2022-09-14 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

From SunshinePPS Wiki
District Portland Public Schools
Date 2022-09-14
Time 16:00:00
Venue BESC Mazama Room
Meeting Type committee
Directors Present missing
Load video
YouTube


Documents / Media

Notices/Agendas

Materials

None

Minutes

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Policy Committee Meeting - 9/14/2022 - Starts at 22:30

00h 00m 00s
um we'll just quickly go around and do
00h 05m 00s
introductions starting with terry
00h 10m 00s
hi terry proctor communications
00h 15m 00s
department
00h 20m 00s
i'm mary kane senior legal counsel julia vrum edwards board and committee member gary holland's board and committee haley lowery board member and chair of this committee mitch nolt oh sorry michelle board member board and committee member roseanne powell board manager carob executive assistant great um this is our first policy committee meeting of the 22-23 school year and this really is kind of an organizational meeting for us to think about the work of the policy committee and the way that we as a committee want to engage that work um i hope you all received the email i sent out a couple weeks ago about kind of the flow of this meeting um so uh under the i'm looking at the the i'm reading the attendant confusing myself here so um i sent out the slate of policies that i had from liz um kind of collected from last year uh the foundation parent group policy policies around field trips um the ethics policy mary could you say more about that ethics policy yes that's been sitting out there for a while so um we had started work uh a few years ago with first with the the nepotism policy and this is i think this is to join that and it's uh it's an ethics policy laying out the our expectations for both staff and then for the board um and i should have given i have a proposed policy ready so i can sorry did you say you do have a proper responsibility okay so that i can send it out to um yeah let's send that out uh if you wouldn't mind and then we can put that on the agenda for the next policy committee meeting for the ethics to review that and um prepare that's great so we'll review that and discuss it at our october meeting great um i should say that the the foundation parent group policies are things we've discussed at a great deal
00h 25m 00s
last year and they're that's still in a sort of conversational policy place um the goal for that policy is to have something ready to go to the board by january the field trip policy is again in a place where we've raised questions and had conversations about that as a board and we're still sort of in the looking at what the next steps are um mary can you talk about the student assignment to neighborhood schools uh yes this is a this is a policy that we begin work on um two years ago and then um because of the work that was being done with the southeast guiding coalition we thought we would put it on hold um to see what decisions were made from that from that group and how how we were going to propose changes to the policy and so um we the because because we've learned a lot from the southeast guiding coalition and decisions that were made from that we thought it would be a good time to bring that forward again um i've been asked to hold off a little bit my understanding from judy brennan is um they're just completing the audit of the hardship transfers and so i think what she'd like to do is also get the information from that audit because that may inform some of the language that we want to include in the policy as well so i don't think it's too long my understanding is the audit is almost complete so can i ask a little bit about the audit um so are we doing the audit ourselves or what are we looking at oh it didn't yes it's an internal audit um it was requested uh to look at friendship transfer i don't i don't know a lot a lot but what i know is there was a request to look at our process around hardship transfers so uh we have been reviewing it internally my understanding is we should have it that it's almost completed and we should have information at uh it will go to the audit subcommittee okay great i'm i'm i'm asking because i'm really interested in the topic and like how they've approached the you know what are they actually looking at and and really hoping we're looking at not just i'm hoping we're looking at outcomes on the ground as well as the inputs into the system how many you know applications we get how many kids we have um going to schools that are outside of the neighborhood boundaries etc uh i can't i i can't talk about any of that because i don't know exactly the specifics of the audit yeah michelle you probably could get the scope of the audit from janus um which should answer some of the questions about what they're they're looking at specifically okay i appreciate that thank you okay mary do you want to proceed to the next one on the list and give us just a little background on that one the um distribution of information if you know um this one is just a it's how and this came up many years ago with uh the peach jar when we stopped using that as a an access for families to to to receive information of other supports for their children and so it's looking at the policy of how we how we are addressing it right now or what we can do to address it so peach tree peach jar what was a peach peach jar blood that it was a method that schools use to provided families so revisiting that and looking at what how we communicate with folks i can deal with the religious and cultural observances i think that's a carryover from the last policy committee session where it started actually i think it started at the board where there were requests from students to to raise awareness and have cognizance of religious and cultural observances and the impact on that and so we had begun that work and i know the request was for it to come here to look at what we found what we are recommending yeah so i have a question about the foundation and parent group when the committee last met there was a request from michelle to have additional community engagement
00h 30m 00s
specifically with black families and so i'm interested in when when that's going to happen i'd like to see the engagement plan yeah we'll talk about that when we get to our work process piece i think about how we're going to organize in some of the next steps we're going to take on these policy pieces are there any other questions about any of the other of any of the slave policies before us no except just a comment about the religious and cultural observances and that did come from the board from students and that's going to affect our our talk about the calendar for next year so i think this year we we decided to put religious important religious dates on the calendar and then there was a promise to follow up and do a little bit more this year so it'd be i'd like to help identify what that looks like and feels like part of my question about is this the right place for that for this year is that that's a becomes a bargaining issue as we create the calendar and so are those is it the work of this committee to recommend the ones we think should be included and then take that i mean i'm just curious about how the process of what days get included on the calendar unfolds depends on how you want to do it you could um some other districts have created specific policies in which they define the criteria by which they would include things in the calendar and of course um those are the policies one foundational piece and just like anything else that's in policy that if there's something that requires to be bargained that would be bargained with you know as as part of it but we have lots of times have things that would be bargained but there's a policy framework that accomplishes it that's a great that's a great uh way to think about the work julia thank you so to have the policy to find the criteria of what religious and cultural observances we think should be absorbed as days off schools what what should be ones where nothing is scheduled and then to have that go to bargaining kind of have a guideline of how that would work and we and julie you may know me more but we know we have one example and we've reached out to um eugene because they did create london's yeah fairfax county also has a pretty expensive one maybe more than more detail you brought that too last year yeah that was good okay um any other questions or i heard you julia asked about the engagement process around the uh number one yes we're still an agenda item number one and what i what i'm saying is i heard you ask a question about the slate of policies before us specifically about engagement which i'd like us to address when we get down to 2.3 um but are there any other questions about that state of policies or does anybody have policies that you have thought about that you think you'd like to float before this body that's to consider in our work for the year and you can bring we can all bring policies at any time the public can bring policies things can generate you know this is a iterative process but just as we get the ball rolling on the year if there was something that you're like i really want to look at gary i really you might say i really want to look at the policy around cub cb all right let's put it on the list and we have been working on that as well awesome see there you go so at the community care day this um a few weeks ago a young helper who's african-american was saying that at the school she goes to um people have tried to touch her hair and um i thought and she said there should be a policy about that that would be like a code of conduct but um anyway that came up that was from uh from is it adults that have tried to touch her hair adults and child and children students we do have conduct policies for adults and our students yeah we do i don't know is related to um that's like inappropriate absolutely i i think what's missing for this young child that brought it up to me is that what happens when when that's violated because there is the crown i mean and the principal and the teachers and all maybe need to be educated on what happens when this happens when someone comes up and tries to touch this young woman's hair um it's it's one thing to have a policy it's another thing to have a consequence for like breaking the policy whether it's just you know first-time offense someone tells you that that's not okay and why and the second time it happens you know there needs to be some bigger how do we culturally help people understand consent and that it's not appropriate to even ask to touch someone's hair um but that we should never just touch someone
00h 35m 00s
yeah right but this is specifically in the context of a black girl yeah i mean yeah it's not okay to just come up and touch people but there's a that's a very specific ask about racialized yeah visualized touching it happens with adults in the workplace too just but but we have an opportunity you know is that learning in training and education up you know education organization to help people learn you know why that isn't okay other things that have been you've been mulling or yeah i have stirred up i'm going to bring proposed revisions to the following policies okay 6.40.010 the instructional material selection to move into the actual policy that you don't charge fees for basic for basic materials that you need in the classroom um and also make clear that this applies to so what modernize it to make sure it applies to technology devices software et cetera i think we all have pretty well established principles around textbooks but so that would be one that's a great one julia excellent sorry michelle you say the number again six point four zero point zero one zero zero six point four zero point one great then um one relating to class size 3.10.031 um adding language about equity between focus programs and neighborhood programs um diploma requirements which is policy 4.20.042 you say that again sorry i'm not fast enough it's 4.20 points diploma requirements and this is in the context of the recent ode recommendation about the removal of essential skills um then student assignment to neighborhood schools policy four point one zero point zero four five is that the one that's the second one that's before us yeah well but i've i'm going to be bringing a specific recommendation revisions relating to noticing and public meetings for boundary changes and this may be is somewhat similar to michelle about compliance when what is the remedy for parents when staff doesn't follow that doesn't bother the notice and public media requirements also in that same policy a definition of a neighborhood school and this would be around the attempted closure without calling into closure of the neighborhood program or school um then revisions to um this would maybe be the complimentary policy 6.10.030 school initiation and closures again the closure of the proposed closure of the lent neighborhood school which is defined as a geographic boundary was didn't follow the process so were you be clear that we have a process when you're gonna and to be clear what a neighborhood school is and how you inform the community and what steps needs to be taken including the staff and then finally the district foundation policy 7.10.030 um ad revisions relating to transparency accountability payment timing and uh also that if uh the district continues to allow privately funded staff that um schools that don't have access to that would get some some sort of similar staffing so that those policies would be provided and then just an overarching but it also applies to this foundation policy just some sort of mechanism but what happens when policy isn't followed for ex for example um this as this is just an example but not necessarily material on the district foundation that the board of the um the board and the foundation board will
00h 40m 00s
receive an annual evasion evaluation for all funded projects which doesn't happen but we have a number of things like that last year we didn't get the complaint summary so what what's the mechanism for compliance with our policies over overarching because too often it's like well we'll just change the policy um and if i'm missing if there is some sort of way in which we force policies but but you're not looking at remedies for enforcement of policy for compliance in the foundation policy are you talking about how do i make sure i'm just using this as an example yeah i'm noting that didn't happen and i noticed like the couple that we didn't get a complaint summary like we're supposed to get there's a number of requirements but also just the um overall if there's no mechanism for to for compliance policy i'll use as an example the southeast guiding coalition and the fact that they didn't follow the policy or the ad on community community notice on all the boundary changes and so what what what is the mechanism besides complaining to the school board um that something didn't you know that we're out of comp compliance so do you want that in the policy on policies as a perhaps i mean that's a so i'm gonna i'm gonna come back with specific suggested languages that would then that would apply to all of the policy any any policies opposed to complaining right and and ad we could would get open both i'm thinking isn't the ad uh is that yeah we can't touch the a.d because for example the charging a fee for tech devices um like that wasn't in the policy but my expectation is if we have something in a.d let's send out just to schools in the school community of like this these are the rules and that if we either should get you know modify or eliminate um things if we're not but to have policies that aren't enforced um i think is really inequitable for the american community and the school community that expects like hey these these are the rules that and the structure that this district have um yeah and i think um you know for me the the question is sometimes we we don't follow our policies and sometimes we do change them because we realize like the way the policy is written or how we're living it out it doesn't actually serve um but i do think there's a place where what's in policy we just aren't doing and need to be need to be following our policies i think that's important julia i also think it's i mean there is a we need to be fair and we need to have clarity and the rules are not the thing it's the kids and the culture and so how do we like michelle your point about what do we do when someone touches hair how do we make that a policy what i'm interested in how do we make it that we have a culture at pps where no one would dream of touching a black girl's hair like they would just no that's not okay so yes we need to make that rule yes we need to make sure people follow it and we need to do that deeper work of changing the culture so it's it's those things i totally agree i'm not like suggesting some sort of right enforcement hammer unless like it's something done with intent and malicious right malice on the other hand um i don't think it's acceptable to tell the community we chose staff or chose not to follow its own policies when we would expect the community to and i think i mean we've talked about that as a board too about what do we do when when board members don't follow policies or staff and how do we how do we um work together to be in compliance um i you know when um i think my question um 2.3 about how do we want to do our work as a policy committee really hits with this what you brought to us julia which is you saying here are the policies i want to look at i'm going to write something and bring it to you which which is fine um and that's one way we can organize our work what i really hope for is that we find ways to be really deeply collaborative i think one of the strengths of our board is that we are very different and we have different ways of looking at things um and i'd like to see us talk about you know are we going to operate in a way where one board member writes something and brings it to the rest of the board are we going to have conversations i mean you've raised some really important questions here like the diploma requirements you have a perspective on that that you're going to bring to the board is it better to begin from a place of you've written something have a draft policy or is it better for us to talk about an overarching viewpoint around diploma requirement that we then write into policy so that's what i wanted to talk about as we talk about what is how are
00h 45m 00s
we going to organize our work as a committee how do we want to show up in this space um do we in you know two years ago when rita was chair of this committee people would like the foundation policy or the field trip policy some of the bigger ones a couple of people we would have an overarching conversation a couple of people would get with staff write a draft bring that back and the whole committee would work on that that's a great collaborative way to do things but it takes up a lot of staff time well i would say so how do we i'm not finished speaking so i think that's what we as a group need to decide about how is it we're going to most effectively do our policy work so what i what go ahead so um i'm going to follow the policy on policies which is anybody can offer menace and as you know i would say i since we're if we're on that topic um so you ask us to bring ideas yeah and i'm gonna follow the policy and bring them um i fully expect um that you know the process is then you have a full full discussion and the community can you know look at it it's all very public and transparent um i don't actually think the going into a small work group uh works very effectively because well i would say on things in which there is a lot of community interest maybe like smaller groups where there isn't um it's like a smaller issue or there aren't a lot of diverging viewpoints i'll just say like climate totally got stuck and in that and there were a lot of misunderstandings about and so when i became the chair and i had this product that came out of the work committee of the two people who weren't on the board anymore was staff and then the superintendent looked at it and essentially um removed half of the policy is like if the if that had been in an open meeting um i don't think we would have had that situation which then [Music] i think was a lot more time intensive so my i think it's fine for things that maybe again are relatively simple there's easy um agreement or not a lot of different points of view or we're going to have the two different points of view on the work group um and and the work group's work is public but putting something in i mean the student enrollment assignment to neighborhood schools is another example of how there was this proposal to get rid of legacies and siblings that came out of the work room but nobody really wanted to own it and then it just sat there so and you know the board subsequently the southeast guiding coalition decided yeah i understand the piece about the public and then nobody wanted to own it but i'm not sure how two people working together to write something is different than one person working to write it because it's that's not a public process either of one board member coming with a policy favorite so i mean i guess one of the things i would say is whatever i bring i will talk to a lot of different people and and my and the expectation is like that's the start of the process um but i i don't so michelle and gary i'd love to hear from you about what you think might be an effective way to organize our work this year as a policy committee i think that it depends on what we're talking about as julia said um there's some things like the parent fundraising where there's going to be or the climate policy that a lot of people want to weigh in on and there are going to be other things um such as you know ethics or field trip policy that no one's going to be interested in so i think we need to be you know a hybrid figure out how to work together yes and maybe not have a static process when it's a dynamic thing we're doing does that make sense if if something's if we know that the public's going to be very interested in the topic i think that we need to look at um what the best way is to getting that work done it might be two of us working together you know with a staff member and bringing a draft to the rest of the committee yeah i think my hope is to try to be as transparent and as collaborative as possible this year um i feel like there are a couple of times in the past on the policy committee meeting where we ended up like defending something against each other and i want us to all be we're going to disagree and that's great because we have different perspectives how do we do it in a way that is less contentious is what i'm hoping for this year gary did you have any thoughts about how we might do that yeah um so as i was hearing everybody i kind of seen like what michelle is saying and you know what you're saying as far as this hybrid type of collaborative measure i think
00h 50m 00s
i think what i'm hearing too is that on big big things we want to make sure that it's collaborative with the whole group um smaller type of deals could be a work session with someone or a couple people a couple staff um and i like uh director uh as we're saying as far as you know having that flexibility and being fluid and determine okay this one we could probably do this with this one we want to do it here and just kind of assign them at that point as they come up um i do think collaborative is is great but also think collaborative if it's too big get so many different things that you know viewpoints and good ideas and not so good ideas that at some point the committee will just have to at some point say you know what we're going to stop here and we're going to move forward either we're going to you know move it on or not or what have you but um i think being fluid is going to be really important um to be able to try to because we got some big lofty things that i heard today so and i think i have no question that everybody around this table is here because they care about kids and they're trying to make the district the best it can be for all of our kids so i think for me that understanding that that's where everybody's coming from i mean we can disagree but the heart of each person i think is in the right place wanting what's best for kids and so that takes some of the heat out of the disagreement because it's not that anyone's a bad person or trying to it's it's we're all trying to do our best to to make the system as fair as equitable and as best for kids as we can i think that would be highly important um on some of these policies to have open comm discussions and there are going to be different points of view um you know see having you know i'm just going to use a foundation policy where you have like a secret group that set up a website you know that's spreading this information about the policy if you have non-public meetings of board members and just some parties it will lead to i think distrust and a lack of confidence in you know who got to be at the table um so i do think there are gonna they're gonna be cases well i think in like most cases like we should we're a public body we should do our our work in public yeah i think we get to this tension of like you talked about when you bring these policies that you're going to work on before us you're going to talk to people before you write these policies and bring them to us so and i and julia you may be referencing that i reached out to marianne who's the head of the lincoln foundation and to beth cavanaugh who's been one of the active members of the foundation reform and i wanted us all to get together for coffee because there's been a lot of drama there's been a lot of heated things said and i was hoping we could have a conversation just the three of us to kind of take a breath and see one another's humanity and just kind of begin from again a collaborative place um and what we're ending up doing is i'm just going to meet alone with beth that was her preference so again it's about for me it's about relationship building it's not specifically about talking about the policy but actually that wasn't what i was referring to i was referring to the secret anonymous group that created a website you did mention board members meeting with certain people and not having everyone aware of that so i wasn't sure whether you were talking about the small like having a small group okay discussion like an official thing like we're going to have a two person two people board members go work with staff and other people on it is i just think um that they're going to be topics i think you know so i'm make sure i just want to make sure i'm clear so are you are you suggesting that everything that we every policy that we look at is in a public session no what i'm what i'm saying is the the the discussion about um work on a policy so just to use the foundation policies and let's use a client policy a under our policy on policies a community group proposed a climate policy they brought it to the committee it then got moved into a it's like private work group where it was two board members and staff and it turned out whatever happened in those discussions other people didn't have visibility to and the whole thing kind of just we should have had a public discussion to work through some pretty con we got to a good place eventually but through some pretty contentious issues and places where the superintendent was like very much in disagreement with where what the group ended up with but nobody else had even visibility to what those that discussion was right so that brings me back to the
00h 55m 00s
question again so what is the solution as far as how do you how do you how are you looking at the work flow goal moving forward with say for instance field trip policy right is that something that you're looking for to be public like in the form that we're in or are there certain things that you're saying should be in the public certain things that could be handled or do everything be handled in the public yeah well i think there um there are some things that you know no nobody cares about or maybe nobody cares about the board or you know and those are usually pretty obvious but if there are different points of view from the the community um or or on the board it's good to have that discussion you know well obviously it's good to have the discussion in the community because it's just my perspective in the committee in a public setting versus taking it to the board and then like there was an agreement or hadn't been discussed so my question would be being if as a committee can we decide on which ones yeah oh yeah that we you know that we figure can be handled outside of the public meeting and then the ones that we've as opposed as a committee say hey these should be done here and nothing will be done in a private meeting so like if you and i were going to take the field trip policy you and i would maybe sit down we might talk through the things we've heard at board meetings we might talk through some of the inequities and concerns we've heard and that we have and then you and i might sit together we might check in with marshall we might check in with liz then we'd write a draft policy and then we'd bring that back to the committee and then the committee would have the conversation through the policy and they might say gary you got it really wrong on this let's let's send it back or we might as a committee work on it or maybe we'd say okay gary and amy you suck it's julian michelle's starting to crack at it that that kind of thing and we can we can adjust our workflow as we go throughout the year i i just except what i i hear like our policy and policies and again just following our policies allows a whole host of individuals to bring policies for consideration yes and and and i don't see it being short-circuited people could say like hey you didn't consult with these people and you know they they should be consulted with or i disagree with how this is written and like the committee can work on that whether it's something that a parent brings forward or a board member brings forward julia i'm just trying to avoid last year where it felt like you and i especially clashed a great deal about some specific things you brought and i'm trying to find a way and i if you bring stuff and we can have robust discussions about them that's fine i just felt like sometimes last year i felt like because you had done your due diligence and done all this work when i asked questions or had concerns um it felt very defensive and so i don't know maybe what i need to say is how do i ask questions in a way or ask for information about the things that you're bringing in a way that feels collaborative and less of an attack so i may not be approaching you properly yeah well so i would suggest that um asking before you table something asking there was frequently in the committee when i was presenting something or speaking you interrupted me so just um not interrupting me because one of the things i would explain i brought that one policy and i don't and there were there are others in this but when i brought the policy draft that had a whole bunch of provisions that were from staff i was interrupted cut off accused of doing things that actually i'd had conversations with staff i was trying to facilitate a discussion and essentially then it got moved to be shut down so that's one thing then when rita was the chair she wasn't following the board the board policy which is a community group follow the policy and introduce i'm going to interrupt you here because we're talking about me not about reading okay well i'm just i'm trying to give an example of like okay so when the board committee doesn't follow like the policy on policies then or just like basic courtesies in a committee meeting it does make it hard and one thing one of the one of the reasons i interrupt you i do it strategically sometimes is my experience has been that when we're in a committee meeting you take up a lot of the time in speaking and i think as chair part of my role is going to be to create space to make sure other voices can be heard so if we can work on that
01h 00m 00s
of you are very passionate about things and um have a lot of information and knowledge and so but i want to make sure we're hearing from all the voices around the table so i will work really hard not and don't try and table things because that actually shuts down the conversation and i would say um maybe a more effective thing is to set times for for things um as the committee chair um and set time to set times for individual board members to speak on them yeah our timeline limits on the topic yeah but i want to make sure we hear from everyone on the topic so i think that you and i will continue to figure out how to do that um with compassion and grace with each other as my hope for this year um so what i'm hearing from the committee is that anyone can bring stuff we will have drafts come before us from folks that have done some work as we look through the policies before us we may have people who are excited and want to take a crack at a draft maybe in a team um what i would like to do is um have folks look over the policies i mean julia you've got your your list which is great the list that the slate of policies we have along with cub um if there's yeah because this came to us from the early uh early childhood the early learners department uh they have they are requesting a change to uh board policy 41020 and that's the um it's our enrollment policy and it's about the early entry into kindergarten and they just want to make a slight change to that um so they they would like to bring that forward great they'd be ready to do that at the october meeting they can with that uh it's 4 10020. it's uh age and grade level at entrance school we want to change the process that we had been using regarding allowing the students to interpret so the kids are five when they enter not four uh julia which of the policies that you lifted up do you think you'll have ready uh ahead of the october meeting you can tell me later on youtube um yeah you don't need to tell me now if you can have them you know like a week before the meeting so we can get those out to everybody that would be great to review at that october meeting uh mary can you talk about the work of rescissions we'll jump back up to 2.2 there uh yes so um at similar to uh last at the last committee sessions our staff has been identifying um policies that are out of date and that should be rescinded and will what we will do is bring those uh to you i don't think that we have any right now but we have some possible rescissions that we're looking at we'll bring them before this committee discuss why we think they should be rescinded and then if you determine that it's appropriate to bring to the board the full board for a vote on the rescission in other instances you may just you may want us to amend the policy to reflect current practice okay since the rescission list will be posted with the policy unless unless there's a different something different i generally i'm going to ask that um if you're expecting us to vote on it that whoever is the content expert be be present at the meeting at the policy committee meeting or the board meeting the policy committee meeting yes um because what i don't want to have happen what here's the reason i'm asking is sometimes it's yeah the statute change this is irrelevant or it's in our collective bargaining agreement i mean sometimes it's very obvious that you can change it other times like it's uh it's out of date which means like the district isn't following it and sometimes it's actually well why aren't we following it versus let's just get rid of it um and so those ones um are ones that i would um you know want to understand from the like so this seems like a reasonable thing why are we getting rid of it um should i assume that you you want the subject matter expert at every policy committee or it just depends on like what's what's being proposed okay so i think i would like to have as chair just to check through that because i think there may be that sort of yeah you want us to send the recision list before the committee being yeah i mean it's part of the board materials yeah i
01h 05m 00s
mean i certainly don't like people wasting their time showing up unnecessarily but i can go through the list and i just what i don't want to have happen is we're expecting you to act on this right yeah maybe not the content expert and some of them are necessarily clear like some of the hr pieces is like okay if we're getting rid of the risk policy to using her example it's like so show me where that exists somewhere else so what we'll do is we'll put rescissions first on the agenda at every meeting and we'll have the any rescissions we have before us we'll put it first on the policy agenda at four o'clock so that whoever's the subject matter expert can be here at four go first and then we'll and that's fine and what and i can flag it before the meeting and that's what i'm asking if the if the uh the committee members would like to flag which ones they'd like specifically and then we can we can reach out to them or should i assume that i mean even ask questions and it's all resolved before the like it's not necessary for the person to come to the meeting but yeah i just want to know what my expectations should be in terms of should we um have them here or should we wait until we've heard from let's wait until we've heard from board members that there's a need because there may be some julia that you said that like there's not but it's like hr if you send it out in advance but what i mean to use like a board meeting example like we're voting on the financial auditor we will make sure it's in advance and a whole whole host of other things and the person whose responsibility it is is like on pto and so yeah we will not look at something if the person's not here yeah if there's questions about it and the person's not able to be here we will bump the decision until the person's able to be here that's a good good flag okay anything else on recisions from the team um so as we go back to i'm sorry we're jumping a little bit here 2.3 the work process what i have listed before us sort of on the table are the foundation parent groups policy the field trips policy ethics mary's bringing us a draft next meeting the student assignment to neighborhood policy that's different than what julia is bringing to us this distribution of information and the religious and cultural observances the the foundation parent groups policy i would like to propose that we host a couple of board listening sessions um i think again to transparent the foundations and parent groups policy just to have a couple of publicly announced meetings where people can come and give testimony about foundations and parent groups i think we've we've heard from a lot of people and um i think julia you're right there's this secret group that i don't know who's putting stuff on the internet um but it would be nice to have a public meeting what it's a secret it's a secret um so uh to have a public forum where people can express their opinions and and own those opinions and have the board have this policy committee listen to them so i would like to ask that we have a couple of open listening sessions for folks just to give testimony so that um what about the very specific request that michelle made at the last meeting because we using our racial equity and social justice is like we're to seek out yes um that and that would be the next step well why would that be my question is why why yes i'm so i want to agree that that's something that i requested and the reason i requested it so the city is you know always like the bureau i work for planning on you know imposing tariffs and you know extra fees on people and we have to use our racial and social equity what we understand about poverty and people that can't afford and who was burdened we have to use what we know to implement this policy right so just the same with this parent fundraising oh and part of this tariff is that people will have to do a large public information session so people know they can opt out every person that is subject to this needs to know they can opt out the same with this parent fundraising is that when i talk to people in the community it you know the black community specifically they're like don't even understand how what's happening outside of you know maybe king elementary school is impacting um and and the the inequities and and bolstering these inequities and so when i asked for that i wanted us to be very intentional about reaching people that might not be as involved day to day in their kids school i would ask that we work with black parent initiative and sei and some of
01h 10m 00s
our you know res j partners that we already have that have constituents and we start there first what what so what are you uh okay we can ask our engagement staff to do that to engage with um black parent initiative and other groups um that we can talk to them about that um it's a it's a tricky walk of us directing staff right so we can we can say we are interested in that um i i think that's right to do some targeted we did some targeted listening in the spring i think doing more is a good idea i would also like to open it up for people because um i think it's really why people want to i think people i think we need to create spaces in our system where people feel heard that's true that's very true and you know what i know from practicing being you know engagement practitioner is that we want to engage first those most closest those most proximate to the issue those most unaware those most potentially harmed when you do a stakeholder analysis that's a that's a group that we don't we don't hear from if you look at our testimony who comes in front of us um every other week we're not hearing from um black families as you know not representative of the community that we're serving so that's why we'd want to start there yeah first don't want to direct staff and we do want to hear from and be intentional about wanting to hear from communities that um don't know you know that we want we want them to play in the game here swim in the pool with us well my sense of the foundation policy is that the direction i believe it's heading in is that we will end the ability of foundations to pay for fte i mean i think that's the sense i heard at the last policy committee meeting that the will of the board is to end the ability of foundations to pay for fte so if that is the direction we're heading in i think it's important to have you know a space where where folks can respond to that um and can be heard whether or not um they're part of a foundation or not but i do think it's important to engage with all of our stakeholders as we i mean as we reform the foundations and um we have big conflict if we choose that path which i think is the path we're going to choose but again i've been wrong before and i'll be wrong again we need to talk about what happens to the equity dollars at some of our schools we need to talk about if we do allow foundations to say what can they do um and i think how do we invite those very passionate parents who are part of foundations into a conversation i mean i've had some really great conversations with people saying let's do an all foundation fundraiser for all for the fun for pbs let's let's look at equity in new ways and i think i i think hitting parents against each other puts us in a really bad place but if we can say we really want to live into our ideals and say to all of our parents again we know you're doing this you're fundraising because you care about kids how do we together care about all of our kids better especially our kids who have been historically underserved and are continuing to be underserved so i think yes we want to do targeted conversation with our black parents we want to do targeted conversations with our native parents but i also think we want to invite those parents who are the folks who are on twitter and who have really strong viewpoints and work their booties off for our schools not that our other parents don't have viewpoints and work their booties off they just aren't on twitter um how do we invite them into co-creating a new way forward together because we're stronger together and we're stronger when we center equity in real ways so i think my desire to have the open forum is for those parents who might feel like they're losing something to have a space to maybe be creative in in making what's new together with everyone um most of the words you said sounded good yeah and i'm still gonna advocate for those that are the most proximate issue and could potentially lose the most be engaged like and i heard you say you we want to engage all stakeholders and i 100 agree with that we might have to work a little harder to hear from people that we don't traditionally hear from and i'm advocating for that yes and i think yeah and i said that's what we should do we are hearing everybody the targeted thing and then i think we should also have an open forum if everybody's into that i'm never gonna agree to wanting to exclude any group so you know that about me like ever so i i think that's great both i'll come to just for the record the committee meetings were open they could have also come and testified i mean it just it's not like it's not like we're denying people access yeah but we can also try to make things easier gary you were gonna say something yeah i'm not well as i hear what you guys talking about as far as the engagement piece i don't think it has to be one or the other we can we can do this
01h 15m 00s
simultaneously right so you're not just healthy i'm going to just do this for this group of this for that group if you're holding somebody simultane simultaneously um conversations um i think that could be a way to to look at this thing holistically um and by doing that though with the engagement process it's going to be really important that whoever is doing that engagement process really report back and have a real good robust report back of what they heard um one of the things that i know we we had a struggle in uh when we were doing the atomic resetting piece is um we've been intentional on going out and talking to um underserved communities uh but one of the things that we have struggled with is to report back and whether we're saying yeah so i think that's going to be really crucial if we're doing these things simultaneously which i think we can to make sure that we're getting those report back of what was actually what was heard um having just having open ones you know just for you know anybody to come like i understand that prop that the theory behind it but the reality uh the reality of those is that not everyone's going to have access to come to every meeting right rpm zoom so people still don't have computers you know and all that stuff so um we're doing both and um then i think you can try to hit both of those communities um at the same time julia you were going to say something yes i think it's very important that the committee provide a response to the anonymous website because it actually disparages the individuals who we ask specifically to participate in the process and most of those people are the people that michelle referenced who like usually aren't part of the process and that and i feel like the more that information is out sitting out there like only the people who like hate found you know they were hate foundations were asked to participate or those are the people who suggested the reality is that robin and jonathan and the community engagement team put those together some members of the board not me but some of the department made recommendations on who to participate and so i didn't make recommendations did you gary did okay and herman what herman was asked and i don't know if michelle was um and that was a process we agreed upon an anonymous website which um you know it it's quote like from a bunch of the school foundations including the friends of lincoln really disparages that group and i think that is damaging for if if you were somebody who participated in good faith because the district asked your point of view and said we want to hear from you because often we don't hear from you and then there's some secret or anonymously published website that disparages those people is i i think it's damaging to our process so i i think we should get some you know clear facts on the table it also says there's a proposal to like get rid of foundations which there's not which is inaccurate um so if you're gonna do open forum like people should start with correct information and it should not be disparaging of the people who will be asked to participate in the process the second thing is um before we get too far along i'd like to see all the data from this past year and i've i've gotta i'll send it off the the data requests for what and this goes to sort of the transparency of like what staff was bought yeah i think that's what the core because you know that that hasn't been shared and i'm not going to wait till you know october or um some other time because you know if we're having this conversation and the third the third thing is i think we need to talk about timing because you know through you know a series of delays because this goes back to 2017. every year it's like it's going to apply next year and you know if in fact you're going to do it like when is it going to apply because we need to tell people in advance and then the third piece of data is i keep hearing that um the reason we have to be the only school district in the state that would do this is because otherwise people will leave our schools and i want to see the data that shows that we have lost people and families because they because they couldn't buy staff for the foundation okay so what i'm hearing is from the committee is we want to do some community engagement we want to do specific targeted um engagement with
01h 20m 00s
folks who are approximate to the problem i would like a student open forum and we can do both julia has a very specific data request and a request for a response to the website um and i think you know as we gary your point about reporting back i think one of the pieces is having board members attend listening sessions when it's appropriate i mean we don't want to be there and sort of i think about the one we did on the um vaccine when we just had people you know we all got to hear and listen to a variety of voices we don't want to have board members being overwhelming and make people feel like they can't speak freely but like all of us show up but i think it's important to be able to to hear our voices directly as well as have those report outs i think that gives us a good initial sort of work on the the foundation one someone has one question as far as this website stuff right um i don't know how many help me understand why we should respond to outside entities um because as many people i access because there are so much outside distractions or outside voices um that if you respond to one then you're going to have to respond to each one that comes up and i guess i'm just thinking that you know when we're looking at resources and trying to make sure we're doing what's best for our kids responding to i don't know how effective it would be or how direct impact it would have on our kids if we're responding to a lot of outside influences i'm thinking about it like a one-page fact sheet and because if we're gonna have a listening session so that people actually have the facts yeah i think that's a good idea yeah yeah and i agree i just don't want to i want to make sure we're not just responding to certain things yes just like you said a one-page faction overall i think that's helpful but to respond i guess for me just respond you know we get so much so many things that people say about the district and whether it's oregonian or whether it's in was it the other one the difference or whatever right if we're putting that stuff we're trying to put out each a little bit of fire then we're taking our focus off with our kids versus things that putting out a one-pager overall from hey this is what we're actually doing you know on that piece and i do think you're right julia that we need to clearly say that those staff that were involved in the listed ending sessions are not anti-foundation we're not trying to have an agenda we're doing what the board asks them to and gathering voices i i also wonder like the secret website like who knows about it is it just a little you know i mean i've only heard about it i've never seen it i think i've been sent a link jonathan and i mean it's not circulating they're circulating it to the media and it's apparently was created by friends of lincoln and some of the other foundations and we should just yeah i think we should be prepared so i think we i think we've talked about the foundation policy i think we have a direction for the work but what if you're not done speaking oh i'm sorry michelle go ahead i think that we should know that it's out there and be prepared to respond to anything that we hear that's inaccurate and and there's a large part of me that wonders why like you you don't want to ignore it you want to know that's out there but um i don't want it our whole work plan focused on this secret group that i mean if it's a secret and folks aren't invited they're it's an echo chamber it's not a public facing thing it's it's a small group of people you know saying what they want to say amongst themselves so i i don't know how much attention we should pay to it we should know that they're there we should probably have access to it so we can um put correct information out and then we should like move on to getting the workout yeah my primary thing is like i expect if you have an open forum that you want people to come with like it you can be opposed to something that's actually accurate um but there's no sense that people um getting people all wound up about things that aren't even accurate and yeah great and so to me it's just like a like a setting of the the table to making sure that people if you're going to comment that you have like you know what the actual proposal is um but i think that's taking account that they're going to actually look at it and read it and understand it before they come talk and this is they're not going to do that you know i get that that'd be great in theory if they did that but at least what i've observed this last year most people don't do that and this is the big question about policies that we've had over and over again do you do the community engagement first to hear from the community their ideas and
01h 25m 00s
understandings or do you write the policy first and then take it to the community to get their feedback and again we've discovered a hybrid model works right so i think that having a fact sheet and having clear facts about foundations and school-based fundraising before this and then having us agree as a committee that if someone's saying things that are factually untrue we'll pause and correct them um is one way to address that at least in the in the space we can control of that thing i would like us to move on to field trips because we only have about 20 minutes and and we have a couple of other things that i'd like us to sort of set a trajectory and work process for um i know the field trip has come up several times at board meetings um is there someone who's really passionate about that they would maybe like to to engage around that work i know gary that's something you've asked questions about several times yeah well i guess what is the what's can you uh go into a little bit about what the field trip policy is and what is it trying to change to or is it trying to change i think we've just been having conversations about equity when it comes to field trips and how we report out about field trips and also looking at what field trips the board approves and does the board really need to be improving field trips can we take that off of the consent agenda and instead have equity reporting because one of the problems with the way that we're overseeing field trips now is we only see certain field trips that cost a certain amount we're not seeing all the range of field trips so there may be even greater disparity in what what is happening so how did that how did that come about as far as the board uh proven to the certain children and andrew has said he would like us not to approve field trips because he doesn't think it's good government um coming out of the whitehurst report there were a whole series of recommendations and there was an additional another individual something scott norman scott thank you who was engaged in misconduct with students he was a pps staff person he was engaged in misconduct with students while on an international field trip and the record sponsored by the district not sponsored by the district by the district staff and he recruited students for the trade he would he would put together his own field trips so it was not through the dis it was not district supported or approved so we made a host so we made a host of changes for um recommending a win when it should be that the board approves and it doesn't have anything to do with the amount of money it's the distance from from pps and um the superintendent at the time asked for the board to have approval and we had a long discussion like what exactly it is i think it's 150 miles or out of state and so everything else doesn't get approved by the board with the exception of those like outside the geographic area and um i'll just say my point of view is i think i think we should let the field trip policy be as it is because i think we've actually found out with approving field trips a lot of information and i think that also is what generated the field trip equity uh uh proposal funding proposal i know it is because and we should we should see how it plays out and you know if it turns out you know these are just routine things and we're satisfied with how the equity police fake plays out after a year then yeah maybe the board doesn't need to approve it but at this point in time i would not be supportive of that piece of it so just quick clarification so if the i want to make sure if the superintendent asks the board to approve field trips whether the certain districts are a certain amount is do we have his thoughts on why he wants to change it or if he wants to change it at all um so i know that this request came from andrew to say why is the board this is an operational thing this shouldn't be the work of the board i think julia's made a case for why it ended up being the work of the board and i think we have learned some things again if we're looking at equity in field trips i think a better yardstick of that would be to have a field trip report so there's that piece and then we as a board have also talked about what does equity look like when it comes to field trips don't get that okay so i think as we look at so i think what might be good for us as a board is to our homework for the next meeting would be to read that field trip policy and to look at and think about how we might adjust it and and to have a conversation about do we think but i think the the we need to adjust that policy well no i guess and i can i don't disagree with you on that i guess i'm guessing i said we're having this relationship with the superintendent and the board i guess i would want to know what if the superintendent actually i would want to know what his thoughts about this he is and why you know why that's what i'm talking about if he asked for something we're talking about we're not going to
01h 30m 00s
do it well just like that yeah conflict with the superintendent in the board i ain't trying to do this and now you're talking about no so that's not just one of we'll all have read the policy and bring any ideas we have around it and then we'll ask guadalupe for his thoughts yes that sounds great um i mean i also agree with you know andrew that you know maybe it's not our business but there is a wide disparity uh in between which high school students have access to going to vienna for instance which we have approved and which ones get to go to salem for a basketball tournament and it's really um very clear along racial lines and so i i mean from that perspective it's very important to me and there's a part of me that says you know if the district's doing it well we wouldn't have to look at it so i i would like to look at it yeah and i think that equity report piece is going to be important too but for all the field trips not just the ones that approve because there are so i think i think i am assuming it'll be telling to look at who gets to go to the art museum and who gets to go to the zoo and who gets to go to and some of it's there's lots of factors in field trips but i think that'll give us some information that can help us really think again about how we best serve our students student assignment what what do we need to look at go ahead yeah michelle i'm really sorry to interrupt you i have to um sign off so i can get to the next meeting i appreciate your leadership here and look forward to our next meeting okay thank you michelle see you later hi [Music] um mary did you all have a i'm gonna skip from student assignment for one second did you all have a proposal around the distribution of information um we haven't worked on that at all so that that would be just looking at the current the policy as it sits now so i think we can we can push that a couple of months maybe while we do some of this bigger work we can i i can reach out to will be school-based and to look at what changes we we think would be helpful and with the with the neighborhood policy just a as a reminder uh judy brennan has asked for well to wait um okay delay until the audit report is out so that i don't know if it will inform him from the yeah if it does she'd like to have that so there's some sort of proposal though for the is there some sort i guess why is it on the list is there some sort of proposal because where it was last time was the legacy and sibling was that the proposal but like there was nobody who supported it or at least would say so publicly no but we also made changes to because we were looking at when we were looking at boundary changes to clarify the language of what it what what we did want to see in place in terms of i think there is some residual and legacy issues that need to be addressed because they are in the current policy and do they remain as they are and um i think what one of the things is looking at what was learned from the southeast guiding coalition what were things that are important to people what do we want to have in the event we have you know you had talked about how they making changes to the definition of what is a neighborhood school what does it look like so it's just updating a lot of that some of the work i don't know i was thinking that we would start uh and then talking to judy brennan about it is started starting with the current policy not with any of the proposed revisions that we made for current beforehand because it we've learned a lot i don't know i wasn't in those meetings but i know that uh many of you were and and judy certainly was and so i think i i think starting from what we have and i think we should tentatively schedule that for november i'm assuming the audit will be done by then our next meeting is actually the november meeting to bring that up for an initial conversation if we have the hardship audit and the current policy and then we can look at julia some of the maybe the historical things we've talked about that we might want to see shift so this is a staff generated proposal i'm just trying to understand who's who's proposing the changes this this has been on the list for a while um we we had started making changes as i said before the southeast guiding coalition and and put it on pause and so i had reached out to to judy brennan and saying so this is done what have we learned what do we want to can we bring it up again because it seemed like at the time that there was a lot of interest in it um and you've talked about the the you know some of the things you'd like to see change and so we thought it was a it was a good time to bring it forward again and i will i want us to talk about legacies and siblings because i think that that we need to have that conversation again um especially with the new makeup of our board to really get a good equity lens
01h 35m 00s
on on some of the policies we have that was the reasoning behind bringing it forward again and who is proposing the ethics um i guess in my office um so i so so foundation we've got our work laid out field trips we're going to read the policy create some ideas get gg's take student assignment we're going to look out in november after we get the audit report we're going to push back the distribution of information to maybe look at it in january after we finished foundation work for the religious and cultural i'd like us to all read the fairfax policy and i think i have that from you julia if i don't can i'll reach out and ask for it again what other things on the religious and cultural um do we think we need to be setting as our workflow well the whole purpose of the work last year was to overlay something on this year's calendar and that hasn't happened so it seems like at a minimum which is what we need to make which is what the board said last spring yeah and it's like and then we're gonna have a larger policy discussion it seems like we it just skipped right over like there's going to be something on the calendar let me say the school year's already started but there's gonna be something on the calendar so that everybody in the school community knows like hey we shouldn't be scheduling something on the night of rosh hashanah we did we did put some preliminary information and sent it out in admin connect so that all schools would be aware of that yes but we were wanting something on the school calendar no i recognize that and i think as a just to address your concern we were cognizant that the board wanted to us to act on this and so this was our preliminary uh gesture to do that so that all schools all school administrators would know would have a list of um uh religious holidays and cultural observances aware of them and to we told the community was it was going to be visible to more than just the admins because coaches teachers pta schedule things so that i mean and i'm not aware i i i we can bring in somebody to talk further about how widespread that communication went out i can tell you what little i know but i can i will gladly provide you additional information for the next minute about that as we're moving forward because i know it's a concern so i yeah i mean and we were pretty clear that we wanted that this year and so i would really like us to be able to send that out um so i i would i don't know what what's appropriate here in the whole directing staff but i would love to see something presented at our october meeting for us to approve to go out to schools if that's possible um because i think we did some work on that in the spring and we have i mean i think it's really important to have that to the wider not just admin because we want the wider community to be respectful of those holidays i think the same thing about michelle's point about the hair how do we create a cultural change that means communicating with everybody and showing that we value these holidays to everybody um liz had worked on a draft for these religious and cultural observances for 2223 some draft guidance on it uh she sent it to me in an email that says confidential do not share so i'm asking her if we can if she can share that when she gets back with everybody another preliminary place to read um to have us all look at that and maybe because i feel like we had we agreed on some things at that last meeting that haven't been followed through on so i want to get that out to our community thank you for flagging that julia all right see these gary what do you think we should do next with cbs i want to both actually need to read the policy so i'm going to stay in the past so i can just get that policy okay so i please read through it that would be great and i just kind of start there okay so for homework for the board for the next meeting we'll read through the cuv policy and be prepared to do some initial conversations about it and we have there are a few there are a few policies and administrative directives that uh address the cubs the one that staff is asking to bring forward is the prohibition uh of activities on buildings and facilities and what in buildings and properties so on district buildings and properties so that we one of our policies talks about things that you specifically you can't do for example bring alcohol onto school property um we want to add something about unleashed dogs on school property
01h 40m 00s
i when you said prohibited activities that made me think about our partners that presented about the summer's program and how they did archery and how hard it was to get archery approved so we're not talking about that kind of prohibition we're talking about health and safety well i guess that is safety uh arrows but um not not that kind of thing level of management but then we also have a uh uh cb that just talks about um the uh the board has provided a process to for for different uh outside agencies to to uh either rent or use our facilities yeah if i want to see that so that's the one you want to see yeah yeah so it'll be is so we bring both yeah bring all the cub policies just so we can look at the universe yes how about having them if they're going to be posted the week before that's the practice on friday book meeting just to have them all posted so that we've got the wrong place that'd be great so just a question about the see that cuv mary um does it need to be a policy i mean we have outside offenses um already like posting um that is it is it like that's not enough or um i think the cub team and dan young will probably i'll bring him to speak to this is um because of some safety concerns that have arisen in some at some of our schools um we don't have within the policy and ability to close down the properties entirely we talk about um i mean actually the cubs contemplate only use of the buildings and facilities through the cub process so when these policies were initially written it was strictly you go through you get your permit and that's it but there is it's a lot broader and so there's a lot of community use which we have welcomed um but because of things that have occurred over the last year and which are seem to be increasing in some sites i think dan young's team would like the ability from the board to be able to assess the safety situation and shut them down shut down the sites for a period of time to community use not two they would still be available for those who have come permits and they would still be available too so for games and things like that but that's one of the things they're they're asking us asking this committee to look at so just a flag an issue that i would have is whether the district actually it's just an enforcement issue because we can pass a policy but for example if the properties aren't fenced um i mean just like you know what does that mean for compliance and everything so it may be like seem like this is a very targeted policy for one specific site but to think how it plays out and are we prepared to like can there actually be compliance and enforcement across the district not just at the one specific ace i guess that's the question for all of them right because you know when you say no alcohol at the sites and yet one of the safety issues we're seeing is large parties occurring on school property after hours where there's alcohol and yeah i mean yeah yeah i'm suppose and this is going to be like a longer discussion i'm just going to flag it because we have so many properties that are adjacent school grounds are adjacent to the park grounds or actually the school uses parts and as if there's not eliminated if if we have a rule that's for schools it's not the same for perks then you know this is the type of question is just to make sure that we actually have something that's enforceable and all right anything else for the good of the order i think our first policy meeting of the year is adjourned we got some homework for next time and we will continue the good work we've been doing today


Sources

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sunshinepps.org/index.php?title=2022-09-14_PPS_School_Board_Policy_Committee_Meeting&oldid=10334"
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Center for Transparent Analysis and Policy
Powered by MediaWiki
Powered by Semantic MediaWiki