with ill pay from my benefit package the pcr and at home kova tests i took at that time were negative yet that could have been different it is my intent to have this board consider if there's something more important than protecting the students staff faculty constituents general public at large from an airborne infectious disease that has new variants every six months or so especially if there are funds available to alleviate the propagation of said disease by keeping those funds available to the very people charged with maintaining the systems that protect these groups this board can rest assured it has made the proper just correct decision to keep all parties safe healthy and at the ready to serve in the capacity for which they are employed i thank you all for your time considerations in this matter i yield any remaining time back to the board thank you mr robin [Music] julie wright hello everyone my name is julie wright w-r-i-g-h-t i've been a pps parent and then a pps math teacher since 2004 but i've never testified here before so please excuse my nervousness and tell me if i'm using the mic wrong or something um i wanted to speak to you tonight about pbs's covid protocols for staff for this year and about the balance between being together and taking care of everyone's health the pandemic is still very real our fellow citizens are still getting sick at high rates and many have suffered and even died there are real risks in being exposed to this virus but as educators we also know the value of working together building relationships and having a learning community in person the balance is not easy especially when there's so much we're still learning but as i tell my math students in class we have a responsibility to do the best we can at learning while understanding that we will make it just make mistakes and then adjust and grow we can't just sit back and pretend the virus isn't here the memorandum of understanding for the past school year encouraged behaviors that helped keep many of us healthy i truly appreciate that i taught in person
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at jackson middle school last year all year and never got coveted i didn't get covered the year before i still haven't had covet it which is amazing um we had coveted leave days that did not penalize us for being exposed at school and did not discourage us from testing and isolating even if we were physically able to work that kept people from just hoping for the best in showing up and infecting their co-workers and students in the building we were provided with air purifiers and kn 95 masks which i used every day i want to strongly encourage you to reach and implement an agreement with all pbs unions to use these and other measures to incentivize staying healthy and avoiding the spread of coven we all wish we could make this virus just go away but it's not that easy while rates are high we will make schools safer and better if we keep staff healthy and present for our students the churn of having staff out for illness is very hard on everyone in schools students who have to deal with the instability and the loss of the adults who know them and staff who have extra burdens covering especially with the shortage of subs this has been particularly hard on our administrators and on staff who would normally be at besc such as teachers on special assignment but most of all it's been hard on our kids we all want to get back to normal that's the incentive for just pretending the virus is in here but that can't happen while students and staff are getting sick and being absent because the virus is spreading so we need to do what we can to reduce the spread of the virus and having reasonable policies that encourage people to stay out sick when they are sick and where they're not punished for it is a huge part of that also please please keep funding our air purifiers and filters thank you thank you [Applause] chris walters good evening welcome my name is chris walters w-a-l-t-e-r-s and uh i'm also here to talk about kovit because we all don't want to talk about it but it's still there and particularly about how pps is going to be handling that for staff in the upcoming year the new variants are very adept at avoiding immune responses ba-5 even if you're vaccine boosted and have been infected recently it doesn't care you're going to get infected if you're in the same room with somebody who's got it and having the five days that the unions are proposing means that as staff we aren't going to have to make choices about whether we're going to use leave or not use leave it just makes things simpler easier it's safer for the staff it's safer for the students and it's a very simple and easy proposal and it keeps us in line with federal state and local guidance and i strongly encourage you all to support the proposal by the union so that we have a safe and hopefully relatively not weird school year coming up thank you thank you [Applause] that concludes public comment great thank you kara i'm just gonna say to um the board that i'm gonna go off camera for a little bit because i need to lie down but i will still be listening and you may hear me pipe in thank you director lowry yeah she's not feeling well but thank you for joining us anyway um thank you everyone for your comments um next up on our agenda uh we have a spot to hear from our portland association of teachers so thank you president bonilla for being here this evening and welcome thanks hello hello directors uh superintendent student representative welcome um i am so happy to be here in portland in front of y'all in person um it's been a while and i am very much looking forward to our uh collaboration i'm hoping to be able to address this body regularly so that we can continue that conversation
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um so first i want to start with appreciations which i try to do in most of my meetings um so i want to first appreciate uh margaret calvert and jd mitchell who've been working with pat on responding to the letter educators from middle schools have written around safe and stable schools all summer we've been meeting to figure out how we can accommodate those concerns and they have been extremely collaborative um regularly checking in making sure we're following through huh [Laughter] and i'm looking forward to a future collaboration with uh shar hudson and uh jamal tibbs who have also been in those conversations um so i just wanted to put that out there sometimes folks are like well if p-a-t says they're great like is that a bad sign or should i i want to you know bring it up and say that they are awesome and i appreciate them and uh i don't think that's a bad sign if we think they're great too um and i also wanted to make sure to appreciate um board members who have been responding to emails i've been inundating you and so have our members with emails over the summer so i really appreciate when you all give us that response back it makes us feel heard so thank you i am also here to talk about the covid memorandum of agreement we came together as unions from the district to discuss covid leave because that was set to extempire on the 30th of june we know that a lot of new employees might not have the full five days they need to take leave when they are sick and we want to make sure that folks don't have to choose between paying between paying their rent and keeping their communities safe we also know that we had that great image of swiss cheese and mitigation layers and we don't have that anymore there's no masking no distancing no updates to air circulation there's nothing else to mitigate that spread right now except for individual responsibility and so i want to make sure that we are providing a sense of safety for staff and our community that's coming into these schools especially with the substitute shortage we've always been short substitutes but um it's been a bigger deal the past few years and if we want to encourage our retirees to come back as substitutes it's really important that they know that they're coming into an environment where folks aren't working when they're sick um we need our substitutes we need our custodians and our nutrition workers we need our paras our eas our secretaries we need our bus drivers we need our maintenance workers and we can't afford to lose any more staff so please make sure to approve that agreement so that we can continue to move forward um i also want to kind of touch on because i know y'all are going to talk about the superintendent's evaluation and retention and i know that there are three parts there that are important to call out 1.4 talks about making progress on pps's racial equity and social justice strategic plan by hiring and retaining educators and principals of color 3.1 talks about developing and maintaining a supportive equitable culturally responsive inclusive district culture that actively recruits and retains teachers admin and central office staff of color and then 6.3 creates and maintains organizational structures that maximize district capacity to positively impact student learning and so i just wanted to point out that our contract under m point 7.1 has a has language around stabilization of high turnover schools so in that language it says that the district should be interviewing any staff that are leaving from schools that have a lot of turnover in order to understand why and then to work with the union to develop solutions for those problems so that might be a way to help support the superintendent in achieving those goals by providing those interviews i haven't had many i haven't had any information come to me from those interviews yet but i have had a few educators who have pointed out that they've left the district because they felt that it was untenable to work here so i really really encourage the board and staff to partake in those interviews and ensure that we're listening to educators and staff when they're leaving buildings and they're leaving the district so we know how to better retain those educators especially our educators and staff of color when it comes to creating organizational structures that maximize district capacity and positively impacts student learning i think it's really really important to take some of the learning that we have developed from the summer acceleration academy around miscommunication
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and mishaps with planning that have resulted in our students with the highest need with individualized education plans and special ed um receiving less than the services they are legally required to receive there were lots of issues that had to come through with payroll and enrollment and um just kind of clerical issues and so i think it's very very important in order for us to achieve those goals that have been set out for the superintendent that we are reviewing those systems and trying to make sure that they're actually efficient and serving our students as opposed to being barriers to those i know y'all have seen those emails from educators where they are receiving students they don't have plans for or students have plans and there's no staff to support them we had multiple students who are in focus rooms most of the year which means that they are in classrooms because they have a very high need with limited students and a lot of staff being put into general education classrooms over the summer where they would not have that level of support and classes that they have never been a part of in their whole educational career which caused a lot of trauma and destabilization for those students and so when we're thinking about students coming back to the district after you know the impacts of covet and everything that's happened we want to make sure that we're creating systems that will ensure they are getting all the services they need all the supports that they need and that when an educator is saying hey i've got 101 kids on my caseload across two sites i don't know what to do the there is someone there to respond quickly to ensure that every student is being served more so than uh considering well maybe we can just reduce your case load and that should be fine it's like well all those kids still need to be served so what are we gonna do um it is really difficult right now to attract educators and people to this field and i think it will benefit all of us and will attract more educators and more people to this field if they know that this district is taking those systems in central office very seriously and is ensuring that those systems are working appropriately as they are felt on the ground um so that's that's most of it i just want to say thank you and i look forward to more collaboration this year um and continue to work with you to create our great public schools so thank you thank you thank you very much yes okay and uh this evening we also have michelle batten from the portland federation of school professionals here to provide comments thank you for being here good evening portland school board and superintendent guerrero my name is michelle batten b-a-t-t-e-n and i am the president of the portland federation of school professionals pfsp i am speaking tonight also in support of the renewal of our memorandum of agreement for covet leave last year at this time a coalition of all the unions representing workers at portland public schools met with pps leadership and created an moa that provided safeguards for the mandated vaccines boosters and isolation due to covit we are asking for your support for renewal of this moa for the coming school year that will continue through next summer 2023 encompassing portland public schools summer programs last year was unprecedented as we prepared for return to in-person learning we learned children can get covet a person can get coveted more than once and that everyone adults and students were struggling physically and emotionally as they returned to classrooms and work sites i will use myself as an example i was fully vaxxed and boosted and i still got covered in may one-third of my members work with special needs students in some capacity many of these students cannot be vaccinated or wear masks we must keep safe those who care and educate our most fragile students many of my members live in multi-generational homes live paycheck to paycheck and have suffered with the rising inflation knowing they would still have an income and be able to stay home and recover without fear financial devastation is imperative to our employees we do not want employees returning too soon or not taking time at all because they have no leave especially for those who are new to pps i will say that as of today there are 104 pfsp job postings so there is a lot there are a lot of openings and i know that pat and other groups have an equally high amount
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the safeguards included in last year's moa gave our members some sense of security and relief should they become ill with this new and ever-changing disease we still need those protections please keep safe those who keep our students safe whether in the classroom or in the boiler room by renewing and extending our memorandum of agreement to provide coveted leave access each time an employee tests positive and before any other leaves are utilized thank you thank you [Applause] thank you ms batten okay moving along in our agenda to the student representatives report um student representative mcmahon would you like to provide your report tonight yes thank you okay so i have a little slideshow to present it's my first time doing this so um so this summer i actually got the opportunity to visit quite a few or a couple at least of our summer programming with the rs resj team and i got to visit three sites which was markham elementary mcdaniels high school and roosevelt high school and it was such an amazing experience i actually got this shirt that i'm wearing from the black excellence program um so i just wanted to show some pictures and just kind of talk about that experience so this was the front building in markham elementary which was the second program that i visited and this is us dancing because we were excited it was time to go to recess so we were all having fun but going to these programs and getting getting to visit and see the passion of all these amazing students was just the best experience ever and i know that every single kid came away from this time with this amazing memorable moment in their life that they're going to remember and take forward into the rest of their time in school and i know that's due to the amazing educators staff members and support parents who put these programs together and are the soul of these programs um for me it was just amazing i think sometimes doing this job i forget that i am the luckiest kid in the world because i represent the best kids in the world and so going to all these programs and seeing the amazing work that our educators and our people and our community put in is the best part of this job and so i want to say thank you to all the people out there all the students all the parents all of our community that make these things possible i remember sitting in this board room before i was student wrap and talking about the investment that we were going to put into these amazing summer programs and seeing that dream realized is so so amazing so thank you so much i really enjoyed it and i cannot wait to share the rest of this school year with you and get to celebrate all the amazing achievements that we'll do together so thank you [Applause] thank you to you guys no claps for me i'm like it's all you thank you for that update uh superintendent guerrero i understand you have an update on new leaders i do uh and thank you student representative uh mcmahon i enjoyed being at mcdaniel with you visiting the vietnamese program being hosted there the school board and directors and community can look forward to a full wrap-up of what's been a very [Music] expansive array of summer programming this week we started another week of extended school year uh for our special needs students uh i know some of our board members were able to be at the arts showcase this past friday with our arts academy students there's just been an incredible amount of activity so we're looking forward to give you the the full summary of all of that programming uh it's been busy and it's been busy for our school admin who are back this week uh thank you those of you that were able to drop in uh at our leadership institute also being hosted at mcdaniel uh they're deeply engaged and uh they're at the same time thinking about uh and busy interviewing and staffing their schools and being ready for the opening of school in a positive way so uh we'll make sure that you get updates on our staffing across operational and academic areas soon but i wanted to take the moment to share our own talent acquisitions uh here on the superintendent's leadership team and so if i could call up very proud to bring aboard our new chief academic officer dr kimberly armstrong [Applause] just to share a few things about dr armstrong she's been involved in k-12 for over two decades most recently in the bay area of california prior to that in washington state she's worked in various capacities from a basketball coach teacher
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interventionist at the cabinet level a bachelor's degree in communication uh all the way to a doctorate in educational leadership from the university of washington we're really proud to have her here on the team and we'd love it if you shared a few words yeah absolutely good evening chair scott vice chair hollins board director student representative and superintendent guerrero it is absolutely wonderful and fantastic to be here um coming from the bay area you would have to live in a bubble to not know the legacy that superintendent guerrero left in san francisco city schools and one of the reasons why i'm here is because of his amazing ability to build a high performing team and i just have to take a second to speak on my amazing boss deputy superintendent dr proctor and her vision and focus for schools and students and communities and instruction is why i chose to be a part of this amazing team so i really look forward to getting to know you and the reports and whatnot that i will bring before you and just thank you for the work that you do on behalf of our students and i look forward to growing with you all thank you welcome welcome thank you [Applause] uh the next new member on our lineup here mr dr john franco if he could come up as well we're really excited to have him aboard some of you may recognize him he's come he's joining us from the beaverton school district so very well regarded here in the region most recently serving as the executive administrator for high schools options schools athletics activities and served as a very successful principal there as well his origins are as a math and science teacher in the central valley of california yay uh as well as a few other ap and other uh positions uh in in other locations including here in oregon uh dr franco's extensive work uh well known in in the areas of racial equity standards-based learning and assessment attendance and student interventions uh all of this combination sort of has made him really uniquely suited to the chief of school's role so we're really pleased to have him aboard uh his his college credentials bachelor of science masters in teaching from willamette university uh as well as a doctorate from george fox so welcome john franco to the team [Applause] thank you so much um chair scott vice chair hollins and of course school board directors superintendent guerrero and it was just an absolute pleasure to listen to you uh that was outstanding so thank you so much i can't tell you how excited i am you know with you know coming over from beaverton um i would say the ed network and i think we all know this in oregon is is small and so uh we all know what's happening in in other districts and so with what dr armstrong said is correct i absolutely know what superintendent guerrero has been doing i know of what your work has been i know the great work that i've seen in just only a year from dr proctor as well and if you if you take the experience today from our leadership institute day one uh was outstanding in terms of truly setting the stage uh for what we need to get to and i think people are are ready right they're they're ready to kind of get back to the the talk around instruction and and moving a dial for our kids and and i'm just really excited to be a part of that process um and so i just want to thank you uh for all your work i'm really excited to be a part of this team um and i'm sure there'll be um and and i told principals uh i've been telling principals i'm kind of drinking from the fire hose a little bit you know even though uh this is this officially is my fourth week but um with all that it's just so exciting and invigorating um to to hear the great work to see it but then also see some of the areas of opportunity and growth and i'm just really excited to be a part of that so thank you so much welcome welcome to the team dr franco and third in the lineup of chiefs under the instruction in school communities division with dr proctor is our appointment of interim chief of student support services jay bueno so of course he's a familiar face to you but in a new role now beyond as you know he came to us from evergreen public schools in vancouver a year ago and has been in the role of the senior director for special education services with us his background is in special services federal programs he's led special education departments and building systems and structures and inclusive practices across the system his background is an education specialist degree in school psychology he has a master's in counseling and human services and he served at the
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school site administrative level as well so welcome jay to this new role thank you superintendent good evening terry scott vice chair hollins school board directors and student representatives uh it's it's a privilege to be here speaking with you in this role i i first came to portland because of our focus on equity and inclusive practices in in this system and i couldn't imagine being anywhere else under superintendent carrera's leadership and in and have had the honor to work with dr proctor this last year in supporting our kids i work in collaboration with our staff our folks who are in the classrooms engaging and supporting our kids every single day and listen to their voice and i look forward to the privilege of moving the work forward and supporting our students in our classrooms in collaboration with you and getting to know you better over the course of the year and and very thankful for the honor to have this role and and step in and do this to do the work and lead it so thank you thank you so i just wanted to make sure directors were updated on three new cabinet level positions uh key positions uh to the work and priorities we have ahead of us communities several school communities can look forward to some public school principal announcements in the coming days so stay tuned for those but we're busy interviewing as well and that's my update great thank you superintendent grows exciting hires and welcome everybody to the district we're excited to have you here okay next up on our agenda we are going to be voting to appoint members to the first climate crisis response committee for the portland public schools superintendent would you like to introduce this item yes thank you chair scott i'm really excited to start this school year with this particular committee in place this particular policy as you know a proposal brought by community members was a two-year long collaboration with staff with advocates on a really key topic for for us tonight we have cat davis there she is come on down our new advisor for climate justice we're so excited to have her here on the team she's here to elaborate a little bit on the process of in identifying members of this climate crisis response committee i also want to acknowledge a couple of our directors director brim edwards director michelle de pass for being part of the selection committee which involved reviewing applications providing input on the final slate that you find before you tonight but i'll turn it over to kat to tell you more thank you i'm just pulling up my screen here excellent um oh my gosh sorry about that excellent um thank you everyone good evening chair scott vice chair hollins um board director student representative and superintendent guerrero as the superintendent mentioned my name is kat davis and i'm the advisor for climate justice here at portland public school district and in a step of progress to advance the climate crisis response climate justice and sustainable practices policy passed in march of this year i'm excited to share with you a recommended selection of candidates to serve on the climate crisis response committee as per the policy directive the committee will convene no less than quarterly and will report to this board on an annual basis about the district progress updates on the policy directives the application closed on june 15th and we received an amazing 70 applications for this committee this pool applicant pool is impressive featuring students and community members all eager to move this work forward so participating in this application review with me were director brim edwards and director to pass as well as a student representative and it should be noted that our student representative did not have access to any of the student applications and did not participate in the student review process they only participated in the community review selection so after three stages of careful application review and discussion for both the student and the community candidates i present to you all our nine selected candidates that are recommended to serve in this inaugural year of this committee as you can see those community members selected include barbie alexander isaac barrow jane kamal charity fane angela long eric opsahl and diane riley and our student candidates are danny cage and jordan steele so this selection fulfills not only the
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minimum requirements outlined by the policy including two student representatives and seven community members none of which are employed by directly by the district it also includes school and geographic diversity with the majority of members identifying as people of color and further the selection of individuals many of whom are joining us today virtually i believe represent a wealth of knowledge and perspectives from a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise so this includes representatives from the medical field policy planning industry sustainability and more with knowledge that spans everything from developing global targets towards sustainable supply chain infrastructure to you know understanding local advocacy in the nonprofit sector so we've got a great mix of backgrounds and expertise available here and while the lived experiences and education of these individuals may vary uh the thread that ties them together that we noticed in these applications as a shared commitment to portland public schools community and a deep passion for climate justice so as i mentioned we received many strong applications in this process and i would really like to knowledge acknowledge and express gratitude for everyone that applied i'll be reaching out to those individuals soon with a pathway to be involved since these nine individuals represent just the tip of the iceberg and when it comes to the community that is really excited to move this work forward so i believe that this election will provide great perspectives and insights uh to move forward these ambitious policy directives that the policy outlines so thank you for your time and consideration and i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have great let's open it up for any questions i just think this is a really important piece of our work because when we um you know created collaborated and created and passed our whole climate action policy a big part of it was that it be community driven and led so this is an important piece to get in place absolutely look forward to working with all i don't have any questions but i i just want to uh thank ms davis for her work and also for all the applicants i mean it was just an outstanding group of individuals who are passionate about pps i think one of the things is worth noted that the non-student members the all the individuals are either parents of current students or former students so really a commitment to our climate justice goals but also to pps and i think they're going to be super powerful so i'm really looking forward to the work and miss davis led a great process uh to get us there and thinking of ways to engage all the people who really who want to help us but um we didn't have 70 slots um but we'll think of other ways to help them for them to help us and a pretty big task because it's an ambitious plan great superintendent anything else before we put the motion on the table we're so excited to have cat leading the charge here thank you great thank you thanks for the presentation um do i have a motion in a second to adopt resolution 6560 resolution to appoint members to the climate crisis response committee so moved second director brim edwards moves director constance seconds any further board discussion student representative mcmahon anything to add i would like to just say it's really great to see danny cage up there as a recommendee he's actually our representative from grant and so i love that like it's so interconnected between our different leadership groups and that we just have that kind of very broad spectrum of the people that he'll be able to reach and i just think it's great to see student leaders over there that's great thanks ms bradshaw is there any public comment no okay the board will now vote on resolution 6560 resolution to appoint members to the climate crisis response committee all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no student representative mcmahon yes excellent are there any abstentions all right resolution 6560 is approved by a vote of and i believe i heard director lowry unmute and say yes so by a vote of six to zero with student representative mcmahon voting yes you did indeed great thank you great next up on our agenda um another exciting uh charter to look at the racial equity and social justice community advisory committee charter so we're going to be voting on this tonight superintendent guerrero would you like to introduce the next item yes thank you i think you're going to hear some similarities you just heard described and you've been part of this process along with our student leaders
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with the climate response committee here we are at the beginning of this process if you recall in 2021 the oregon legislature passed senate bill 732 this particular bill requires each school district to convene an educational equity advisory committee which for our purposes we're going to call the racial equity and social justice community advisory committee it specifies certain committee responsibilities and some membership selection requirements there's sort of three components to this legislative bill it stipulates that this committee will a advise the school district board about the educational equity impacts of policy decisions uh be that it will advise the school district superintendent about the educational equity impacts of decisions as well and c inform the school district board and school district superintendent when a situation arises in a school of the district that negatively impacts underrepresented students and advising the board and superintendent on how to best handle that situation the bill gives district superintendents the responsibility for coordinating the member nomination process and proposing approved finalists to the school district board similar to what you just heard with the climate crisis response committee selection process we know from our discussions with directors already that we'd like to propose including some board members in that selection process as well uh but here to say more or answer any questions as we sort of uh get into the starting uh phase of this work we have our senior advisor on racial equity and social justice danny ledesma here with us hi good evening um thanks so much for the opportunity just to give you a little bit more detail than what the superintendent provided um we wanted just to make sure that folks knew that the implementation of this legislative uh uh sort of action is part of helps us get us closer to our strategic plan meeting our strategic plan goals so under the theme of racial equity and social justice which is theme one our third goal is is to institute a community advisory committee around racial equity and social justice to not only advise the district about issues that pertain to racial equity and social justice but also to help monitor progress so like the superintendent said the legislature had provided some letter of the law recommendations and a small group of staff that included our community engagement team our resj team the general counsel that kept us on the straight and arrow there we uh we we wanted to make sure that this not only met the letter of the law but also sort of me met some of the spirit of the law so we wanted to make sure that this is a well this is an advisory committee that the committee members um also can help the district monitor progress against some of our goals uh as we move forward so we're really excited about the opportunity to not just um sort of do the check the box sort of like tell us what you think but to also sort of engage in more of a back and forth and a dialogue around sort of how community and staff and students apprise where we are in some of the goals that we've set out so we're really excited about that opportunity so to that end we've proposed a 15 member team consisting of a third of staff a third of students and a third of adults our rsj partners and parents as well included in that and we are really excited about uh this work so uh in true uh true oregon way uh the the le the law was passed but rules were not necessarily adopted until late this spring so uh we've decided to be able to meet this the letter of the law which requires that a portion of the committee meet for sure by september 15th that we're going to come back to you pretty soon after the start of the school year with a slate of recommendations for the three partner sort of slots and then we'll spend uh the beginning of august the rest of august excuse me the rest of august and the beginning of september are recruiting more deeply for students working with uh representative mcmahon and the um dsc and other sort of affinity groups to make sure that we can recruit students uh to apply and also just just kind of now that people are back ready to school have more uh more folks that will be able to apply so um we're really looking forward to it and um we of course are so excited that you want to be part not only of the approval process but also the vetting process so we're we're i think we're ready for that so if there's any questions i'll go ahead and take it great questions from the board
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just make sure i'm looking at the documents they have and then the information you provided thank you for the overview um just so i make sure that correct so the first round of applications is just the racial equity and social justice partners and that's three slots that's correct and that that's due on august 15th and can people self nominate or can community members nominate people or is there some other process uh it's a it's a pretty easy application process so it's a google form and we've sort of disseminated that out to all of our rsj partners on thursday we'll spend some more time with them encouraging them to apply um as they're part of our leadership institute and then we'll hopefully be able to turn that around really quickly we of course want to do a more in-depth and a much uh sort of deeper dive with our students and staff to be able to to do some recruitment but it is you can either self-nominate you just have to fill out the form yeah so then my second part of my question is so for the other 12 um when would the deadline be is that's that's the second number yeah the second round um so that so the first meeting that's required by law would just be with our the resj partners that's correct okay um it's the same application people self-nominate or other people can nominate people and it's on the staff it's school-based staff is that correct we'd like to get a variety of staff i think that the superintendent has really wanted to make sure that our principals are part of this as well but we want to make sure that we have both represented and non-represented staff that we have school-based and other other staff around there given that racial equity spans the entire district and i think that answer director bram edwards sort of kind of highlights the situation of we really want to think it's important to we've talked about this in our governmental committee and it's really important to satisfy the law to show that pbs is taking this seriously and we want to be in line with the requirements and to do this really well and i know that ms ledesma and her team and superintendent guerrero and the intergovernmental committee we've had lots of conversations about this and really trying to that midline between you know getting through the process in a timely fashion and making sure that we are doing the best for this to really be the most effective and most empowering team that it can be great so just two last questions um where can people find the application link uh it's uh it should be on the um charter itself so there's a description in the charter a description of the questions but then there's a link to the application that is the google form and the charter is on in the board that is working on the board and then it'll also be on the pps website and we'll uh we'll also be uh talking with folks like uh representative mcmahon and to our asds and to our principles and sort of wanting to make sure that we think of as many ways that we can make sure that this is disseminated awesome i'm sorry i just have it alright thank you um i just have one super quick question so it says in the committee part five students which i love that i like that it's equally balanced it's the students will be asked to serve one year and then with adults are serving two with the option to renew are students also allowed to renew since we're taking middle schoolers so potentially or is it just they serve the one year and then we're i think we're we're this is going to be something that we iterate on i think that we wanted to try to create as many opportunities for students to serve as possible so we thought like the one year term would be you know would be great but um i think we'll probably have to do a lot of learning to see if that if that actually works thanks did you have one more question director from edwards i guess um one thing is are those committee meetings um public meetings or yeah that's right they're they're they do fall under public uh meeting with laws great well just like the climate committee i think this is going to be a great way for the community to bring additional perspectives thank you for your work on it let's go ahead and get the motion on the table for any further discussion so do i have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6563 approving the racial equity and social justice community advisory committee charter so moved one second great director constant moves director hall in seconds um is there any further board discussion and anything more from you student representative mcmahon excellent mrs bradshaw is there any public comment on this item no okay the board will now vote on resolution 6563 approving the racial equity and social justice community advisory committee charter all in favor please indicate by saying yes
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yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no student representative mcmahon yes excellent are there any abstentions all right see non-resolution 6563 is approved by a vote of six to zero with student representative mcmahon voting yes thanks everyone it's very exciting thank you directors for helping us get the word out we want a really good cross-section of people okay next up on our agenda tonight uh we will be voting on the superintendent's evaluation template for the 21 22 through 22 23 school years um over the past year we've discussed this template a number of times and at our may 4th meeting which i think was the last time we took it up we decided to table the evaluation template until we had adopted our new board goals which we did in june it's my hope now that we can adopt the evaluation template tonight at our board meeting this template includes the new board goals that we adopted in june in addition to five leadership standards with the scoring for the goals double weighted in order to give to give the weight to the student achievement of our district one issue that the board raised during that may 4th conversation was whether we wanted to include a 360 degree evaluation or not um it was determined at that meeting that um although there is board interest in pursuing something like that it did not need to be included in this evaluation template specifically and so you'll know this evaluation template it's not but i think it is something that the board wants to consider um as i i noted in an email earlier to the board i i propose that we look to osba's targeted feedback survey as a method of accomplishing this because it can it's a way of gathering useful feedback from stakeholders at all different levels of the district um we have time to discuss this in the coming months as we wouldn't be conducting that targeted feedback survey until probably summer of 2023 so in about a year from now but i do want to make sure we don't we don't lose sight of that because it is something that's come up a number of times and i i think as part of our overall evaluation process we do want to gather some targeted feedback from certain stakeholders um with that let's go ahead and and put the motion on the table and i think there are going to be a couple questions we're going to have um and and maybe a little bit of clarification as we move through and i hope we can move to adoption so do i have a motion to uh and a second to adopt resolution 6559 to adopt the superintendent's performance evaluation for the 21 22 and 22 23 school year so moved second great director constant moves and director holland seconds um so i know there's going to be some board discussion um as we sort of go into this i think um i'll just go ahead and prompt with a couple of of questions and and superintendent uh if you mind if we dr adams is here he's here at your disposal great thank you very much for all things evaluations here we are um i think one of the questions as we go through this um you know one of the things that the board did in this evaluation template uh with our board goals is we disaggregated those we wanted to see very specific um progress uh in in each of our underserved groups which i think is is really great um as part of this evaluation template i think really just although we are going to show that disaggregated progress for each one of those groups we do average out that overall progress in order just to end up with you know did we sort of achieve targets or not um and i think one just just it's kind of a math question but um as part of that are are we essentially looking at each one of those groups at are we awaiting each of those groups according to their overall student population so you're um thank you for the question uh chair scott you're um it sounds to me if you're talking about a weighted average um which would be appropriate if these were averages but these will be differences and so what i wanted to offer um uh knowing that you had shared a little bit with of this with me during dinner are a rush dinner of research just it's over almost an hour and a half i know right magic happens in an hour and a half what i wanted to offer is that we could also because i also understand that there was um feedback about wanting the calculations to be more transparent and wanting to know the counts and the numerators and the denominators and one of the things we can do is we could add a row that would sort of total all of our racial student groups into one um sort of super group and then if we subtracted the differences there would be similar to an average but it would be it would make sure that things were weighted because if there were only 22 native american students and there would only be 22 scores in that data set versus having 22 students have a disproportionate impact on the average itself just to make sure i'm understanding so it sounds like then we would be doing a total growth um for all of our underserved students yes uh in order to get to that number while still showing that disaggregated number yeah it was very important both to the board i think to the community as well but that that
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way we would end up with that total growth for underserved students which is what would feed into that bottom line metric okay thank you so just to make sure i understand because i would i think it's going to be really important that we all be be clear on what the average means so if we look at the current template that we have there'd be another column that had the the number the total number of students in each subgroup the numerator and the denominator so it would have the number of students that were assessed in the number of students that were proficient and what i would recommend is that we would then not call it an average increase with simply the increase in proficiency as to not confuse people and having those counts included will allow people to see our math i think that's great um because i think averages sometimes um people can come to different conclusions or maybe maybe they mask other things so i think that would be really really helpful to have in terms of just not only the board being able to really be clear about it but also for the superintendent to be clear what what we're um measuring it on as well as the community great thank you for that um and then the the second question that i i asked you an hour and a half ago um was about the overall rubric scores and and i think the the question that was raised in director medwards thank you um for highlighting this was you know the rubric scores were originally developed uh in maybe an iteration or two earlier when we were looking at overall um growth and and i think it goes on a zero to four um uh you know and and sort of sort of sort of ends up rating the superintendent based on where he ends up on you know where the district ends up on those student achievement scores since we set our board goals um and they are differentiated the question just came up is is that still the right range or are we are are those things mismatched now and and to be really frank the thing i was most concerned about when going back and taking a quick look at it is it seemed like on a couple of those metrics eighth grade readiness for instance if we as a district hit all of those targets we actually still may be only at two to three percent growth because of how we set that and i just wanted to make sure we were appropriately setting the expectations for our superintendent sure and so i have another friendly hope what i hope is a friendly edit um and that would be to change the ranges to range instead of ranging from zero to greater than four to change them so they're ranging from zero to greater than three this would make each of the ranges the same amount what i'm noticing on the current template is that the range for rubric score two actually covers two points while all the other ranges cover one percentage point and i think it would be more in alignment with what we're doing now to have each of the ranges encompass a percentage point gain so um is this kind of more like a work session or okay um so a question about that because on the third grade reading we have some targets that are um above three so uh i think we have one that's 6.5 so um my expectation would be um but tell me how this would fit into the new rubric um is that the the top score would be if you were at 0.65 um not the average i guess this is going to be complicated question but um but it wouldn't be that there was a three percent increase because the target is 6.5 so how would so i think there are two things we're trying to thank you for that question i'm sorry i didn't mean to talk over you that's okay i just was curious like with how the formula would work sure um i think there's two things we're trying to do with this uh chart as i would want to call it um one is to be able to check to see if we made progress on each of the individual student groups right and so we'll be able to see whether we then hit that 6.1 percentage point gain each year by looking at that individual student group the ranges being i would not um recommend adjusting the ranges so broadly um because we're talking about a lot of students and the overall growth that we need to make and so the balance that would be struck there is still seeing where there may be progress still yet to be made because maybe we didn't hit the mark on a particular group of students even though we hit the overall gain mark to be successful so good let's maybe use a real life example um not a real life example but just like
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actual numbers so say the subgroup on the third grade reading the goal is to the target is 6.5 percentage increase okay 6.1 sorry i can't find the page how would that be scored then on the three [Music] the zero to threes rubric well we would look at the we would have to then calculate that overall all students are all students that we're concentrating on um proficiency percentage and then subtract with the next year's data and then we would hold that against the rubric now hopefully what happens is we exceed three percent percentage point gains each year that's what we're hoping i mean when no one's aiming for three percent percentage point gain we want more and we know our students need and deserve more but um i would not again suggest changing that range to be upwards of six percentage points because then there's just it's just going to be different i was trying to we were trying to make sure things were sort of as consistent as they could be across all of the goal areas and i'll just add i think you know we knew when we disaggregated we talked about this and we set those bore goals you know part of this conversation you know is when we get that achievement student achievement data is going to see where our growth is and where our problems are i mean hopefully and i know this is the goal the superintendent shares we're going to see growth across all of our student groups that's going to exceed these targets i think if we end up seeing growth in one student group that's really really high and growth in another that's lower that raises really good questions for us as a district to then figure out why is that happening right and dig into that and so i think that's the advantage that i see this is having the disaggregated data but then of course needing to to do a final evaluation i i think we've i feel like we've hit a good middle ground here but these are exactly the questions directed by members i think during the evaluation process we'll be able to raise right so if if we hit that three percent or four percent um but but one of those you know but we do fall short on on one of those targets um that's an area we can really dig into as a district i believe the other um excuse me director go ahead i believe the other part of that conversation i recall is the idea that the board reserves the right to revisit the targets um you know that we could bring a recommendation if we're knocking it out of the park on a metric that we could bring a recommendation to be more ambitious about closing the gap versus if we're not and we know we need to make adjustments um with what we're doing in terms of our practices and our supports i think the other thing that's interesting to your point director scott you're talking about you know the potential for difference in rate of acceleration between different student groups but also you know we're going to see differences between schools and between classrooms and so then the conversations really get interesting because when you say okay we've got a lot of strategies that we've put into place that are district-wide with curriculum adoptions and professional development and all kinds of other supports so you know what's contributing to differences that we see and how do we really like highlight and share accentuate practices that are that are really moving our kids forward rapidly um and that's that's going to get really interesting because we know we'll see those differences that's absolutely right director constand that's the essence of district and school improvement you met the three new chiefs earlier and i know that they're going to be very interested no pressure in collaborating with dr adams and dr proctor on these types of questions because we know that our school leaders as they work together in professional learning communities that these observations are going to come up and that's where the rich learning opportunities can arise around well what are the strategies and the interventions that are that are targeting us meeting our performance goals so that that's the work that we're looking forward to it highlights the importance of the school continuous improvement plan because if we provide we believe if we provide high quality materials high quality professional learning and have an instructional vision that is unified across the district that that'll make a difference we also know from being building administrators that site-based implementation and context matters and so on top of the district-wide um supports and strategies we then learn through the school improvement planning process what is it that that principle with his her or their staff intends to do to make it context and site specific in order to lead to lead to success great i think somebody's been drinking the kool-aid dr adams has been he or either he helped to make the kool-aid out i helped make the kool-aid but i think one of the benefits that that we have is that we're going to be addressing this um a lot more often than we have in the past we're going to be intentionally bringing forward um the data looking at the data how we're doing where we're doing and the things that need to be
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changed so as dr adams was was alluding to earlier we're going to be able to course correct we'll be able to pivot a lot sooner because we'll be able to notice that something has changed a deviation has been made and so as we're i'm not as concerned about whether you make it three points or four points or five i'm concerned about the data that i'm going to see every single time that we come together to meet to talk about how we're doing what we're doing because in that data i'm going to be able to see where we're going and how we're going the the numbers the data is data is a finicky thing you you push a number one way and you can easily make something else do something else somewhere else but when we get down to the brass tacks of what we're doing why we're doing what we're doing the and the value of it and the importance of it and we're all talking about it consistently then we're going to begin to see the change that i know that we all want so whether it's three points or four points i don't care whatever is going to make us most comfortable whatever's going to get us where we need to be so if you feel like three is good then i'm gonna vote for three let's let's get it down let's get it done so that we can get moving on the work because we're spending too much time talking about okay what about this and what about there dang let's just get started so that we can figure out what's broken we got to start at some point we got to stop talking about it and we have to start doing it so i i've looked at it i'm going to be a go let's let's get it moving so that we can hold somebody accountable amen um additional board questions or conversation before we move to that boat i've got a couple um there's a process outlined here and i'm just gonna as we discussed earlier uh chair scott uh just talk about the board conversations because in the process it talks more about just board designees but in the draft work plan that is going to come to us there's going to be quarterly check-ins with the full board correct okay um so it's to get to those deeper discussions versus just a versus a subset of the board um the other thing that just from a community standpoint to understand it um just to have a reference point because uh for each of the the board goals because it it could be confusing um if you don't know what our reference what our reference point is of the target of like 2 2.6 percentage points per year for latino students at eighth grade readiness what is that in reference to and i know because of our earlier discussions what it is but i don't think it's ever called out here so it it can if can looking at it seems somewhat random like like it could be read that asian students are already on track for the school that we there's um there's no proficiency issues um when it's just compared to the reference points we don't have it so somehow incorporating what what the reference point is for each each one of these does that make i i believe i'm following you director dr adams i'll step in on this one because we did have this conversation earlier i i guess what i would say in response to that director this is not this is our evaluation template for the superintendent for the board and superintendent this is not where we should be directing the public to go look at our board goals or progress that's the materials that you provide to us on you know um in our work sessions and and i think hopefully we're working towards towards the dashboard if we don't maybe we already have one sort of showing that student progress and and i think that's where you know as we develop these board goals we showed you know where white students were where some of our underserved students were and then developed these targets as a result of that so i agree with you i want to be transparent with the public and i would say to the extent people are wondering about our student progress let's make sure we're we're directing over that we pulled pieces of that out into the superintendent's evaluation but i don't think this document needs to stand alone from that yeah and i guess as long as and i think we're moving towards it to have a consistent suite of documents so that um what you see [Music] in the presentation of what the safest quarterly data um the larger dashboard that you could easily then look at this document and sort of gauge like where are we this where are we this year or you know how are we tracking to what what's what's in here because if we're going to be having more conversations about how we're tracking throughout the year just as as long as there is a consistency in the presentation in the format because when i read these just as a standalone and and i do think people will other than board members and the superintendent and staff will will actually look at this and i just think it seems like it'd be a good reference point i think if we give them a tool and i don't want to add any work to anybody else but y'all made a book for us um and i'm sure we got another one coming roberto was working on some other stuff and we got my guy out there sitting out
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in the audience he ain't came up here yet our communications guy freddie mac that he can he can put something together between him and dr adams and dr proctor um where we can work on some type of communication dashboard that says this is where we were this is where we are and this is where we're trying to go and speak to those different points that'll help the that'll help the public um and it's also something that can be easily refreshed and easily updated because i feel like you know letting the um the public know what we're doing is is key so that no one is like you know they're not left to wonder for themselves when you leave people to wonder they come up with all kind of stuff i mean they just we just do i'm one of those people um but if you show me this is where we were this is what we're doing and why we're changing it and this is where we're going and it's something that i can easily follow then you take the questions away from me um and so um i feel like that's something that um if we were to consider doing something like that um that would also help to answer some of the questions i do believe that people will go back to like you said people are going to go back to this but if we already have a tool set aside that does what they they want to do i feel like we can we can mitigate a lot of a lot of uh weird questions that we're going to get so if i can respond to that thank you director greene um and we'll take weird questions that's okay um a couple things um that we've made commitments to the board right we've made commitments to bring data when we have data and that'll be more than just the board goals data as we've demonstrated in the last year sometime last year i remember sharing with this board wireframes for our strategic planning dashboard and website and we staff are continuing to work on that behind the scenes um and our intention is to create a board goals version along with that strategic plan website and that would be the place i would think where we could highlight um the goals and the way that director burnt edwards is asking where we can my understanding of the software is that we can have individual targets along the graph so people can follow along and see clearly whether we're making progress or not i don't have an eta on that yet but i did want to share that that is where our thinking is and where we're moving in terms of our direction great um care was there any public comment on this today no okay so just one more comment um one i think i heard um you commit that we'd have some sort of um formula for getting the average that's not going to be called the average anymore okay so um we all understand that for those people who aren't the math majors um hey we're all down here together um and then the second piece since most almost the conversation has been about the um board goals um we do have the other the other standards and i just want to note that um we're and we had a conversation today about the using the osba and the the benefit of just moving ahead versus like you know trying to get perfect or or better but getting something and moving on is uh for me i'm going to be looking for evidence um in in those um standards that um because that's not quite how they're some of them are rooted that way and other ones aren't but for me um that's going to be a key thing of like where's the the evidence of moving each of those or the work around each of those leadership standards that we have great thank you student representative mcmahon you don't actually formally participate in the supernatural evaluation process but i am curious if you just have any thoughts on this and then also um i think it's part of our targeted feedback survey we're going to be very interested in hearing from you and potentially other student representatives as part of that process but yeah i think it's really important especially for this aspect i when reading over this document i really like the leadership standards i actually had a couple that i really liked which was 3.1 which i felt was really about like the happiness and culture of our students which i thought was really important and 5.1 and 5.2 were both about communicating with families which i think is also something really important i think for me as someone who is a student and is taking these tests um i look at that data and i'm like oh i don't know how much like you know for me it doesn't have as much standing but i look at these leadership standards and it really enforces the ideas that we want to see in our schools and so i think i really put an emphasis on like making sure we're really taking time to or you guys are taking time to really look at the evidence that we have and taking into account student perspectives i really like the idea that you brought forward about the survey i think that'd be really useful but as much as possible i think looking at it from a student perspective because ultimately the superintendent is a really important and integral part of
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ensuring the happiness and learning of every student which is obviously the mission of this school district so i think when you guys move into this process i would highlight the idea of trying to involve students voices and student feedback as much as possible and of course i'd be super happy to help with that element great thank you for that okay the board will now vote on resolution 6559 a resolution to adopt the superintendent's performance evaluation template for the 21 22 and 22 23 school years um all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes i'll upload i'll all oppose please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6559 is approved by a vote of six to zero and thank you very much everybody all right it is 7 36 so we're a minute behind um and i want to move on to our next agenda items um on some of our policies director from edwards you like to introduce this item thank you chair scott so first we have a second reading of the workers compensation policy this came out of the committee the revisions on a unanimous recommendation to the board we've had a 21-day public comment period without any public comment um and so this would be a final adoption of the revisions that we have for this policy great do i have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6561 resolution to adopt revised workers compensation self-insurance policy 8.6 0.62022p that was a mouthful i'll make the motion thank you i'm not going to say anything second all right uh director green uh makes the motion director constance seconds is there any board discussion student representative mcmahon mr bradshaw any public comment yeah great the board will now vote on this resolution previously named all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes again all opposed please indicate by saying no student representative mcmahon yes excellent any abstentions resolution 6561 is approved by a vote of six to zero with student representative mcmahon voting yes and next up second reading of policy rescissions director edwards thank you chair scott um so we have a series of policy rescissions that we had a first reading they came out of the policy committee with a unanimous recommendation they are to rescind board policies 8.60 .010 the risk management program we don't need a policy for that we we we have a robust program that's can be found on the district website also we're recommending rescinding 8.60.30 student transportation and also policy 8.80.015 capital projects they're not needed in policy because they um the content exists elsewhere and they were first read there's been a 21-day public comment period with no public comment so this would be the second reading to formally rescind the policies great thank you do i have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6562 i'll make the motion again second director green makes the motion director hall in seconds is there any further board discussion student representative mcmahon any public comment no okay the board will now vote on resolution six five six two all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no student representative mcmahon yes okay any abstentions resolution 6562 is approved by a vote of six to zero with student representative mcmahon voting yes um is there there was nothing pulled from consent uh is there any other business or committee referral items i i will know just a couple of things um still in discussion on um committee assignments and so i'm trying to reach out and talk to very folks about that so i hope to announce those in the next week or two um depending on how it goes but um as we get that ruled out we'll want you to be working with roseanne to get your committee meetings scheduled moving forward um there is also a retreat scheduled for and i've totally blanked on the date september 17th yes following lincoln grand opening in the morning we will have a board retreat uh in the afternoon so more to come on
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that um as director brim edwards mentioned earlier um i am working on a work plan for the year it's still in draft form but i hope to get that around to the board in the next week or so and again do you get in that background for your feedback whether we've captured everything whether things were missing other things that need to be on there uh any other items so something i want to call out just good work by pps staff um so i was at the leadership walking to the leadership academy today in the parking lot and there was um kind of an argument which resulted in a broken window and two people in a very heated domestic argument and i just want to thank the two pbs staff people who like stopped and intervened and really de-escalated what was not not a great situation that was happening and just the care and compassion and the help that they provided made me proud to be a pps be affiliated with pps so to those uh staff people i really want to call out their their good work because they could have just walked right on by excellent thank you for that part of our appreciation i saw our principal headed i didn't know what was going down out there because i was inside but i saw a principal going out there like he meant business and i thought that's somebody that i want to i want to have in the room uh when something's going down because he meant business it was actually two individuals who um the principal actually came and helped afterwards but it was the two individuals who really de-escalated and by sharing showing compassion and caring for that individual um really changed the course of what could have happened and then with an assist at the end of the day from the principal great thank you thank you for noting that anything else i just wanted to give a quick update from some developments with the audit committee over the summer so when the audit committee reconvenes we're going to be getting into the enrollment and transfer audit which is just about complete but none of those findings have been presented to the full committee and then they're doing their due diligence for the beginning of the english language learner's audit and then last piece which i hadn't shared with board members yet is that the committee will be revisiting our contracts audit which was done in um either 20 i think 2022 um just to uh look back at implementation of some of the recommendations because it was an audit with quite a few recommendations um so that's some work they'll be taking up and then i also just wanted to report back to everybody that um as the auditor is our other employee in addition to the superintendent and we did his evaluation tonight we also completed the personnel evaluation for our internal performance auditor so thank you for those who contributed to that and had feedback thank you director rob sam i'm sorry i just have one quick thing um dsc is running well we have scheduled our first meeting for september 13th and we are actually still looking for members from jefferson roosevelt and franklin so if you're a student watching this um send me an email we would love to have you and we can talk to your principal about um appointments or affirmative via elections so yeah great okay the next regular meeting of the board will be held on director scott one thing and that's just i so appreciate cherry proctor and kara and all of our folks um i am just really dizzy and low energy and feel really sick today and didn't think i could sit through a board meeting which turned out to be true and i just so appreciate being able to be here to listen to meet the new staff to engage with our public virtually i know we've lost a lot of things in the pandemic but our new um technological abilities really are amazing so just want to thank our staff for making that happen so i could participate tonight great thank you for that and thank you for modeling good behavior director lowry and staying home while you're sick the next regular meeting of the board will be held on august 23rd and this meeting is adjourned

Sources

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

2022-08-09 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting 8/09/2022

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