2022-12-13 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2022-12-13
Time 18:00:00
Venue Jefferson High School
Meeting Type regular
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: Board of Education Regular Meeting - 12/13/22

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this board meeting of the board of education for December 13th is called to order for tonight's meeting any item will be voted on has been posted on the PBS website under the boarding meetings tab the meeting is being streamed live on PPS TV services website and on Channel 28. Replay throughout the next two weeks you can check the district website for replay times um good evening and I want to thank everyone for being here this evening um I'm going to get going with a couple of reminders and then um turn it over to the superintendent for just a moment we do ask that everyone attending uh the meeting tonight members of the public staff and board members that we all treat each other with respect we're excited that you've taken time out of your day to get involved in the school district we're also excited to be here tonight out of our normal building at Jefferson High School and whether you're here to testify or just observe our ability to engage with one another civilly is something that makes our community stronger if you wish to display signs or banners please remain in the auditorium Auditorium foyer behind the seating area and please don't block any attendees views of the proceedings for safety reasons we also need to keep the walkways and aisles clear and in general we just would appreciate it if you everyone can be mindful of others in the room and remember that we're setting an example tonight for our community's children before we dive into our agenda tonight I did just wanted to turn it over to the superintendent just to say a word about some of the events in the district thank you chair Scott for the opportunity to just uh acknowledge recognize uh for a moment that yesterday for the third time in two months gun was fired just outside of Portland Public School campus in two of those instances PPS students have been injured we're here at Jefferson High School one of the impacted School communities and across the city I think we're all hearing it during the same time period far too many portlanders have been victims of our regions escalating gun violence as a lifelong educator I see my primary responsibility as ensuring the safety and well-being of the Children and Youth under our care as well as their teaching and learning I'm grateful for the commitment and service of our Educators and our support staff who every day are dedicating themselves to accomplishing these goals but as gunfire rattles another PPS Community I urge our community to come together and work collectively towards resolving the social problems plaguing our neighborhoods uh chair and directors I posted a statement with some thoughts on the impact of gun violence uh and and the effect it's having on school safety and I just want to assure our broader community that uh this is this is of utmost importance and a priority of ours to keep our our students safe and we'll continue to cooperate uh with every Authority and support service out there towards that Aim so you can see my Fuller statement posted on our website all right thank you thank you superintendent moving on we have a very full agenda tonight so I'm going to be trying to move us quickly through so we have some some able to have some some conversation about each of the items um just really quickly at the very beginning uh I want to talk briefly about board membership board member declarations for leadership um back in May of 2021 the board adopted a process by which board members could be considered for leadership positions the resolution states that in order to be considered for a leadership position board members should notify the current board chair in writing by December 1st if they plan to run for board leadership in the January election and then at the first board meeting in December which is tonight the chair publicly confirms board members who are interested in serving in leadership um and uh the only two people who have expressed interest I have expressed an interest in remaining as chair moving forward and director Hollins has expressed an interest in remaining as Vice chair uh and the board will vote on that board's leadership at the January 10th board meeting the first board meeting of the calendar year um one quick note I do think as we move forward uh an issue that has come up which I think is important is that that process that was put in place about notifying the board chair is a little bit awkward um and so we're gonna talk just about maybe in our protocols or some other way um maybe notifying the board Clerk or some other mechanism just same process of notifying but not the board show yeah I think when we adopted that we said that there was room for continued Improvement on the process so thank you the board will now vote on the consent agenda um board members if there are any items you'd like to pull for discussion we will set those aside for discussion and vote at the end of the meeting Ms Bradshaw are there any changes to the consent agenda no great board members are there any items you'd like to pull from the consent agenda for discussion or questions yes I like to pull the DMR masonry restoration uh contract I think this is an expenditures contract okay Miss Bradshaw do you see that one you know which one he's referring to
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yeah it's under 6621 in 6621 under 6621 19146 I also have a question about the I don't know if you're going to pull the whole resolution I have a question about the Balmer um contract uh but I I yeah so we'll yeah have more discussion in just a second um let's get a motion uh and a second to adopt a consent agenda without the aforementioned contract motion director Holland's moves uh director greens seconds the adoption of the consent agenda with that one contract removed is there any more discussion on the consent agenda director from Edwards I just thank you I just had a question about the bomber contract I notice that we're paying for two positions over a two-year period and I'm curious um is that an ongoing commitment I know it appears that we get a pretty substantial value on the other side of um uh slots for our staff our Deputy who's been working very closely with UFO leadership in the Baltimore Institute on our partnership so maybe you could shoot some light on there along with uh thank you James for joining us so I can speak to the bummer physician you know we are deeply grateful for our partnership with Balmer and the University of Oregon uh we're additionally grateful for the fact that he has agreed to pay for a liaison position uh that will work as a conduit between the two organizations as we co-develop a behavioral health model here at PPS the balmerson has agreed to pay for that position in full uh for for two academic years so that that is the agreement now they're they're also open to an amendment which which may add an additional year does that answer your question okay uh Ms Bradshaw has any public comment on the consent agenda no the board will now vote on resolution 6620-36624 with the exception of the fscpd in our masonry is that the contract which we will come back and talk about at the end of the agenda um all board members in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no student representative McMahon Ing and then parking so um but I'm here now and I'm sorry about that not a problem you were doing important work so appreciate Gathering the input from students are there any abstentions on this vote the consent agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative McMahon voting yes by reading before you came in the superintendent um just addressed the community regarding the incidents of gun violence at Cleveland in our incidents at Jefferson recently and just generally the way that our students all over the city are being impacted and I know you were personally impacted so I want you to know that we have you in our hearts and the superintendent spoke to that before you came in thank you we turned out a student and public comment uh before we begin just a quick review of our guidelines for public comment we really thank those who have come out tonight to attend this meeting and provide your comments to US public info public input informs and improves our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts Reflections and concerns the board office may follow up on any board related issues raised during public testimony and we do request that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a Personnel matter you have any additional materials that you would like to provide to the Border superintendent we ask that you email them to public comment all one word pps.net public comment at pps.net and when you begin your comment please clearly state your name and spell your last name you'll have three minutes to speak and you should hear a sound after three minutes at which point we would appreciate if you would conclude your comments Miss Bratch I know we have some folks signed up for student and public comment we do Ellie Ellie yes it should be on okay great uh hi my name is Ellie weiner w-e-i-n-e-r ah good evening PPS administrators and board of directors my name is Ellie Weiner and I'm a junior at Roosevelt High School I'm here representing the climate change climate Justice class at Roosevelt for the past few weeks we have been learning about the climate change response plan which was adopted by PPS
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in March 2020. in the ccrp says that Portland Public Schools will be carbon neutral by 2040. this is the way PPS is trying to combat climate change in our communities the ccrp is the strongest climate change plan in the nation which as a student makes me proud as students in informed community members we have noticed that PPS is taking on projects that will hinder reaching the 2040 goal Benson High School is currently undergoing a complete renovation an update of its systems as well as its interior and facade Benson just like all PBS high schools that have already been renovated is scheduled to have a methane heating system the wyomethane heating system functions does not align with the 2040 carbon neutral goal while all the schools that were renovated before the ccrp was passed will have to be retrofitted with alternate Heating and energy systems but for 2040 there is still time to take Benson off that list removing the parts of the methane system that have already been installed at Benson and putting in the new Electric System will most definitely lengthen the renovation and we acknowledge the hardship of prolonging the the dislocation of the student body but in the long run it will increase pps's chances of meeting its goal on time in addition our calculation our calculations have shown that removing the methane system now and installing an electric one will cost the district between six and eight million dollars while a complete retrofit in 18 years with gas prices rising and inflation will cost them approximately 34 million dollars in the United States schools generate 72 million cubic tons of CO2 per year if our schools cut their carbon emissions by half let alone cut them all together our country can make a massive contribution to solving climate change we implore you to consider our positions this is the time for our community to continue the good work that started with the adoption of the ccrp at this critical moment every decision must be made with the goal to deliver on those vital promises made last March the health of our world is worth more than the short-term cost of time and money the district would spend in implementing our suggested changes to the planned renovation thank you thank you thank you for your testimony and my understanding is that the class also has produced a video which we will make sure to send around to the whole board so folks can watch it Kara Cruz is virtual did you hear me Nema it's just going to be Aaron today okay well then Aaron Cruz was up on the next on the list next hi can you guys hear me all right yes hello my name is Aaron Cruz c-r-e-w-s and I'm one of the vice presidents of BSU right here in summer Middle School I want to and I want to update you about what's been going on in my school one thing is I would like to see more black teachers and more classroom management our school our school me and other schools to be teachers and staff of color so you can have more people to relate to and we can feel more welcomed in our community anything is and anything else is the lack of classroom engagement many teachers and htms students receive busy work from the teachers um another thing is the lack of classroom management a lot of teachers don't know how to manage our classes very well and it causes a lot of chaos and which causes students to skip class I believe teachers should also care more and make the classroom more engaging instead of just handing out busy work thank you thank you for Testimony karanja Cruz all right how's everybody doing greetings to the board board chair everybody superintendent and the community I'm actually here at Harriet Tubman we're here at the PTA uh Community listening uh meeting as you guys know Pat is in bargainy uh with PBS currently and they're having communities listening sessions and they're in bargaining actually uh talking about article 9 right now um I'm here to uh to share some things with you my son and daughter has been a straight A student since uh sixth grade um overall GPA would be maybe like a 3.8 um in the midst of that we have not received any type of Honor Roll award or anything in that type of nature um last week my son had caught victim to
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a situation where I want you guys to be aware of I see a lot of you guys are doing extra stuff I don't know if you're listening but um but basically um last week my son was horse playing but it got misinterpreted to be a threat to cause harm that language alone is not the nature of my son I'm in the midst of an appeal um for that language to be removed but I wanted to have you guys be aware of that uh in the midst of bargaining in the midst of article 9 we still are using criminal language um to criminalize our kids um again this is not the nature of my son I plan to appeal um and it's ironic that I'm here at this community listening session so um I just wanted to put that pretty much on your radar um that's pretty much what I'm fighting now is that is to remove that language but that goes back to what my son is saying at the classroom management um if we had classroom minutes we wouldn't have course playing in situations like this so um just want to bring that to your attention I know you guys have a report that's going to be uh presented to you guys about the update of Harriet Tubman hopefully in that presentation they will share the data that was collected about students voice and how they feel in the school so hopefully you will ask that question when they're presenting the update about Harriet Tubman uh um so just wanted to put that on your radar and appreciate your time thank you thank you Mr Cruz Shannon kittrick Sylvan welcome hello my name is Shannon kittrick k-i-t-t-r-i-c-k and um good evening superintendent Guerrero and board members um I am a Roosevelt High School teacher and I'm going to talk about the 100 utilization model as Roosevelt was being rebuilt teachers were introduced to a corporate term called The 100 utilization model planning we were told was an Antiquated use of classroom space teachers would abandon the single classroom model for multiple classrooms we'd share an office with our department and plan lessons and cubicles they said it would be a great place to plan collaborate with co-workers and meet with students the day I moved out of the classroom was the saddest day of my life of my career I had many great memories in that classroom I recalled being told that there are up to four teachers in a classroom and that I wouldn't get my own bookshelf I cried today I want to tell you why I believe the 100 utilization model does not benefit our students or our teachers teachers are leaving in Mass because of this model it is physically demanding to shuffle supplies and it's a multiple classrooms first we must gather our materials from multiple classrooms then we travel with students in the hallways during a seven minute passing period teachers move lessons on carts through overcrowded hallways it's dangerous to have science materials and lab supplies move through hallways with so many students students also lose instructional time we repost learning Targets on the board log into our computer using a dual authentication system and then set up every lab or Hands-On activity again 100 utilization disregards the specific needs of high school students we don't have space to have a private conversation with parents or with students this plan disregards what we do in our classrooms when we are not teaching this model creates an environment of disorder and stress among students and staff we no longer have a sense of place in a familiarity at school anymore students don't know where to find us because we can be in three different rooms we don't have enough space for conferences or to meet with students at Flex time lost in the vision is any understanding of what teachers do for their students we are forced to plan Hands-On activities and labs in the cubicle with only a mental picture of how our equipment supplies and chemicals we be given to our students for example one of the best times to talk with students is in between classes but we now must ignore them and pick up and move to the next classroom classrooms are a less inviting space the walls of well-used classrooms are much more than a decoration they are an essential part of the curriculum they said that the new flex space would give students a college Feel The Architects added couches chairs and
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tables in our hallways however we serve teens and our Flex bases have created major issues in our hallways we are told that all Portland Public Schools would be 100 utilization model Benson teachers are being told that Roosevelt teachers love it this is not true Miss Kitty could you wrap up your comments yeah I'm right here thank you um there is not an administrator teacher student or a parent that believes this model is good for our kids it does not improve the quality of teaching and learning and it adds additional burdens to a teacher's time in short supply when we have enough opportunity to build a new school the designers must deeply understand what classrooms mean to the students now we need the board and district and men to believe us when we say the 100 corporate model is a not good model for schools thank you for listening thank you Sophia drevis welcome good evening everybody Steve directors and superintendent my name is Sophia dreves it's spelled d-r-e-v-e-s I'm here tonight to advocate for aftercare at lent school I'm a parent of a native Spanish-speaking DLI student at Bridger Elementary and due to the boundary changes we will be transitioning both of our children to lent starting in fall 2023. here's the bare fact and the consequence of not guaranteeing Aftercare at this point in time at lent many DLI families are going to go elsewhere and or leave the program entirely at lent this will have the largest impact on Native speaking families bypoc families and folks with limited means what's the result the DLI program at lent it's going to be restricting access to the very same families that the program is aiming to serve meanwhile inner Portland schools in wealthier neighborhoods enjoy strong robust Aftercare programs those are the cold hard facts and it's ironic the scgc proposed these changes and you all voted to uphold them in the name of Equitable expansion so I want to emphasize the word equitable when asked what your internal deadline is at a recent community meeting we could not get a straight answer thank you Julie Abram Edwards for attending all these community community meetings we see you it was made clear that it's complicated but there's no transparency as to why it seems logical that Aftercare should just follow the kids campfire could follow creative science from Clark to Bridger and champions could follow the Bridger DLI kids from Bridger to Lent by not guaranteeing Aftercare before the February transfer date you're essentially forcing families including native speaking Spanish families that the program was designed for to choose between DLI and their job if you are serious about making the DLI program at lent successful you will do everything it takes to guarantee Aftercare before February left unactioned our community will not hesitate to ask the media and elected officials support to amplify our ask estimatos is proximo febrero muchos families is aftercare foreign los Ninos is necessario
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para bring that aftercare is repetition s thank you for letting me finish thank you for the translation yes Dave Gunderson well welcome my name is Dave Gunderson g-o-n-d-e-r-s-o-n I'm the founder of hopscotch Foundation uh 501c3 that was founded at Jefferson in 2015. our mission is to to provide uh healthy food to low-income schools throughout the Portland area we were a huge it was a huge success from the start we were up to about 25 schools and then covet head we passed out hundreds of thousands of food boxes and along that time A friend of mine said you're doing a great job of giving them fish but are you really teaching how to fish I took that to heart started looking around and I ran into controlled environmental agriculture maybe a term you haven't heard of yet but you will cea it is the way we need to battle climate change and food insecurity in this country um so we took off um and I I start looking around all over the West Coast I found a couple guys from Albany who lived a mile away from my house near Waverly Country Club who developed an aquaponics system that it was amazing I immediately went and asked them if we if our kids at Jefferson High School could go in this past summer and replicate what they built they agreed and so 15 Jefferson kids went marching in there in June thinking they had a summer job not really understanding what they were doing it has been an overwhelming success the what these kids learned through the construction process because this is all DIY between Montreal Brazil and I we probably went to Home Depot 200 times this summer and but there that's what we wanted to do the kids wanted to use tools and put this thing together and aquaponics uses fish fertilizer and it recycles water and it it's so Earth friendly and the quality of the produce is amazing we'd made we brought collard greens over here to the parents and grandparents we've grown basil which we have some back there for you and we'll bring forward and lettuce and the only problem with the thing is is that seven miles away Mr gatterson could you wrap up your comments I will thank you we want to put a unit behind the grandstand at Jefferson so the kids can get to it and work on it after school and during the weekends and feed their Community thank you for your testimony all right and here so we're gonna there's the basil that's excellent I'm actually actually [Applause] I also want to say just if I see that there's no one else signed up that I had
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an opportunity several times this summer to go visit the farm um the corporate partner is live local Organics so it's the organization that has the live lettuce and basil in the grocery stores I had the kids explain to me the students rather about how fish poop is used as an input and how controlled environment agriculture uses five percent of the water of traditional farming and is a way to address um as Mr Gunderson said climate change and food insecurity but the one thing you didn't mention was the green jobs aspect I believe that this could be kind of a Gateway into um students wanting to learn more about chemistry about solar power about the potential of bringing um you know LED in indoor grow in this community where there's still pockets of poverty and um and we like basil over here too so thank you um so much for your testimony and for your advocacy in that area and thanks to the students back there I see you um hiding in the back there um yes the job skills great thank you everyone for testimony tonight we really appreciate it um next up the Portland Federation of school professionals has requested to speak this evening thank you president Batten for being here virtually and hopefully we can bring president oh she's on her way over there we go welcome I think you may be muted thank you um I'll start again I'm Michelle Batten b-a-t-t-e-n the president of pfsp these past few months I've tried to make sure to speak at least once per month at school board meetings on behalf of the members I represent the classified employees in addition to speaking on behalf of my bargaining unit all of the union leaders representing workers across Portland Public Schools have spoken at board meetings on behalf of our colleagues our students and our communities I am once again bringing forward our concerns of Staffing shortages at PPS I know that information has been shared with you about the new employees hired and that's great and we've met many of them however what may not have been shared is that each month we are also losing almost that many some barely staying through their first paycheck as we head into winter break just three days away we at pfsp are especially concerned over the resignations that will occur over this two-week break we have been inundated with calls and emails from Members telling us they will be leaving over winter break and when must they give notice last week we were told of a classroom at Pioneer who would be losing four staff members in One classroom over the next two weeks and just yesterday I learned two more had given notice again I say to you these conditions are not sustainable my people are weary they are afraid to be without the safety net of the co-workers their Spirits are broken they come in day after day with no protection of any kind of pandemic leave pfsp has reached out to the superintendent the school board and now I say to the larger PPS Community please support all workers who teach and care for your wonderful students with all their physical and learning differences and all their special gifts support the cafeteria workers who feed them the custodians and maintenance workers who keep their buildings warm the campus safety who keep their schools safe and the bus drivers who take them to and from school we need your help we need PPS to be an employer where people want to work and where they want to stay thank you okay thank you president Patton okay I believe that concludes the general uh public comment um we will have some specific public comment about agenda items that are um we're voting on later on today um next up on our agenda we are going to move this around and uh didn't representative McMahon we're going to postpone your report until after um this next agenda item if you're okay with that
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um we do have two items related to the Center for black student excellence and I realize I should have mentioned at the start of the meeting that the update on Harriet Tubman middle school has been postponed in order to provide a more comprehensive update at a future meeting um with that superintendent Guerrero I will turn it over to you for the update on the center for black student next month yes these uh two items are very closely related we have our Deputy superintendent for instruction in school communities uh who's really been our lead uh on on all work related to our efforts at creating a place and approach we refer to as a center for black student Excellence joining her is our manager for our Innovation studio Miss Camille atadevo thank you for joining us tonight as well uh here for your update good evening um esteemed directors I heard someone say that and I love the way that sounded you liked it too right um I'm sorry um uh director chair and vice chair and superintendent um you know I'm really excited to be here to speak about this work it is an important work that has a long history are we presenting okay we're going to pause for a moment so that we can a lot be allowed to share screen in the virtual portion of the meeting I apologize great all right so we are excited to share uh some updates and information regarding the cbse um and with that you know this this work is a work that starts with a long history um prior to 2020. um and I'd like to um you know introduce where driving innovation in Portland Public Schools through the center for black student excellence and so the question is how did we get here and earlier this evening we did hear uh data regarding student achievement and that data share revealed uh what has been a long-standing phenomena here in our city is that we have our students of color persistently who continue to underperform their non um you know represented counterparts of students who would be not of color so with this going to the next slide to further discussion on how we're how did we get here there's a long-standing well-documented history of advocacy to see an outcome change for students particularly black students from the black community here in Portland there have been much discussion debates and even fights if I will very well in in documented even in board meetings from the community who were really demanded a change of student outcome and so these efforts were even you know as we continue to go through the years and see a persistent difference in the performance of of our black students compared to their not and black counterparts you know we wanted to the community wanted to face this Challenge and and with the death and murder of George Floyd and the social movement uh that pursued afterwards there was a need to then take further action to the next slide and this further action was accelerated when the black community in Portland put forth the concept of the center for black student Excellence later on in 2020 voters approved for a bond measure that enabled this work to begin to be led by and and jointly pursued by the community the Albina community in partnership with PPS and now that we are in a space where just in September of 2022 the board approved the Cooperative agreement with the center for black
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Excellence which is a new organization in our community that will be working side by side with PPS in this effort so the district's Innovation Studio which is a problem solver accelerator is really working deeply in engagement efforts um and and opening up conversations through a design process where we could begin to imagine and and reinvent what the experience The Learning Experience can be for students and we are starting that work and within that in addition to the design elements we are influencing and having conversations even about some of the facility designs when it comes to the Jefferson project when it comes to the upcoming Tubman project because we want to have conversations about what the educational experience will be what will be some of the programmatic elements that are perhaps non-existent that we want to put in place and then what does a facility design a space design look like to support students and teachers in those settings so I'm going to turn it over at this point to our project manager Camille thank you so much for being here with us as we continue this conversation and this update um good evening board directors good evening superintendent it's a pleasure and an honor to share with you what we've been up to for the past several months since I was assigned to this project the center for black student Excellence so first and foremost I just want to share a little bit about um who is at the table as we talk about who's shepherding and stewarding over this project so as Dr Proctor has previously shared she is the executive sponsor of this effort and myself as the founder of Portland Public Schools Innovation Studio I have the privilege of being the project lead in addition we are in partnership with I am Moore and Dr Renee Mitchell with co-locate design and led by Brian Lee we're also partnering with a 30-point strategies to support this effort from a editorial and Communications perspective and then we also are partnering with marketing box which is another design agency I also want to give an honorable mention to another partner that we're bringing on the project another Portland based a portland-based group imagine black futures um we currently have a design team that is comprised of both staff and community members who are helping to Shepherd and Steward over the project from a week in and week out perspective you'll notice that many of the people who are on the design team will be responsible for the implementation of the center for black student Excellence at multiple levels and so it's it's really neat that we get to have them at the table as well as some of our partners um many people also are wearing multiple hats not only are they partners they're also our parents um and so grateful to to work with many of the people at the table now I think one of the things that is really important for us to ground ourselves on is why we're doing this work the center for black student Excellence I think it's great but I think we should all be really centered on why what problem are we trying to solve through this through this effort and I just want to make sure I want to speak into this space that there are several problems um that you all know very well but Decades of under investment systemic racism lack of coordinated systems of support and discriminatory practices have resulted in an opportunity enduring opportunity and achievement gap for black students in Portland and when we talk about the problem it is not a PPS problem it is it is not solely a community phenomena but it is all it's a multi-faceted impact that is really grounded in um you know how Community comes together to to support and wrap around our students absolutely um but we don't get lost in the problems I think there's also an opportunity here
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and through the center for black student Excellence our opportunity is really to redefine this future for our black students by advancing a culture of black Excellence by unifying and elevating the black educational experience and improving outcomes for our students and so that's really why we're here to do this work so right now what we do know is at the center for black student Excellence exists in concept but the whole purpose of this journey that we're taking for the 22-23 school year is through a community design process to really establish what it will be there are four deliverables that we are accountable to by the end of this project which is a vision a comprehensive plan a facilities plan and an operational plan now to give a little bit of color to what we mean when we talk about these things first and foremost the vision is what is our shared aspiration for our black students and Community here in Portland and I have to emphasize that I mean shared not just Portland Public Schools but with the people who are in this room the people that live in the community and have a vested interest in our young people after the vision we have a comprehensive plan and this is where we get to dream and imagine and think about well what are all of the things that need to be included um in the center for black student Excellence so this is where we get to take a look at curriculum and instruction student support Family Support educator capacity building hiring and retention and then also advocacy what I hope you're starting to see is that it's not um it's not a single issue there are multiple things that have to come together if we're really going to elevate the black student educational experience then we have the facilities plan which after you've defined your vision and your comprehensive plan this is where we get to dream about the way the built environment supports those things now one of the things that I've been an advocate for is making sure that we are aligned in Portland Public Schools so not only are we talking about the overall facilities vision for the center for black student Excellence but it's also how those things work in coordination with the Harriet Tubman relocation and the Jefferson modernization to ensure that this major investment back in historic Albina is really moving in the same direction to support black students and then finally the operational plan this is where we get to talk about what the ongoing support for this body of work will be and as we continue I want to underscore the theme is really about a joint effort between community community leaders stakeholders parents teachers and PPS staff in all coming together one of the things that we have learned over the recent months with engagement and what we have learned historically is that people in a community um want to avoid deeply the phenomena of decisions being made on their behalf without prior engagement and conversation with the community to ensure that they are included in the decision-making process that would impact their families and their own community at large so that's why we take very seriously the stakeholder engagement pieces and bringing families stakeholders leaders together to have a deep conversation we want to move away from what has been historically a sense of distrust with PPS because the idea is or the thought is PPS makes decisions on behalf of the black community without including them in those decisions regarding their very own children and their very own schools absolutely and while I know the focus of this presentation is not actually The Innovation Studio I do think it's it's important to underscore the role of the Innovation studio in helping to Shepherd this project so in the thick of the pandemic one of the things that we did we being staff in The Innovation Studio one of the things that we did was work alongside Community to establish well what is a what is what could a design process look like as we imagine problem solving in Portland Public Schools and that's what you're looking at on the left hand side of the screen the community co-constructed this design process this very design process that we are applying to the development of the center for
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black student excellence and what you'll notice about this design process is the focus on getting ourselves rooted in history also understanding that any Community efforts to problem solve have to have the lens of healing and then also that humility has to be at the table because Innovation essentially is exploring um widely our assumptions um making sure that we actually understand what the problem is before trying to implement Solutions and so in context we'll go through this design process as you see on the left hand side of the screen we will establish what the center for black student Excellence will be what it will do and then we will implement it that's the next thing that you see on the right hand side of the screen so through some some of your more traditional project management methods and then um in the spirit of continuous Improvement we'll continue to watch our work and hold ourselves accountable now this project is massive and it is in some ways complicated so what I've tried to do is make it as easy as possible to follow um I'll go from the top of the screen to the bottom um and then I'll go from the left to the right there are a lot of stakeholders who are involved in reimagining the black student experience and as Dr Proctor shared early on you all as the board voted to enter into this Cooperative agreement with the center for black excellence um and so the center for black Excellence really serves as oversight and accountability and thought partnership this is a new entity a new board that is comprised of both staff and Community which I think is really beautiful then you have the design team that I introduce you to before really helping to Shepherd over the project week in and week out identifying well where in the community do we partner where do we push into how do we make sense of what we're hearing in real time our community engagement series are all of the opportunities that we're creating for the community to to enter into the conversation whether we're pushing into events or creating new ones and then finally we have a guiding Coalition which is a body of community stakeholders who are also deeply invested in this work so those are all of the different groups and what I hope you see by the diagram is that it's really a checks and balances all the way through when we say that this is a community effort that's exactly what we mean now to go left to right on what you all can expect we've just wrapped up what we call phase one so that integrated diagram that you saw in the previous slide what I've tried to do is unravel it for those of you who are linear thinkers I've tried to unravel it and describe it in in terms of phases so phase one we were really dedicated to establishing and re-establishing even deepening some of the necessary Community relationships to drive this work forward we've also been dedicated to um framing our community engagement like I said through the lens of of healing getting really grounded in the histories that have shaped the current experience and then doing do doing A needs assessment of all of the stakeholders who will be impacted by the center for black student Excellence so that's what we've been up to as we move into phase two of the process that's where we get to get excited and learn from people who are exemplifying black Excellence to set us up to be able to dream big and then you'll notice that over time we'll brainstorm with the community will come up with ideas and and then refine them until we uh present a final package to the board what I also want to say here is simply that um as Dr Proctor also mentioned before there is a way that we have historically worked with the community as it relates to our engagement efforts and so I want to underscore that with this project in particular we want to be in Partnership all the way through and I hope that's what is coming forward that we don't just want to inform people we don't just want to consult them but we want to involve shoulder to shoulder and collaborate and Empower our community the spectrum of community engagement was actually authored by our in-house Community engagement team in partnership with our racial equity and social justice partners so phase one what we've been up to um really in in phase one of the design process um we've kind of been boots on the ground
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um we've done more than 30 commute design and engagement activities we primarily have focused our efforts in schools to understand what the current student and staff experience is um we've had leaders breaking bread with other folks in the community to really ensure that people are establishing some real relational Trust um would you like it yeah so in September um you know to continue some of the phase one activities we had a vote right here uh with the Board of Education where they adopted the resolution that read in part that the vision of the cbse is one of collaboration among amongst black LED Community organizations and PPS working together to advance the culture of black Excellence unify and Elevate the educational experience and improve outcomes for black students families and Educators and continuing on with that in October we had we launched our preliminary design research with students staff and stakeholders we kicked off a gathering at the profit education center for members of the cbse work and then to continue on in November we did our first work with the guiding coalition and engaged in a Friday evening and Saturday day conversation around what it is that we have experienced uh what the community has experienced and how to and participate in some healing and some visioning forward and then finally of our phase one activities in addition to these gatherings community members had been able to interact during a series of community Gatherings including a community dinner series as well as Harriet Tubman Community night a black family night at King Elementary School and what you see there is just some images over the slides of what this engagement looked like so as we come to a close I want to elevate the voices of our students and our staff and bring into the room what we've heard so far in our phase one efforts so when asked what do adults need to know about how to support you this is what our students said just bear with me and don't give up on me be be there for me when I need you understand me and have patience when acts what what is black Excellence community members describe self-actualization and a commitment to the community as indicators of Excellence when asked how will you know when you see it black Excellence that is community members described a shift in body language youth to youth interactions youth to adult interactions and they really described that confidence would literally show up um in the demeanor of our young people when asked to what extent has your personal identity work contributed to your ability to connect with black students Educators said identifying as a village member and caring for these kids alongside parents so that mental shift and then also when asked what additional support coaching or professional learning might support you to deepen your practice Educators advocated for trauma-informed training and concrete classroom practices to support students Less Talk More strategies so the last thing I'll say is um that was phase one we are aggressively moving through our design process as we look into phase two we have a number of really fun learning Journeys that we're we're planning where we want to highlight um the Excellence that's already in our community as well as some models that we can glean inspiration from nationally so save the date if you're in the room if you're listening save the date one of the things that we're doing we're partnering with word is bond on a um Martin Luther King Day Community walk on January 14th and then we are also taking the lead of I am more on a black student Excellence Expo that's also coming up here in February so if you want to keep up with what we are doing it is
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www.pps.net forward slash cbse and to underscore again the why for this massive work is pointing back to the data that we saw earlier uh today pointing back to the data that we saw last year pointing back to the data that you may have seen five years prior pointing back to the data that you may have seen 10 or 20 years prior black students have historically underperformed and have been underserved in the community and this is a wonderful opportunity for us to engage deeply with the community to understand needs aspirations and Visions for how we can accelerate and provide a new experience for our students and we know based on research and data because our core mission is for all students to be successful we should be very concerned when any segment of our student population is unsuccessful over a period of decades thank you for listening thank you for the presentation we'll move on to the Jefferson High School room modernization um no but I want to thank you for your your good work especially the Innovation studio and the community dinners I think is a great idea I'm going to try to attend tomorrow briefly um but just want to thank you for your uh steadfast work thank you being married thank you Byron that means a lot Camille um I loved the slides you had especially the columns the for each phase and I thought that was really great um I don't see them in our board books is there a way that the public can find those are they on that pps.net forward slash okay just because there's a lot of really great detail and information there and want to make sure people have access to that thank you for your work I'm so excited you're on this project thank [Music] foreign [Applause] thank you directors and thank you team we thought it would be important to set in setting the context to give you that update of as we wrap up the first phase of our Innovation Studio work one of the things that our strategic plan calls out is as a school system we need a very different kind of capacity for leading Innovative work to resolving intractable historical and fresh challenges and part of the response to that is having a design an innovation Studio that reimagines the engagement process with our stakeholders as we seek Solutions and moving forward so I appreciate the the update there on the center for black student excellence and of course an important anchor of the concept of the center is Jefferson High School so it's very fitting that we're here this evening at Jefferson High School I want to recognize our Dynamic principle principal Drake Shelton back there who's off to a smashing start and is juggling multiple events this evening just like all of our high school principals usually do he stands on the shoulders of a whole line of dynamic School leaders here at Jefferson including Margaret Calvert uh [Applause] who now serves supporting all of our secondary schools well a community uh just to to remind us and provide us at the stage in 2020 as you know voters approved the Jefferson High School modernization project as part of the the most recent Bond since then the Jefferson High School modernization project team has worked with internal and external stakeholders a com a community comprehensive planning committee and the internal Jefferson steering committee to develop a comprehensive plan in conformance with the Comprehensive High School Educational specifications and design guidelines and standards that's a lot of words thank goodness we have a representative group here to share with you where they've landed so here to give you an overview of the recommendation for a Master Plan before you today kicking it off is our very own Chief Operating Officer Mr Dan Young thank you superintendent and good
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evening directors um just a quick introduction for me and then I'll turn it over to the team and we can get into the substance uh we appreciate the time tonight to present the Jefferson modernization comprehensive plan uh to put this in just a little bit of context this is the eighth School modernization plan that has been presented to the board since PPS began its modernization efforts in 2012 and the first of the 2020 Bond scope of work approval of the comprehensive plans another milestone in the Jefferson modernization project following authorization to include Jefferson in the 2020 bond in approval of the bond by PPS voters [Music] approval of the comprehensive plan kicks off the formal uh formal building design phases and initiates the community focused design Advisory Group upcoming Milestones will include building permit approval groundbreaking and ultimately ribbon cutting in your packets tonight you should have a copy of the Jefferson conference plan report the staff report board resolution as well as a copy of tonight's presentation you may have noticed that the presentation is pretty long because portions of the presentation have been presented previously to community members Partners stakeholders and at two previous facilities and operations committee meetings we felt it important to present the entire R2 provide the entire presentation to the board but we will move through the presentation quickly and will not be stopping on every slide and presenting that in detail uh with me tonight I have representatives from the Jefferson modernization team including our PPS project managers and representatives from poor architecture lever architecture and kolokey Design the team will introduce themselves as they present and we'll be starting with senior project manager Steve everos thank you Dan whoops and thank you board directors yes so my name is Steve epress I'm a senior project manager in the office of school modernization and obviously joined here by members of the Borah lever co-locate and osm team again who will introduce themselves as they proceed so just a quick overview of the agenda we'll begin with the community engagement and feedback process the recommended concept we'll go over a project program compared to education specifications review the schedule and then talk about a total projected cost go to the next slide so with this slide we wanted to show you how different groups and individuals participated in the planning and design process on the Jefferson project and we created this diagram really in response to questions we received during feedback to understand how that feedback is received and incorporated into the Jefferson comprehensive planning process as you can imagine as you've seen this is a complex process for any high school modernization project and even more so for the Jefferson project so this diagram shows the who how and what of community engagement and stakeholder engagement of both individuals and groups from planning through design and just as an example kind of the upper left hand corner you'll see the CPC dag group identified and these committees are and will be made up of community members that provide detailed feedback into the planning and design process you can compare that to the higher level themes that are presented at public events and actually at this evening's board meeting this diagram also shows how we progress from planning through design and how input changes as we proceed through those phases go to the next slide please so as we like to do we like to show information in several different ways to try to communicate uh you know kind of more comprehensively so this is another way that we found to show key stakeholder groups at the school district community and City level so as you can see from this diagram each group engages in different ways with the process and as Dan mentioned you can read more of the details of this slide in the presentation document and the report but here are just a few highlights of our engagement with key stakeholders during the planning process to date we have reached out to multiple stakeholders from all different types of groups including of course Jefferson High School community members such as alumni incoming families neighbors and school partners Regulatory Agencies who will have a say in what's built internal PBS stakeholders such as District leaders across all departments board members cbsc leadership as we've seen before and of course the bond accountability committee
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this also shows if if you look at it in more detail in your report all the many events and documents that have provided stakeholder input go to the next slide yes that's me or is that you sorry I think so thank you Steve hi my name is Kareem Hassan I am part of co-locate designs team working on community engagement and organizing for this project and um I'm one of the co-directors of colocate so I'm going to reflect on what you see on this slide and I've got a couple here but first and foremost I'm going to talk about who our engagement work has centered so our engagement work has centered and as a design Justice oriented practice always centers communities who have been historically marginalized by processes like this one and who are disproportionately impacted by decisions made about resources within the scope of projects such as this so for Jeff that has meant centering the black and brown communities with multi-generational roots at this school and in the Albina area so the proposed design direction that you're going to see is responding to the dominant narrative that the original 1909 building um the oldest building on this campus has deep cultural significance as an anchor for black portlanders especially in the context of ongoing displacement and gentrification of this neighborhood while we recognize that there's never unanimity in any community support for saving this building and having a tangible visible presence that connects Generations in place far outweighed full replacement options throughout our planning phase of Engagement despite significant concerns about the current conditions of the school and a desire to see those ameliorated in real time and not just waiting until a new building is in place so this slide shows a small sampling of the over 900 comments that we have documented so far through our engagement efforts these are the words of students of alumni family members teachers and staff feeder School families all of which when we document we transcribe and we tag based off of narratives and themes that we see emerge over and over again as we continue to be in dialogue with the community and stakeholders and the next slide is going to show at again the highest level possible for this meeting how those comments have yielded um narratives the stories that reflect people's experiences concerns questions and Visions for the future and each narrative breaks down into more specific themes with particular implications around spatial considerations programming and policies impacting people's experiences with Jeff and the systems that it rests Within so uh the full detailed report for this first phase of Engagement should be included in in the overall report that the board has received but through the Gathering of all this input co-locate synthesized these um these conversations and narratives uh and and um learned learning more sorry getting lost in my notes um understanding what the concerns considerations and experiences are and looking for opportunities that folks are excited to dig into together because there is a lot of excitement around this project folks really want to be part of the process and helping to shape the outcomes so I won't read through all of the blurbs describing these narratives but what I I will do is just name them at a high level for the record here and for folks in this room so trust understanding that design should move at the speed of trust and the impacts uh on bipoc communities through District policies the impacts of systemic racism and how trust deficits have emerged as a result of the history and current experiences of folks in this community identity culture and belonging recognizing Jeff as a cultural institution not only a school where people learn but also a place where Community is formed and shaped safety security and Wellness which looks at both physical and mental well-being and safety access flexibility and change resources both educational and socio-cultural Delight which is Wonder and inspiration and and the ways that people are delighted by being together with others and creating creating together learning together growing together and then embracing the outdoors which is focus on connections to outdoor environments and how to bring those qualities of biophilia into the building itself so as I mentioned we produce an implications report that details
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specific decision points and the more we go through this process apologies the more granular we'll get on those decision points and recommendations and our task is to say how are we responding to each one of these are we responding to it if not why not if so how so that we can learn and you all can learn and the community has information on how to advocate for the things that they want to see happen on this project and in the future the last note that I'll make on this on these themes is that the foundational narrative really that we heard was around trust all the reasons people have not to trust this process and processes like this one which you've heard other folks attest to in other aspects of this meeting so far so part of building trust really requires us to spend the time engaging with and learning from and hearing from Community listening deeply and responding thoughtfully and transparently and we know that this project has been operating on a pretty fast track given the the impacts of covid and getting the project up and running so our phase run report reflects what we've been able to learn and and hear up until this point and we have heard a lot but we have so much more to learn and dig into and we're hearing Community ask us to move at a pace that meets them where they're at recognizing life is full of unexpected challenges and tensions and traumas that we might not accommodate for on a typical project timeline but if we want to do this right we need to be working in sync with the community so that they're not only giving feedback but actually influencing decisions so with that I will hand it over to whoever is next Steve thank you yeah we have a full roster here thank you thank you Kareem um so this leads us oh yeah thank you this leads us to the recommended retain 1909 9 option which centers around the original historic building at Jefferson so as as you've heard we've received feedback through many different Avenues including including feedback through a survey poll about several earlier site options in all of our analysis and feedback received retaining the 1909 building has been the overwhelming theme and you can kind of read through some of these quotes here from the survey in additional caveat we wanted to add is that Jefferson High School lies within the Piedmont Conservation District and is considered a contributing resource to that historic district so ultimately the city has a lot of influence over what actually happens on this project but their feedback has also been in support of keeping the existing 1909 building which happens to align with the community feedback go to the next slide please so after all of the engagement with various individual and group stakeholders we've narrowed down the most critical driving factors for the Project based on feedback as well as what we've learned from prior Bond work so that's what this this slide shows kind of in relative kind of scale and importance so I just wanted to quickly go through these factors to kind of touch on kind of really important issues that kind of affect the project so the first one I wanted to talk about was ultimately meeting the square footage of the Ed specs for high schools and we'll discuss that later in this presentation but um you'll you'll kind of learn both kind of what the traditional comprehensive Ed specs are as well as what we've considered at Jefferson as kind of a high school Ed specs Plus another important factor that we've considered is not having travel distances longer than other monetizations um and this was included because in our earlier scenarios we had distances that were quite long and that was a lot of the feedback that we received that that you know puts a lot of burden on both students and staff certainly in order to minimize disruption to students and staff we wanted to have the simplest phasing possible for this project we want to have existing students in the new classrooms by 2026 with students staying on site during construction for a whole host of reasons we're targeting having all construction complete by 2028 and we're looking to have athletic facilities that accommodate track and field and practices on the main site and a flexible multi-use field on the south lot but all of these factors are really kind of over art have an overarching theme of community feedback and input that really reflects kind of the interest and the driving force of the community so I will hand it off to Jeannie for the next yes hi everybody good evening my
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name is Jeannie Lai I'm with Borah Architects I'm a principal at Borah and I'm representing the design team um so this diagram that illustrates um the overall view of the recommended comprehensive plan upcoming slides will explain that approach in more detail but I'll start off with an overview that what we're showing here meets the project planning parameters that Steve just went over with students staying on site in existing spaces until New spaces come online a key focus of the planning is to minimize disruption starting with disruptions to Unique programs that are and special Partnerships that are here at Jefferson such as middle college which relies on the adjacency to PCC across Killingsworth but also across disruptions to minimize disruptions across other aspects such as Athletics this recommendation also maintains the existing track and field staying keeping that in place throughout Construction the existing main gym also remains open until a new gym is built um for academics and arts the students will be able to stay in existing classrooms and there is a functional Theater Performing Art spaces and Survey throughout Construction and of course an essential part of this recommendation is to retain the exterior of the original 1909 Wing which is just south of the track and field that you see here in this diagram um this aligns with the dominant narrative that the Kareem and Steve uh talked a little bit more about and I think um as we got into uh engagement and hearing the feedback that this is this part of the building the existing building is something that represents deep cultural significance that is not something that could be easily replaced next please in addition to these this key response this slide outlines how the recommendation begins to respond more broadly to what we've heard throughout the engagement process um using the eight themes that Kareem outlined earlier as an organizing framework we have already started to um in the report share of how our recommendation is um aligning with the feedback and we plan to continue to use this framework as a guide as a North star as we continue the design forward in the next phases in the interest of time I will not go through each of these themes by theme but it is in your report that that it's available for for you to read through um I will um just point out the key elements at the stage that reflects multiple themes so next slide please um while the recommendation is to retain and upgrade the exterior shell of the 1909 Wing what we are recommending is a full gut renovation to create new safe healthy and highly functional High School environment meeting all of the aspects of the PPS edspects design guidelines the climate policy as well as current seismic building and energy codes we are introducing a courtyard with a centralized Commons at the heart of the school that have access to Daylight and usable outdoor spaces creating social and Gathering opportunities at the heart of the school for students and staff and community members all which we've heard they're looking for we are also creating a main Universal universally accessible entry point that meets PPS safety and design guidelines off of commercial with an entry Plaza and potential porch element that could serve as an amenity for not only students but communities and neighbors alike new state of the Arts performing arts and athletic facilities have Street frontages intentionally to facilitate greater access as Community Resources as well as serving the everyday needs of the school and the program as well as students I'll turn it over to Keisha for more details on the on the option thanks so much Genie so this in the next few slides will break down the phasing for the project so that what you see here is the current site plan the initial impact for
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students and staff would be the demo of the small auto shop building to the right of the current baseball field and for athletics to shift practices from that field to the fields on the south lot across Alberta to allow for construction to proceed next slide then as we begin construction students and staff would as Duty mentioned stay in the rest of the current building shown in white which would all remain operational throughout phase one construction of the new building would begin in the area of the yellow grouping of blocks that building would include enough classrooms for about 600 students which covers current enrollment the Performing Arts Theater and its supporting spaces as well as the kitchen servery and Commons we would also refurbish the track and field in the summer months and builds a new grandstand and field house in this phase as well the existing gem would remain functional until the new gym is complete next slide can I ask just a question about that um the classroom space and the facilities for 600 students that's per that's a permanent construction so even when the 1909 structure is re renovated and modernized that will still be utilized as part of the overall campus correct correct um phase two for phase two we move from we've moved students and staff from the old space into that new phase one space now shown here in white a built during phase one and then we would demolish and Abate all of the remaining buildings and saving the shell of the original 1909 building then we would completely rebuild the interior of the 1909 building as well as build new connecting spaces Bridging the new phase one to the original 1909. and that large yellow rectangle where the current theater and cafeteria are where we are right now would house new gyms which would have similar access off of Kirby next slide so these diagrams represent a first look at the potential interior organization of the new Jefferson High School the first floor shown on the left would house the theater and its supporting spaces in that orangey color administrative spaces you've seen pink building supports in Gray and Athletics and yellow with some CT classroom space on the ground floor in blue as mentioned the main Courtyard entry would be had on the east side of the building on Commercial the commons is directly adjacent to that entry centrally located in the overall building plan the main gym is located just to the west of that Commons with the street access off of Kirby that yellow Athletics programming on the first floor of the 1909 building provides good connection from the track to the north to the new gym on on the west to the new practice field in the fields of the South currently the theater has its own separate Lobby plans a lobbying access point planned on off of commercial the second floor shown on the right would allow visibility into the commons and daylight throughout the building will be had from the interior Courtyard below and the ox gym would also be on this level in the new edition with the uh with the library and the media center as we as we call it on this level in the new 1909 building and this is all just diagrammatics some of this may change based on feedback and work with stakeholders next slide foreign the third and fourth floors would house a primarily classroom spaces it only goes up to the third floor in the new edition and goes up to the existing fourth floor here in the original 1909 building so let's say I'm taking a class on the fourth floor of floor D and then I need to get to a classroom in the new building on the third floor floor seat do I have to go back to down to floor B in the 1909 building and then across and then up or does floor the third floor extend all the way across there plan it looks like the third floor is currently has the circulation across the spaces so if you're on the fourth floor you would have to go down you'd only have to go down one floor and then across right right you know stairs right yeah I have a high school senior she is concerned about these kinds of things um right so and just want to point out when complete at the end of phase two construction Jefferson High School would accommodate the full 1700 students next slide is is there I know we I saw that the entrance had that um universal access I I didn't see an elevator on these plans is there an opportunity for students to access all four floors
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yes they'll definitely be elevators um just not shown in in these early plans or diagrams I should say thank you hi my name is Ayanna horn I'm the project manager in osm working on this project I am going to do this on this slide you see the space program and there are a lot of numbers um and these numbers um while they have the sum total of what we're trying to accomplish they represent people um and space and how we look to solve problems and Achieve goals in these spaces and so the programming work that's done to date identifies problems and needs and provides the solution within space to provide the right amount and type of space needed and in this case what's needed for our students and staff and Community to thrive in what we're building the 2019 conceptual master plan study completed prior to the 2020 Bond recommended Jefferson adopt the 2017 education specifications with additional space in several key areas such as creating a theater for a thousand patrons rather than 500 which is in a standard theater size for Ed spec as well as significant added support space for the dance program which is what generated the desire for the larger theater and we also want to accommodate additional space beyond Ed Speck for Jefferson's robust Community Partnerships with organizations such as SEI PCC and Latino Network the detailed program is in your packet and so we're not showing it here but in it you will see that the proposed program for Jeff makes various tweaks I mentioned the larger theater and partner spaces and other adjustments include details such as expanded space for Career Technical education to large dance studios and a dedicated choir room instead of a shared choir and Band Room part of the increase you're seeing for fine and Performing Arts is to ensure that the support space for these programs will support a robust dance program as mentioned before as well as to Encompass the storage needs and dressing rooms and toilet facilities and and we're having detailed program discussions with groups to ensure that we're meeting the needs on the physical education and athletic side of the program we have learned from our prior high school modernization projects that we need to have expanded field equipment storage which you'll also see reflected in your packet then career technical education program at Jeff is emerging two lines of study have been confirmed in our piloting this year which are Health Sciences and digital media PPS is planning to identify four additional subject areas we are working with the district in the school on this engagement work so that we can best respond to the needs and create spaces to accommodate robust CTE programming on the administration side of the equation we are typically adopting the recommended spaces in the in the Ed spec you know we have identified eight optional teacher planning and collaboration air areas which are the same size as a typical classroom this will allow for future flexibility for the school we are meeting the edspec for counseling and career center as well as a special education program and Student Center next slide this slide shows a comparison of the Jeff Space Program with other modernized high school and as compared with the education specification you will see that Jeff is slightly larger this is primarily because of the larger theater dance studios and partner spaces as mentioned before the chart on the left shows a simple comparison of the net area of each School Jefferson is shown in blue and just below it is the 2017 education specifications the chart on the right shows the same information but with all of the detail that's outlined in the space program summary so it shows the six primary components of the program which includes classrooms science labs and so on as well as finding performing arts and physical education education support includes many areas including Administration program back of house and back of house spaces finally we also have the partner in community uses and the wraparound services Jeff is the second bar from the left and you can see that the red section is significantly larger than any other Comprehensive High School in this as we mentioned before is the fine and performing arts section to finalize square footage area programming meetings with various stakeholders have been ongoing since July and will continue into the schematic design and design development phases for next year these meetings have included District staff as well as Jefferson staff once principal Shelton was in place and available to meet we had been holding weekly meetings with him to review and discuss the emerging Space Program big picture of the programming is an important step in ensuring that the needs of the school and Community will be met for today and into the
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future and we're working hard to ensure that the buildings programs come to life in our space Ayanna I have a quick question um is there uh any area other than Athletics where Jefferson is not meeting the Ed's backs [Music] um to best my knowledge no like we are meeting Ed Speck and then plus now I do realize that from an athletic standpoint you're referring to the field related things because our site is constrained if I could just repeat what I heard you say earlier a minute ago Jefferson High School as proposed would be the largest high school campus in our portfolio and the square footage as listed would ensure fine and Performing Arts would have double the space of a typical high school correct I have a question also about the Ed Speck I know that we're we're meeting or exceeding the Ed Speck when I was reading through the the presentation uh earlier earlier today I I saw some attention paid to the Past State and then the current state where there's 600 students but nothing about the future state or a vision for a building that's vibrant and full and has 1700 students so um I don't know who the right person is to address that but I'm curious about what the future state looks like for this building in regard to students how many students I mean we're we're building two 1700 students correct I'm glad you brought that up I do have an amendment as you know that I'm going to bring forward later that um just will direct the superintendent to initiate within the next two years a process around creating an enrollment boundary for Jefferson and just charting the path for having a student body and a robust curriculum to serve close to 1700 students in this building just because it was um it was quite obviously silent in this 130 page document Ary yes absolutely thank you um so we're going to quickly go over a couple of schedule slides um this first one um is really kind of at a very high level as you can see um the planning for this project as you are aware uh began back in 2019 when we first engage with the community on the conceptual master plan that helped us develop a scope schedule and budget for a Jefferson High School modernization project on the 2020 Bond as you can see here we're at the end of the planning phase as we present the recommended comprehensive plan to the board and this Milestone also marks the end of planning in the beginning of design which will last until 2024 when construction begins and obviously throughout all of it we will be continuing to ask the community for input and feedback and providing progress updates along the way and then additionally this is oh sorry can you go to the next slide this is a more detailed project phasing schedule or sorry there is a much more detailed project facing schedule in the report but this is on the slide you'll see the major project milestones and those include the upcoming design phases starting with schematic design in January next year design development from May through November and then construction documents through September of 2024. and then we proceed with the start of Phase One Construction in 2024 and move in of students and staff into phase one in 2026 with final project completion in 2028. go to the next slide please hand it up to Marina thank you Steve Marina Creswell senior director for the office of school modernization this information is not information that we have provided on our previous presentation so I am going to go through all of the slides related to the cost um uh but I will be brief to the best of my ability this is what typical cost estimate side that we would provide for a comprehensive plan we try to give you the highlights which is to say that we give you the hard costs we pull out some of the significant soft costs like the furniture fixtures and equipment and some of the required costs like 1.5 green energy um you will see that the number at the bottom the 366 million does not match the number that we have set aside in the 2020 bond funds so I'm going to talk about that a little bit next slide please what I've pulled together there for you is a comparison of the conceptual master
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plan from February of 2020 and the comprehensive plan uh from today that is because the funding that we had set aside in the 2020 Bond was based on the conceptual master plan and what I thought would be helpful for you to see is the difference between the two plants so that you could understand why the cost has gone up in general the square footage is the same the ad specs are the same the seismic is the same we've actually managed to lower our costs uh with our soft cost assumption we've managed to lower our cost with our fixture furniture and equipment in fact we've had a significant decrease with our swing sites by keeping the students in the existing buildings what we have not been able to control in all of these things is the escalation which is to say the inflation over the last two and a half years and what we see coming in the future next slide please so we thought probably the best way to illustrate that was to work with our cost estimators to show you what the difference would be between the assumptions that we had in 2020 and what has happened with actual inflation what the current predictions are for escalation in the future so we took the two cost estimators that we were working with and we asked them to provide us with updated numbers for inflation and escalation we kept all the other stuff the same primarily just to show you what the difference is um utilizing those updated numbers for inflation and escalation we anticipate we'd be somewhere between 362 and 372 million for the project today that's consistent with what we are actually estimating for the project today next slide please so from a funding perspective we anticipate 366 million for Budget we have 300 and 11 set aside for Jefferson in the 2020 Bond we also have Bond program contingency we have a substantial amount of bond program contingency in the 2020 Bond and the purpose of that contingency is to address unexpected costs in fact when we first set this out in the discussions with the 2020 Bond we specifically noted that the pandemic was likely to change our assumptions about escalation and that the contingency would allow us to address those so we are proposing to utilize 55 million from the bond program contingency to make up for the difference within that program contingency will still have substantial amount of funding left and we the calculations that you see up there do not yet include any potential premiums from future Bond issuances or future interest earnings so we can anticipate we will have additional funding coming into the contingency that we don't know of course how much at this point so just a question there or a clarification so the right now the plan is that uh that entire Delta would be made up through contingency so there would not be any impact on the smaller projects that are included in the 2020 Bond like the roof work or the Ada work or any or any other health and safety work that is correct those buckets are completely separate and the bond program contingency has plenty of funding in it to address this Delta thank you slides are really helpful um I have a little bit just of a higher level question because one of the things that is always challenging among these projects is we do conceptual estimates up front that's you know what we did for for in the measure as you go through the process you refine those there are certain things in your control there are certain things like inflation that are out of your control um is there a Best practice around and I would I would further say the types of cost escalation we've seen here are completely normal um and you know again that inflation been what we expected it to be two years ago you know it's a very different estimate we are um you know I think it's misconstrued in the community and particularly by the media as you know that something's gone wrong right and is there a Best practice in construction to sort of say look as you're doing cost estimating it's it's going to fluctuate right up and down at what point are your construction sort of you know documents and plans you know solidified enough that it's no longer a the cost estimate change it's actually the construction project you know cost changing and the words I'm using are not the most accurate ones so I'm hoping that you can sort of help out in terms of that what is the point where you know again this is pretty normal what's the point where we would say that that that could have been managed better that's very far down the line design that type of thing correct yes that's correct that is pretty far down the line at this point it's very conceptual the cost that we put together I mean I think you saw from the the
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floor plan diagrams those are um either blocks of color right um they're they're not detailed enough for us to provide uh specific cost estimates what we do is we make a fair number of assumptions in a um I think our chief operating officer has a a cone of uncertainty that he likes to bring out um frequently in these occasions which is to say at the start of a project we have a very large amount of uncertainty and we build in contingency addressed on on that risk on that amount of risk as we get further into the project and we start to refine the the designs and we refine you know the materials and we start to know exactly what it's going to take to to construct that uncertainty it gets smaller and smaller and the risk gets smaller and smaller as well our contingency goes down as well so the numbers that we have provided to you as part of the cost estimate today do include a fair amount of you know risk built into those numbers and as we move forward the team will be working with what we call Target while you design which is to say they will have a budget they will be looking to refine the design to stay within that budget I don't know if that answers the question it does I think as we communicate as a district you know moving forward is just just being really careful about those words we use when we put a cost estimate out so that the public understands too it's going to change there's 366 million dollars is not where we're going to end up we know that uh and that's actually okay right it's not it's not because they're there it's not because anytime we're dealing with a project that takes multiple years to complete when you think about the fact that we started this process in 2019 and we are just now getting to True design we're not going to start construction until 2024 that's five years after that we initially started that process and we won't actually be complete until 2028. that amount of time you are going to have fluctuation in your pricing with or without a pandemic unfortunately for us you know the pandemic happened right you know through the the course of these first couple years and we don't really know what is coming in the future but even during construction the cost is going to fluctuate and I think we've seen on our modernizations recently we have been able to complete projects within in fact under our budgets so we have the McDaniel project that has come in under budget those funds are being returned to the bond program contingency we anticipate the Lincoln project will do the same even during construction the cost can change actually I was going to say make an observation that I think in some ways this is uh points to PBS as a learning organization because coming out of the 2017 Bond um had an audit that made recommendations about our cost estimating and the amount of contingencies so we didn't reach the point like we did in 2017 of having to make decisions of only getting half of Benson in that in that Bond but that the pre-planning gave us enough flexibility that we had a big enough range to absorb some of these cost estimates and that we we could um because of the amount of time that was um we're going to be estimating over that we had the resources in the bond to be able to cover that and I think to your point um chair Scott that there may be in it may could be portrayed as it's more than it was before but actually this was built in to the overall budget so that we could complete the projects that we told the community we'd complete within the bond within the budget so I think this is a great example of continuous learning as we work through our bond program any additional presentation are we ready to turn over to board conversation let's sensation you've got some public comment tonight as well so um do I have a motion and second to adopt resolution 662. second director green uh Colin seconds um and now it is on the table so let's uh thank you for the presentation um uh and all the information it's really there's a tremendous amount of work and it's really exciting I'm going to open it up for General um board comments questions uh anything else that folks want to bring forward I have a couple comments um they're comments and questions
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um curious about the protection the students that'll be on site how we'll protect them from environmental air quality Environmental LED Asbestos and other environmental and air quality conditions that it'll be present on site and asbestos is only dangerous if it's friable and it'll be friable if there's demolition going on in the building so curious about that um I also want to respond to a comment I heard earlier about design moving at the speed of trust and I'm concerned that we're I know we have a schedule to meet but I'm concerned that we're rushing through like we do like public I you know when working from public agencies for a long time and um I'm very concerned about that I'd love to see this project be different and have a different engagement and really understand what the community wants here and and to that point um I I know that Athletics and the and Performing Arts are really important to the development I I personally benefited from the performing arts program here um what I attended here um but I also like to see a focus I know we're looking at just bubbles on the on the map on the on the um floor plans I'd really like to see a focus on academics and on rigor and on a vision of having an IB program and rigorous academics in this community um on 100 graduation rate um on on a well-rounded education not not just performing arts and I mean we look at the massing that we saw and the Arts and sports are very prominent and academics are less prominent and I'm worried about that as someone that lives within walking distance here and and have people here I want to see the focus on academics on the on the plans in in the plants you know the classroom space the library the media centers places where people can learn and dancing's awesome I do it every day but I think that you know the academic rigor and the expectation that this community has for its students is really really I'd like to see it reflected on the on the architectural plans that that attention and love for these students and um belief in in what they can accomplish in this building uh director to pacify my step in very quickly just I do want to note that the Ed specks are the same as they are for all of our other schools and it will be the same academic rigor for every other one of our modernizations when you think about Lincoln you think about the the classrooms we will have the same classrooms the same number of classrooms the same size the same amenities everything will be the same there I think the challenge for us has been to show that there are extras on top of the academics so there are things that we are doing that are unique to Jefferson because we want to acknowledge that those are long-standing programs and long-standing interests and concerns at this particular community but it does not mean that the academics are less than the academics are already right at the same bar that we are holding every other modernization and we are adding on top of that with some of these additional things all right I appreciate that and I also want to look at you know yes thank you for that having that equal distribution of resources and Ed specs and the outcomes in this building are quite different than the outcomes are in other buildings and I just wanted to bring our attention back to rigorous academics and expectations that black kids can do very very well here you're right to keep our focus on making sure our students are well served that they have the opportunity to learn not just an inspiring teaching and learning environment but more importantly what happens within that environment and so uh the point of this is to create a facility that will support the kind of learning we want to see but I know just from my classroom visits with principal Shelton here that that he shares the same commitment that I know that we all have to make sure there's there's rigor there's Excellence you heard earlier on our Center for black student Excellence update that the desire to really develop a very detailed uh and comprehensive education plan that is about the academic outcomes and even as we review sort of how the facility and try to imagine what that can support uh that that's the real work that needs to be accomplished here in this setting and I don't think anybody would disagree with you and I appreciate the reminder that we have to keep our eye on the prize in that regard
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no one of the things I was at the presentation that I hadn't heard before was that we'll have four new strands of CTE programming here which makes sense since you're going to have more than twice as many almost three times as many students at some point so that's really exciting and those may be a whole new courses of studies that have are emerging in 2023 and 2024 in our economy that we don't have in our other high schools so that's really cool I just want to say a little bit about some about the process really exceptional team in front of us right now and it was a privilege to be able to take part in the comprehensive planning meetings it's really nice to see a lot of people from that committee and a lot of the community members who showed up back here tonight just a lot of passion in the room and you talk about engagement moving at the Speed Of Trust I mean we we spent a lot of time hearing stories and hearing about harm and hearing about dreams games and I've spent a lot of time with kids I mean I know the engagement teams was with kids almost every single day and they're making great plans for co-teaching classes during the construction process and really having students deeply engaged so it was very different than the other public engagement processes I have witnessed or Taken part in and co-locate is has my great admiration like really talk about authentically meeting people where they are literally and figuratively I think that happened and I also acknowledge as Michelle did that you guys are under a lot of strain to continue that really Speedy process during schematic design because now it gets down to input on you know actual concrete decisions that are informing the design and that's really hard to get it right and to be authentic about integrating in what you're hearing so yeah I just this is just a really really exciting moment and um as you said there's no there certainly wasn't uh unanimity in the community about what we were going to do but the sentiment about the 1909 building really was strong and especially because so many uh so much of the landscape in this neighborhood is gone it's unreco it's it's physically unrecognizable and and so to have an institution that has survived and to give it the the love that it deserves um and still standing and representing you know the past and the future is really important and um it's as Jeannie said I mean we're going to build a building inside the building you know it's not going to be some cheap remodel it's we know it's not cheap from those last slides but it's not even a remodel it's a brand new building inside a building and hopefully my personal hope is that we can bring back some of the beautiful architectural details from the original building that that got squished out you know in the in the 20s I guess because it really was stunningly beautiful building so I'm going to talk a little bit later uh I do have an amendment to bring forward okay so um so it's hold on a second yes foreign way over time already so I'm hoping we can get through our comments to vote I'll be I'll be quick so this is just coming out of our um comprehensive planning process there was a lot of uh concern unease frankly mistrust that the district was going to be able to follow through with the programming for this beautiful building where those 1700 students coming from and we have sort of a fundamental contradiction in the materials that were being asked to vote on tonight because it's very clear in the materials that this is a focus option school and this that's how it's described by the school district that's how it operates and then there's this sort of leap of faith that we are designing it as a comprehensive High School just like all of our other Comprehensive High Schools but it was there there is not one mention of a pathway there principal Shelton's shaking his head nodding his head back there so this is just a little technical fix that will direct the superintendent to initiate a process that will
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do that enrollment balancing and determine those Middle School feeder patterns and have assure the community that not only will we have a plan for where those students are coming from but that this school will have a robust and comprehensive curriculum just like all of our other Comprehensive High Schools so that's it thank you we'll come back and make that motion in a moment did you have anything Dr Hollins no why don't you the director Lowry and because maybe for the academic side of the house is the assumption that Jefferson will continue in the foreseeable future with its middle college program versus one of the other like IB or um AP and if that's the case are the Ed specs for classrooms and the other sort of academic spaces the same for a middle college program as they are for either an a an AP or um IB Program yeah they go across the street yeah so not speaking from the academic side of the house however I have a some clarity on those questions um as principal Shelton said those classes are at PCC but we did accommodate um especially coming out of the pandemic a lot of classes are on there are some online coursework that students take now and the challenges that they're seeing is finding space within Jefferson for those online classes to occur So within the program we've accommodated a couple of breakout spaces within the library for students to have online coursework that they can take that they're taking at PCC um within within spaces and then we'll try to do some some work from a technology standpoint and work with PCC and Jeff to see what those needs are so that they can have the um the privacy and the audio needs that they're that they need so they can concentrate so if say 15 years from now because of what's happening at the middle schools and some of the feeder programs they everybody decides to go IB that this building will have will be built to be flexible enough to accommodate any of those sort of different academic programs I mean from the work that I know that went on at Lincoln like the flexibility that's needed to accommodate IB versus you know the AP classes are still occurring in a standard classroom I think that level of flexibility is there but when you're talking about taking classes remotely for college like that's a bigger change than teaching an AP class in Period three versus teaching a standard English class in Period two and I have another question so the Indian Ed program has a long history here at Jefferson and is that part of the forward-looking plan for the facility for them to remain here I have a short version of that answer we're having ongoing conversations and I actually have a meeting with them tomorrow to discuss their space program weeks I'm sorry I have a meeting tomorrow to discuss their space program needs okay and then the last one we had [Music] um the the students who student who spoke tonight in the public comment asking about um climate and the sustainability features I'm assuming this project will be built with no fossil fuel infrastructure and the whole Suite of sustainable features like many of our other buildings that's correct yeah it will meet all the design Justice requirements or climate Justice requirements great project green or student representative mcmaine I don't really have a bunch of comments at this point I'm gonna save them from we have discussion but I did make a note on my notepad that I wanted to be intentional about pointing out all the beautiful black faces in this space right now it is amazing to me that we we come out to talk about something that's near and dear to us and we do it in a space that is also near to Dear in us and well near and dear to us and we all show up and I love that I but the only thing that gives him pause and caution is that our comment section was filled up by people who um took the spaces a long time ago and didn't get to come out tonight at the same tonight A lot of people said that they want to make comment and there was there was no space but I do want to make sure that I say something publicly because y'all look absolutely amazing I'm this is y'all look good
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y'all look good and I'm so grateful for all y'all I'm I'm grateful for the fact that you you care enough to show up and I know a lot of you uh made sacrifices because you've got um kids that are in games right now but yet this was so important to you that you you came here tonight so I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge God I love these Black Faces y'all look good Scott normally when we vote on something that there's separate public comments is it that people yep and we've got to sign up if they want to got a whole plan for the public comment coming up in a second student representative thank you guys for your work I think the one thing that I have to say and I know District student councils certainly would love to Pardon is just obviously like the comprehensive report was 144 pages long I personally had the day off for school today and I barely got through it so I think trying to make something digestible for students specifically is going to be really useful and I know District student council would love to be involved in that process but students certainly don't have the time to be able to do that but that doesn't mean that they should be out of the loop especially as we continue to make these concrete decisions moving forward as Amy talked about so I'd love if we could work together about um figuring out how we can best report back to students and how we can keep both the community and certainly the kids that go to Jefferson in the movie great um I would like to propose that we put the um the potential Amendment on the table and then move to public comments so folks commenting can comment on both the the master plan and also the amendment so director costume do you want to sure um care can you put that on the screen or I'll just read it's very simple but I know later than the start of the 2627 school year the superintendent will initiate a process to develop a plan to increase student enrollment establish set boundaries and identify Middle School feeder pattern and projected capture rates for Jefferson High School this plan should consider the impact on overall enrollment and attempt to balance student numbers across all comprehensive high school campuses and assure comparable curriculum and programming this process shall conclude no later than the end of the 26-27 school year where the recommendation submitted to the board for its consideration no later than June of 2027. so we need a motion in a second motion let's talk about it Dr Green moves director Holland seconds um I'm going to suggest if the board's okay that we take some public testimony and then come back talk about the amendment vote on the master plan and move on great um we have a couple people um signed up and then there and then let's do the people who are signed up and then we may have a couple people I'm going to ask if the board is open thank you Cara Nate McCoy just because so I believe uh Ms Bradshaw we have two people on the list Nate McCoy and Jacob Rogers right yes and then my understanding is that um we also have um a request for James Posey and Montreal did not catch a last name Brazil um to also testify so I would ask the board if there's a willingness to add those two people I've seen General consent so we're going to move forward with that I believe Montreal may have another commitment so if it's possible to go ahead and call him up now that would be great sorry you can you can stay there we're gonna yeah yeah apologies I've been told you need to do security over at a basketball games I'm gonna do it the right way thank you we want we want all the people watching online to be able to hear YouTube uh Montreal Brazil b-r-a-z-i-l-e um I'm here to talk about safety and what are we going to do with PPS uh building that relationship with ppb um if I'm not mistaken we have had six shootings in the last month and a half around our students uh I think three of them was hit one was fatal one was paralyzed and one was grazed um at parent-teacher conference here
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only thing parents was worried about here at Jefferson is what are we doing to make this place safe and I was able to share with them that we are having a pilot program with ppb being in the building and that was a sign of relief for our parents that was a sign of relief for my wife my son attends Jefferson High School and as I Was preparing this room yesterday for you all one of the questions came to me is where's the safe room and I'm safer and what are we talking about and I think they was thinking if someone came in here tonight what was where are we going to place you all and my question for you all is where is our kids in PPS where is our safe room we have to do something now we cannot wait it started out on the streets way out it moved into the neighborhoods it's in our schools if you read my sign my shirt campus safety the stuff that's going on now is above me it's security and law enforcement we need them I talked to parents day in and day out about this I don't know where's the disconnect but the writing is all over the wall I'm going to cut it short before the bell ring on me but I promise we we we need to figure it out and we need to figure it out now don't wait please thank you thank you [Applause] great and now I think we'll move to uh Nate McCoy thanks for waiting thank you thank you and thank you for pressing the evening forward um first I want to say good evening to our chair our board uh directors as well as our superintendent for the record my name is Nate McCoy I am a Portland native one of the bigger black Legacy families here in Oregon uh Portland Oregon I should say but I am the executive director of the National Association of minority contractors representing over a hundred and fifty black and brown contractors and design firms throughout the state of Oregon in fact as a young aspiring black architect myself I worked at Borah who was in the room tonight renovating this project as a design firm so just wanted to add that in because there's so much context and connectivity in the room tonight I've been here before I've been in front of uh I think maybe two superintendents uh going back to the beginning of the bond I was in commercials about the bond so let's just say namak is committed to the bond into the success of the students and success of the community what I really wanted to emphasize tonight is I want to really honor PPS on really taking the lead early in on the first bonds around cmgc processes which if you ask any minority contractor that is the blueprint for Success that allows you to bring people on early you do not have to be constrained to low bid which if you are a small company competing against big business you never win so the fact that PPS got that right we think we have a winning recipe what I'd really like to emphasize tonight and we had a little bit of conversation on it is we want to show you as Mr Green said that there is black excellence in the room and so I just wanted to acknowledge some folks that not only had family attend Jeff not only have current kids attending Jeff but live blocks away from this community as we speak and some of them have haven't been as informed as we might like but moving forward tonight I hope we can keep them plugged in so to acknowledge them and if the folks in the back can just raise your hand quickly just to be acknowledged I would love that Mr Jeff Moreland owner of Raymore construction the largest black construction company on the west side of the Mississippi not just here in Portland Oregon but west side of the Mississippi infrastructure related contractor James Posey long time trucker in this community dating back to the first black person I think in the state a little bit of a joke he's a younger but old a young but old man uh but lots of wisdom and actually the founder of neymac and now the president of NAACP locally we also have Miss cinnamon Brandon Williams who is a name act leader at my organization and actually attended Jefferson High School she's also with us in the back and has some nephews that go to schools here including some of the folks that were involved in some of those shootings she's well aware Mr Andrew kolis who also was a Portland native and contractor as well as Kamal who'll speak
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here shortly for Coalition of black men last thing I want to say because I want to honor time and commitments is that neymac wants to have a seat at the table and continue to have a seat at the table to ensure the full continues continuance of the bond and to make sure that these kids that are aren't in construction could maybe transfer these guns into Tools in their hands um and the old model of if you can't see it you can't be it our model at namak is Building Bridges and Crossing barriers and we only think that that can happen if we are centering black excellence and in every Community I've ever been in Black Excellence does not leave others out it starts with black unapologetically and our history shows that when you lead with black everybody benefits so I'm just hoping after today that we will stay engaged and that we will ensure that we have the highest concentration of black and brown contractors not only on the project but leading the project so we just wanted to show representation tonight and we hope that we can be successful in 2023 and Beyond so thank you thank you thank you [Applause] hi my name is Jesse Kamal Rogers I'm the president of Coalition of black men and we actually have a mentoring program in the school called dream bigger we are now in four schools and I'm I want to thank all the board and and one of our members as well for having us here and I'm definitely behind what you're doing I have been hearing about this as a student of Jefferson High School since 1972 they were either going to shut it down or they were going to do something I was a freshman that was when we had auto mats along that wall where you got your lunch from so now I'm 64 years old and I got 30 year old kids and now we're here finally for Jeff to get what it should have gotten a long time ago and as a person who has worked and committed itself to a lot of things since I'm back from Silicon Valley into this community there's things that we need to do and I believe that this program but what you guys are trying to do with this bomb is you can do that and I think it could be done from all levels from the construction part of this all the way up to the classroom I heard people saying that their classrooms are good for stem I doubt that but I would like to sit down and talk with you about that because I don't really totally believe that as a person who like I said worked in the valley for 40 years you have some stuff but you're not current with what they really need and that showed during during the covet crisis so I really want you to think about what everybody's saying here tonight and you can integrate everything from construction all the way up to the classroom by bringing students in as internships so they can see what's going on if that had happened for me while they were building the freeway which was a macro engineering project something I always wanted to work on that might have changed my whole Direction I might have been doing construction but that wasn't the case so I would love to see you change your your thought process about how people working outside the school can bring those kids in and really give them something they need these kids are after covet many of them their families have lost their jobs we now have a new term called food insecurity when we really mean people are just hungry and then and then they come to school and what do you give them you keep them apart from the people who are working to keep the school running when I was here we had a cafeteria people worked 20 30 years in that cafeteria and their kids knew that we knew those people because there were somebody's parents you can't take the connection away when you take the connection away all you have is the book stop focusing on the book and start to bring everything together in that connection so that the kids get to see those people when I was here Roland Harris was the band he was nine years older than me we didn't know that but I first time I'd seen a black person be a teacher that had an afro so and Roland has passed away so let's try to figure out how we can all come together and integrate real world work with student learning it can be done it can be done thank you thank you thank you [Applause] um I just want to add on that at Portland Public Schools is a member of the construction careers Pathways project which is intended to actually bring underrepresented communities into the construction fields and I think if there's a way not just as part of this project but as part of all of our bond projects to do that with our students right how are we getting them into these apprenticeships how are we getting them trained how are we getting them on these
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projects that is a lifelong career um that that that that they can do so thank you that that's really important it job that you don't have to have a degree that's just like this book yeah Mr Posey do you would you like to testify good evening everybody I thought Nate had already uh spoiled my presentation called me old guy but I want to thank you all [Music] um the board and everybody and I was sitting back there thinking about the young man I was here earlier young man talking about representation young man said he would like to have more black teachers and I'm sure you all heard that this young man really spoke from his heart and I felt for him because being in construction these many years you see very few people that look like me who are running construction sites you know you if you can't see it you can't be it and really that's what I'm here to testify to me it's a no-brainer brainer after all these years of exclusion you all have an opportunity to to include and I just want to make mention that the eyes are on you all right now about how we move forward this is not a subtle situation building Jefferson High School you all know the history of President Jefferson the slaves and the whole story this is a history that we're dealing with right now you all are building history so when you make your decision about who is selected on this project remember you have an opportunity to correct the history of exclusion by including and that's essentially what I want to tell you all today and I'm here to help you know I'm the kind of guy I'm a boots on the ground type guy he told me I I drive trucks and I Got Dirt on My Feet on my feet and under my fingernails and all that so if I can do anything to support you all in your decision let me know I'm here to serve thank you thank you [Applause] and I understand there may be one more person Keith Edwards who's asked to testify thank you for being here and an additional okay great thank you very much my name is Keith Edwards I been here since 1958 I graduated from Jefferson High School in 1967. my daughter's been working here for almost 30 years so y'all keep me up past my bedtime in case you didn't know it but um I'm an electrician I've been in I started the apprenticeship program back in 1969 so I certainly appreciate your remarks to your shared earlier when you talked about academics because that's very important that um I think that too often we preach about college and really the Building Trades if you want to be successful in the skilled crafts you have to have a college aptitude and I had that I went to college for two terms I dropped out and got into the Building Trades I could say when I was a young man at 20. I've had healthcare since I was 20 years old I've had I've got great pension benefits all I got to do is keep breathing I do very well but I I share this because our young people aren't being shared that they're they're told that the only reason they're going to school is because they need to go to college and uh too many of them don't play sports too many of them come from families that never had anyone go to college and so that's a pipe dream for them so they don't even know why they're here so if you start sharing with them and have a better career a technical career opportunity for them let them know that they can make 300 Grand as a union electrician in the first five years of their employment and have health care benefits I think you might be able to get some converts and so I share that to say also that when this project is going on you're going to have people here that are working that are going to be making upwards of 160 170 000 a year that's their wages and benefits so you should might take note of that and those folks can be those same students that are going to school not only at Jefferson but other schools as well but I want those folks to look like me see I've been in the trade for over 50 years and I want folks that are going to be working on this project that look just like me and women as well but I that's what I'm looking forward to and
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I'm going to hold your feet to the fire great thank you [Music] welcome my name is Noni Causey I'm the executive director of beam Village beam stands for black educational achievement Movement we host one of the largest black Student Success summons throughout the state of Oregon that has students employers colleges we focus on Career College Pathways any way to bring adults and young people together however tonight I'm here to come and talk about the process I was a little concerned with all this community engagement that's been going on and I I heard it's been amazing we've been working with young people but there was a schematic design process that was at eight months and now it's down to three months and it's about involving community and talking to community and and um if anybody in here knows me I'm all about community and I want to make sure that our voices are heard not only are Stu students but their parents their grandparents I'm a lifelong member of the community I've taught at Jefferson in the late 80s in the teen parent program and I am committed my organization is committed and um I'd like to know how are we going to address this bottom line and just I want to make sure I heard you your specifically specific question is around the design process about the design process yes that was initially eight months and now has been cut down to three months how do we do effective Community engagement when you only have a very short window okay thank you for the testimony yeah um and I'm going to give a few minutes if the superintendent wants to have anybody respond to that or or either either tonight or um in the future um getting that message out in terms of how we're going to do that any other testimony I want to make sure we hear from everybody who came out tonight who wants to testify I see one hand back there please yeah and two yeah Phil come on come on up please thank you for being here you can go ahead chair and chair and others of the of the of the board my name is Maggie Miche and I'm also um the Jefferson alumni um a president and I also kind of been involved in education on the peripheral and also bringing communities involved into [Music] um into education and I'm also going to Echo what the last person spoke about is like there has been a long history of untrust in our community and if there's any way that we can continue to just have that process I know is I know is is maybe asking a lot but we're still going to ask that you continue to work with us we're rebuilding trust with you and to be able to move forward in the design I I don't think it's a big ask because we're talking about something that won't be complete until 2018. um no yeah 2028 so if there's just given a little leeway in that area then I want to kind of switch to also kind of Express the interest in like really kind of looking at trades and everything in this community one of the biggest um heartfelt thing for me is African-American males that don't have any kind of desire for Education that people think is related but I think it's also because they don't have that connectivity to adults people that look like them feeling belonging and tying the academic piece to careers or enter their lives and then here's a great opportunity for us to use this rebuild of Jefferson or this yeah rebuild of Jefferson High School to really kind of show and let them participate in the track of exploring opportunities in the trades or other things that they're interested in that could give them like summer jobs and opportunities to learn or even kind of learn into the trades even it's with the Architects planning processes I think one of the things that is happening and why we need to really kind of engage Community into education is because I think kids are losing the connection from you know like how things work in the real life they don't they don't get the education
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around like how finances work they don't get the education around how they contribute to their community and that's that that link to education and Community is broken so I'm hoping that through this process that we can kind of you know solidify that link back and show their value and show how these two things are connected because I think they're they're not seeing the connection to education in life thank you appreciate it Maggie could you please spell your last name for the record yes my last name my first name is m-a-g-g-i-e the last name is m-a-s-h-i-a thank you hello my name is Yolanda Menifee which is spelled m-e-n-e-f as in Frank E I am a former Jefferson student matter of fact I remember when I graduated from Tubman we had our ceremony here at Jeff and so also once I graduated I ended up coming back working because I also worked um with youth gangs and Naco doing Outreach and so some of my students or the clients came out of Jeff but not even just that then ended up working for the school district not just PPS but also David Douglas and so listening to Montreal and even having these conversations whether it's a parent whether it's a former student or even I still deal with students because I used to also work with the Portland Police the crisis response team and so I still have relationships and I was one of those people that said we need sros you need to have someone in the building that has a relationship whether it's with parents whether it's with the students and the teachers but now when you have nothing and now we're at the place of even for the police they're few in numbers so who do you turn to for help the only ones that I would say honestly would be as we're here as a community it's us we have to start helping ourselves and that starts with parents that starts with other kids you know becoming positive role models or even starting as parents talking to kids because most of the kids as having these conversations they don't talk to their parents and I understand parents are busy there may be that generational Gap or you know trying to figure out how to connect but we have to find a way because otherwise we're losing them losing them fast and then most of the students they even say they don't even want to go to school anymore why what what am I going to school for I can make money on the streets and it's the sad situation which is which is true you can make money faster on the streets but it's not safer either because then it's not just the boys that we're losing we're losing girls that whole generation if you're watching Facebook and everything else on social media it's sad it's terrible but there has to be there has to be the reality of us saying okay and I say this to the kids you know even though I don't have kids I've worked with kids since I was 19. and I've always said it's our generation that dropped the ball because for us we everybody said we went to church too much it was too much they made us do this and they made us do that so we were relaxed and now this generation has know where to go there is no bounds they just the height of it is terrible the things they watch the depth that they go to there is no fear fear of nothing and you know for me I always prayed and said God help me to remember you said this is the generation we are going to have lover of them Sears and afraid of nothing they as if you can walk into a building Master no mask with a gun and not afraid that somebody else is going to do anything that's terrible we have crossed that bridge a long time ago now it's just every man for himself and the sad part is we have to try to figure out now how to fix it we have to actually start being and this is something I tell with my family friends and even some of them they you know their kids you need to start having that conversation with your kids because you know your kids and some of those kids some of I mean it is it's honestly parents know when their kids are doing something you know they are or even the crowds that they're hanging in you have to address the things in your household and don't stick your head in the sand and this is something I used to tell the student the parents or the staff members they'd be like well that's not my problem it's your problem when it's going to hit your neighborhood it's your problem if you're somewhere that like it was Lloyd Center getting ready to get on the max coming from home so when they started shooting no it became your problem because you just like everybody else running and ducking trying to find
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safety it's everybody's problem because it can happen anywhere but the sad part is now it's actually happening at school when you when you drop your kids off or know that your kids are coming to school you want them to be safe how are we going to do that so the the tough things is we need to have those conversations with ourselves being honest then with our family whether it's our kids our nieces our nephews having those conversations giving them other avenues and then it's also having these conversations okay we know it's there we can't stick our head in the sand anymore how are we going to fix it and I do believe there needs to be SRS back in the schools I mean because outside of that what what other lines of defense do we have even if it's just a little bit what other ones are there you can't call the police now because you're lucky if you can call them on the street so to get one to come to the school is even worse and then at halftime the protocol is they still have to wait for this one to come before they can even move in thank you appreciate appreciate being here tonight okay oh foreign Ard and Jefferson has been on the table for 60 years I grew up in southeast Portland and so my dream was to come over here and do things at Jefferson I worked for Portland Public Schools 42 years and probably the only one that's ever stayed up all night five nights with another um Dr Carolyn Moylan to make sure that we got our c-dip in so we didn't lose our money so I'm totally committed uh absolutely and division 22 is one of the things I did I've done a lot of things in the district I did Multicultural education I did the um the deuce egg plan I evaluated Jefferson when I wasn't even really um I was in alternative Ed and they asked me to come over and evaluate and they wanted me to evaluate programs I knew what the game was the game was they needed a black person to kind of shut it down but I came over here and I figured out what was going on and they had some good stuff going on but Jefferson is always at it's involved in the decision making in the district we went through all the step equity for the 80s the deseg plan and I could go on and on and on my disappointment is I was a director of student achievement at this school and have lived in this community and I'm not lost I did not know I mean I knew they were going to rebuild Jefferson but I absolutely did not know about these meetings and it's it's reprehensible not because I'm important but because I was on the commission for black Affairs I was multi I was a metropolitan human relation I've not been lost I'm not bragging about it but I'm saying there are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration if the number one thing is and I like what you said uh to pass when you talked about academics don't let it get lost but you've got a complex thing to handle and I'll just make it really brief you've got things like tag and there's a law about level and rate you don't make it here you don't make it in most of the schools here you've got stem you've got IB you've got the art program which we love and you've got Sports which we love it's not an either or you're going to have to take things that are diabolically opposed to one another and come to di unitologic where you bring it together in a new thing that you can't even possibly imagine two things that you need to know it's not easy to make the division 22 standards when you have an IB program it's not easy to implement it I was I was also an evaluator for the district Lincoln High School had their IB program and the law says all of the classes required for the certificate have to be free well they weren't free at Lincoln we had if a parent wanted their kid to graduate from IB they had to pay money so I caution you you've got a complex thing if you've got this school here where we're dealing with PCC PCC is not IB and it's going to be really hard to get IB is very strict and if you're investing in people coming here and they've done it in middle school and they get here and they can't do it I'm not saying it can't be done but it's going to be very difficult at Lincoln High School when the when they were paying the the money I told them it's against the law fellows you can't do it or ladies and the same way with your technology and think if you're a focused school you're going to have a problem because there's
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certain things for the focus school if you do IB you're going to have issues there if you have kids over there doing the the college stuff IB and the college thing are going to conflict when I was here is that as the Director of student achievement because of the Arts they required 25 or 26 credits I said you can't do that the law says if these kids get 24 credits in these areas they can graduate from school you cannot stop them from graduating and the certificates that they can get you can say you can't have a certificate but they were literally not allowing them to be on the list to graduate because they didn't take some class so I'm saying what I want to say to you is this is complex and there are people and I'm not the only one who knows about this I've traveled around the world because of Portland Public Schools you know doing our our Multicultural stuff I'm saying I'm here not as a braggart but I'm here there are other people in this community who are willing to sit down and really talk about it this school had a three three little schools that they put together I don't I don't even want to tell you how bad it was they only had two teachers for a school so I hope at this point we're going to get serious when we had Tubman we had issues where people were not qualified to teach what they taught and there's a lady by the name of um yothy we need to move on and I'll make it quick thank you Jody had her children go to Tubman their father's a doctor and they had real issues with the curriculum and they had a hard time staying in Portland State in their East Indian people so I'm not trying to say anything other than it's going to be really hard work and we have to join together and figure out where the holes are but if I had one thing to say is with your your Center for excellence and that kind of thing don't wait until they be build the building and do all this stuff figure out how that's going to be articulated are you going to be in a jam thank you thank you for your testimony Okay so we currently have thank you everyone for the testimony tonight um I think it was really important to the process we have an amendment on the table we need to discuss and vote on and then we need to move towards the vote on the overall modernization plan any questions for director constem about the amendment I have a question so I'm ready for a discussion on this because I want to be I'm trying to figure out if if what we're saying is that we want uh Jefferson to be both a magnet school and a residential school because they can't be both so you can't you can't say I want to be a magnet school so that I can select and be isolated and be a residential school so that I could have a feeder program you have to choose one of the other peer get off the pot or open up the door so that all schools can be both a magnet and a residential program or say no borders at all no boundaries everybody can go wherever they want to go but to open it up so that so that you can be both a a magnet focused effort school and a residential school what's the precedent for that like where have we already done that at the dance program microphone Direction um maybe superintendent do you want to reply because this amendment does not prescribe um what that will be but it's just bringing forward the sentiment that's very strong in the community that Jefferson deserves to have a full enrollment like a comprehensive high school and deserves to be brought back as a neighborhood school I I don't think there is anything that would preclude being both and having a geographic boundary and also having somewhat of a lottery process for either the Performing Arts or the middle college program if that's what it is but that's for the superintendent and his team to determine in this process basically I was just bringing forward the sentiment from the community that they want to be assured that's a superintendent will undertake that I want them to have 1700 people I want us to build the school for 1700 I want 1700 people to be here I want Jeff to come back to being the robust school that it was I think the community wants that even though the community has now shifted so the people that are going to be coming to Jeff don't look like the people that are in this classroom right now if actually if we're making a residential school if we're making a residential school it's all white let's just talk about that for a minute but that's not that's not the topic of conversation if we what I'm saying is one or the other or open the doors for everybody to say I'm not going to be in support of you get to have your cake and the ice cream and everything else and pick and choose how you who you want to
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come into your school and select the 1700 people that you want to be here and also have an option to have middle schools um middle schools that directly feed into you and can't go to the other residential schools within the area that don't have that same option because what you're what you're what we're talking about impacts not just Jefferson but it also impacts Roosevelt which is another Community residential high school technically it's the only residential high school on this on this side over here can I ask a question my understanding of the amendment is it doesn't prescribe that either way what it says is we need to we need to somebody just told me when I say residential they don't know what that means they think I mean neighborhood okay neighborhood um my understanding is what the amendment does is lays out a process and that that decision and it definitely says you know we're going to be a 1700 it's going to be a 1700 you know person High School whether it would also include a focus option or middle you know college program will not be decided tonight by the amendment that's something we've decided in the future by the process that will come back to the board for a decision I understand I I'm wondering about the language in the amendment though does say establish that boundaries and identify a Middle School feeder pattern which takes some of that Focus option off the table so I'm wondering if we want to amend the amendments to say the superintendent will initiate a process to develop a plan to increase student enrollment for Jefferson High School just delete those specifics Amy um and then the further Amendment would be this plan should consider the impact on overall enrollment and assure comparable curriculum and programming so to to take out generic but we're going to increase to 1700 right when we get there how do we get there and maybe it's setting a feeder pattern and and doing enrollment balancing maybe it's creating a robust middle college program that attracts students from all over the district I think I would feel more comfortable I think that's the conversation we need to have is what is the future programming of Jefferson what what does that look like for the community and I feel like this amendment might be too prescriptive but I do think getting Jefferson to 1700 is the overall goal how we get there is the question I have a comment about um maybe how to get there and I agree we shouldn't be too prescriptive but um we could look at um we could look at a right to return or a right to remain because we know gentrifications impacted the racial demographics of the area and you know if we really want to serve you know African-American kids then uh we we look at a right to remain our right to return [Music] um like Boise Elliott Humboldt lots of families return because there's and here there's a sense of safety here and Legacy and you know we don't want to get rid of that we want people to be able to bring their children here um if they want if they feel that sense of safety and connection and so we need to build in processes that will allow the kids that want to be here uh to be here oh I have a quick quick question this is a superintendent I'm sure he's probably about to answer it anyway um so as the process of already building the school for 1700 is there already a plan developed to bring 1700 kids here well no sir because we're here talking about a comprehensive facility plan and I think I'm I'm hearing the proposed amendment I think it shares the implicit goal you just heard director green we want to see it filled up and we do need a plan for how we get at increasing the enrollment hopefully up to 1700 and I have no preconceptions about that I don't think anybody in the room does I think what it's proposing is that we and we signal to the broader community that we want to initiate a process that's thoughtful that explores a variety of strategies and it probably should say that may consider establishing boundaries or not uh or expanding what a focus option quote unquote magnet type program there's so many implications here not just on what the enrollment mechanism is but a question around the programming here in the facility uh there's there's a current educational model here it's a it's a middle college and so and it has other themes that attract our students within the building and so it's a much bigger conversation and I take the amendment to communicate uh there's an interest to it to to make sure and let the community know that the process will sort of reveal the direction and would would bring a recommendation or a set of options or along the way provide an update to the board around getting its input around how we might get to a place where the
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facility is has a robust enrollment so I have one quick question and it was Leah's so by adding it as an amendment to the modernization master plan do that restrict us in any way from moving further further with any on the other parts of the modernization okay we're building a full facility here that could accommodate 1700 students and all the programming uh whether the classrooms teaching math Spanish or IB it'll be a 21st Century Learning environment I think it's a good it's a good question though because we don't get that full programming with only 600 students and that's why we would want to have more students in the building because more students equals more robust programming so even though that director brim Edwards says before so uh um I'm I'm in support of um Jefferson having a robust enrollment because often the criticism like we can't give them that because they only have 600 students and in fact all the 600 students here at Jefferson are ones who purposely chose Jefferson because it's the only school that has dual boundaries and it's the only what would have been a neighborhood high school with everybody being able to choose your non-neighborh another Choice besides the neighborhood high school so I feel like this has been one of the things that's held Jefferson back in that you can't offer a full academic program with fewer numbers of students and it wasn't Jefferson that did that or wasn't that people didn't want to go to Jefferson it's the fact that PPS um about 10 years ago allowed these dual provided these dual boundaries so I'm I'm in support of Jefferson having a robust enrollment and I just having been the board member in southeast Portland who sat in on a year and a half of boundary discussions around opening one Middle School um and this is much more complicated because it's Jefferson but it also has an impact on other schools that serve historically underserved students like Roosevelt or McDaniel and um I what I what I would suggest is we you know we could have a sense of the the board that we believe that Jefferson should have a robust enrollment and we take action and we take action in time but that we also have a really thoughtful process about it um and so that we are communicating with the families at Roosevelt because what we don't want to do is Philip Roosevelt or Philip Jefferson and Mt Roosevelt out so we need to be really deliberate and and who we include in those conversations um so I I would keep it as high as level as possible and then have time next year when we know more about the program to be able to have this discussion about and and scope because once you start those discussions as I know from the southeast guiding Coalition really helpful to have sort of one of our principles that we want to have and is it a principle that this is about a neighborhood school or is it about celebrating um the arts program that has traditionally been here but I think that's a much longer conversation that we should have and that the superintendent is going to need um probably Direction and structure from the board so chair Scott I'm I'm fine with um uh accepting friendly Amendment to the amendment and deleting that uh part to establish set boundaries and identify Middle School yeah can I read what I have so it's just it's a it is a pretty straightforward and thank you director Lowry um by no later than the start of 20 26 27 school year the superintendent will initiate a process to develop a plan to increase student enrollment period oh yeah he's already looking nice okay we should probably put for Jefferson High School just so we're yes real clear oh increase student enrollment for Jefferson High School so those last four words of the sentence right and then striking the rest thank you Kara and then the rest I think stays the same yeah and and that's important because um to director Green's point I mean we all know that we have high school enrollment balancing work to do across our entire district and so thank you Jefferson you know this is addressing something that was omitted from this 130 page document which is how are we going to get there um but it's implied that that work needs to take place across the entire District so we will initiate it for this process with a care and concern for all of our other schools director constant if you accept that as a friendly Amendment I'd like to move us towards the vote on the amendment I have one question for the superintendent um would would the June timeline work
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with an opening in Fall of 28. it would provide us the opportunity to operationalize and know by November and have in place great that's I was assuming that was correct but I wanted to ask just to verify okay all those in favor of the amendment as written up on the screen please say yes yes yes yes yes and sorry student representative McMahon yeah any abstensions okay the amendment passes uh thank you director constam uh now I'd like to move us towards a vote on the overall Jefferson master plan as amended any final words before we uh we move into that vote so I just have a couple a couple comments I just want to make sure that you know as a board that we're listening and hearing what the community is saying from contractors all the way down I think you know a lot of times we talk to talk about equity and making sure that you know we have Equitable practices whether it's in Contracting or School foundations or whatever those are but I think we need to make sure we start voting with that in mind you know that's one thing to talk about it is another thing to actually have a vote about it and I've been I've said this before that you know when we're talking about building this school here that we should make sure that we're looking at contractors of color to be building this school here you know and out and we'll just be put it out there up front I would never support something that is not going to utilize majority of our folks to be building this school here there's been billions of dollars that has been going out with other schools and we need to make sure that our folks our kids who look like us can see us building the schools that they're in as well that's it I'm just curious um who's accountable for making that happen is that Os osm or [Music] well the board votes on every one of those process I think the question is who's accountable to the performance for the district or departments based upon our certified business schools is that what the question is yeah I guess because by the time something comes to the board it's pretty baked so I'm just curious I'm going to turn that around actually because I think we want to move towards I appreciate you being here the accountability is on us and I think that's what Vice chair Hollins is saying um I think we need to make it very clear what our priorities are which I think we're doing tonight we'll continue to do moving forward I think staff need to move forward with that in mind which I think you're hearing loud and clear and that I think it's on us whether it comes to us fully baked or not we are the ones who get to make the decision on those guys okay can I we can I hear the answer the Mr Amazon provide thanks uh when it comes to search by business it's a I guess it's a big discussion so it's hard to pinpoint exactly but the district has goals around certified business there was any annual I think report that was circulated here recently and there are strategies that the different departments and different projects take to meet those goals or exceed those goals and so a lot of the focus is really around what those strategies are and what the results we think we will get from those strategies and so we can talk about some specifics of those but like a couple things or something specifically that comes to mind of how we're looking to always achieve and exceed our goals uh as we're standing up uh actually re-standing up something that's that's been gone for several years is a Contracting and equity and purchasing a committee so that's a group of of individuals business owners who have done work with the district in the past to help advise us on what we can do to take strategies to increase our certified business participation so that's just one example of the strategies that we look to take but director Scott to your point about it comes to us I mean one thing that's really important where we can be influential is those firms need to bid and those firms need to be partnering up with prime contractors if they're subcontractors they need to know that like PPS wants to do business with minority businesses so they got they got to show up and bid and everybody can play a role in cultivating that and we've been doing a better job of that recently so I'm gonna push back on that a little bit you know when we talk about you have to show up to be a is historically showing up the bid to work at PPS have resulted in not a whole lot of work at all no I'm not saying I don't want to
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make it seem like we're not trying to work on these projects we black people are trying to work on these projects I think sometimes we're going to have to either be creative with this emgc process there's we're going to be creative to to make that happen a lot of times a lot of and this will come up in the in the hopefully in the last uh thing that I poured but in order for any organization to be able to grow and expand they have to have the opportunities and so when you have a company who is trying to grow and expand but don't have the opportunity because they don't have the necessary things that is always required sometimes that limits their opportunity pieces and all I'm saying is that as a board we want to make sure that we are as an organization that we are going to go away from that model to make sure that if if whatever we need to do as the owners of the project let's be clear that we're the owners of the project to make sure that we can look at and be in Creative to make sure that the 18 goals that we have that's great but sometimes we meet them sometimes we don't we need to have more if we have our own contractors leading these contracts and in historically you can look at the uh TriMet contract that they just did um down Burnside you can look at the convention center project they had over 50 percent minority participation and I thought that's all I'm saying is and but those organizations was creative in letting those contractors lead those jobs and they also were supported once they were on the job yes so I want to also say for direct I know you want to move it along but how we talk about this matters that creativity is going to matter and and we can do it because we've seen other public projects where they've been more successful and um I I agree with director Holland's 100 that we need to be very creative and we had people in the room tonight several people that said they want to help and they want to be on this you know in advisory roles that have deep connections and experience so let's put them to let's put them to work they offered to volunteer for us the board will now vote on resolution 6627 authorizing the Jefferson High School modernization comprehensive plan all of those in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no student representative McMahon yes are there any abstentions resolution 6627 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative McMahon officially unofficially but still voting yes congratulations well I'm going to apply because I think this is an exciting moment thank you to everybody for showing up thank you again everyone for being um I'm gonna uh student representative McMahon I'm still gonna hold off on your report if that's okay for a few more minutes um we do need to move on we have and I I want everyone to know it's 9 10 you know how I feel about meetings after nine there are a couple things that we need to get done I really want to move as quickly as we can through them um I think we can we have the presentation of the annual comprehensive financial report which is like a really exciting moment in our in our fiscal year um and so care our is our other people testifying remotely absolutely I just we have some people who have been waiting I think right our contractors um we have Tim Gillette from tkw on virtually is that what you're asking about for the audit yes so yes let's move on to uh you're trying to tell me something oh uh student representative man are you okay until after this okay great okay chair Scott then I believe Tim Gillette is joining us virtually uh Tim Gillette is from Talbot carvola and Warwick uh better known as tkw they work with us uh pretty frequently uh conducting audits tonight they're speaking to the annual comprehensive financial report which I know was also heard in some detail uh recently but is also here to put it before the full board so Tim thanks for joining us great thanks for having me great to be here everybody hear me okay volume is all right yes okay great um yeah hi I'm Tim Gillette I'm a part one of I'm a partner with Talbot corvolin or wait for tkw your external independent Auditors here to present the annual comprehensive financial report uh sometimes referred to as the act for my colleague Dan Miley and I presented this in some depth to the audit committee last week so I will go pretty quickly I think I can get through this in in less than an hour or so no just kidding just wanted to see if anybody smiled there um it's a big document about 130 pages or something like that
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I'm going to talk about basically three reports two of them in this one and one in another one and I will go pretty quickly as I think that's what you would all like for me to do tonight but I am open for questions happy to answer questions if I go too quickly so most of this document your actor is is your document my reports are only a few pages in here you pay me to give my opinion on the on the financial statements footnotes then all the other information in here and once again it is a unmodified opinion sometimes called a clean opinion from the auditor the the kind that you want to have so that's my my main main report on the document there's also something at the back of the document where we report Under Oregon minimum standards Under Oregon state regulations um the state asks us to look at certain things and we do that and have to report to them they give us a list of things to look at um we say that there was uh [Music] substantial compliance by the district with all the state regulations and rules but we did have two small findings They're Not Unusual and and the district has had similar findings in Prior years one was on our uh test of students you're supposed to withdraw students after 10 consecutive absences we draw a sample of students to look at we drew a sample of 60 students we found one that wasn't withdrawn timely also we look at a sample of teachers and teacher experience the state wants to know if it experience is being reported correctly to them in our sample of 60 teachers we found six where experience was either underreported or over reported again relatively small items that have occurred at the with the district in previous years and and at other school district clients that we have so excuse me a second um the third report is the so-called single audit report this is on your federal expenditures the district spent about 95 million dollars in federal monies this year which is quite an increase from last year was like 66 million so big increase we have our reports there's actually a couple of reports in here but they can be boiled down to to one thing to say that we had no findings in the single law which is pretty unusual actually uh to see that it's completely clean especially you had some new programs this year um as everyone knows there's a lot of covert related money and funds out there and and uh new programs with new requirements but we didn't we didn't find any non-compliance to report at all so everyone should get a big pat on the back for that so that's that's my reporting about as brief a fashion as I can make it again happy to take questions and thank you uh for the work on the audit and uh that report I appreciate that as well um let's go ahead and um put the uh motion on the table and then we can have a board discussion director content moves director brim Edwards seconds you know comprehensive financial report uh is there any board discussion just Bravo clean audit yeah I'm just gonna say um I really appreciate the session we had the other day um not just uh for the for the clean uh audit um and you know thanks to the the staff for um all the hard work that make that happen um but I do think it's also worth noting that uh it's in some ways this document is our year in financial document um and we did in the year with the 87 million dollar underspend um not an overspend because that's not allowed um but it's just worth noting that we had a lot of conversations early in the year about whether we were going to be spending our contingency or reserves and we actually um because of for a variety of reasons um I had an underspend when you look at the budget to actuals which should be helpful next budget season but really great work to the finance team and it's the type of audit you want to have but I do think I think it would be great to when we have the start of the next budget process to really take the year in because we never have to close out to have it be sort of a launch point for that the next year's conversation yeah I think it was so I I would I would I mean again the clean audit and particularly on the the single audit um
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is really it's great work by the finance team um and director remembers just picking up on your point and Tim I'm not sure if I'm not sure if this is a question you can answer uh if not it's a question we can direct to CFO um Delgado but that that almost 90 million dollar underspend um you know it was about we spent about 92.6 um what would you say is normal for governments in terms of spending budget to actuals uh it's a good question most most governments try to spend as close to their budget as possible of course but you don't want to overspend so you almost always end up with an under spend I couldn't give you an exact percentage without doing some research so and I thank you for that yeah and I I I I will say from my own anecdotal um evidence working with other governments um from from the low 90s to the to the to the mid 90s I I've seen very few governments and their general fund get closer you know in the 97 98 range and the reason for that as you mentioned is that it's illegal to overspend so um governments by definition will not overspend because you go to budget jail for that um uh which is a very bad place to be and and so I to me this 90 million dollar under expenditure um is look you know roughly roughly normal maybe given the additional federal funds we had um it might have been a little bit larger than normal I think an important Point director from Edwards is that is that's one-time funding that is actually built in to forecasts and so again I don't want to speak for CFO dug a deal but um it is not it is not additional money generally speaking that we we can appropriate because it's usually assumed now that may be slightly larger which would be a one-time Surplus that could be spent on one-time expenditures Capital other types of things not ongoing expenditures um you know such as teachers or you know administrative staff or other things so I think it's it is a good it's a good thing to note but um I just want to be cautious that I don't want the public to come away thinking oh we've got 90 million dollars that we could invest in you know ongoing expenses yeah well good then I'm glad we're having that conversation yeah I think I think the actual understanding that she had mentioned was a little bit less more like 83 million or something that I think the 90 that you're mentioning might have come from my mention of how much federal funds you spent this past year I was rounding 87 million to 90. we're rounding up okay that's fine uh significant digits yeah given that your expenses on an accrual basis are are pretty close to a billion dollars that yeah 900 and change 900 million and change you're right it's about a 10 percent or or less under spend which is not a not a huge amount and you do want to have some money left over to to help carry you through till the revenues start rolling in I just I want to um congratulate the finance team for the sixth uh straight year of clean audits um it's a good date to reference it's about it's six years of clean audits if there's one thing they emphasize in my superintendent's School many years ago is always make sure the money adds up correctly so uh thank you to our independent Auditors tkw I don't take for granted the unmodified uh findings or the clean audit so I'll make sure to express uh appreciation to our president Finance team and chief davidia who couldn't be with us this evening thank you the board will now vote listen I would also like to thank the finance team obviously the audit is a huge undertaking for them when they're trying to get their everyday work done while answering all of our questions and supplying us with the documents we need so thanks very much to Tracy and Cheryl on Melissa and I'm probably forgetting some people but we couldn't do our job without their help so thank you very much um the board will now vote on resolution 6625 acceptance of the annual comprehensive financial report reports to management and the report on requirement of federal funds all those in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all the post please indicate by saying no student representative McMahon yes uh any abstentions so resolution 6625 is approved by a vote of six zero uh with student representative McMahon unofficially voting yes great let's go back and thank you for your patience uh my audience tonight um but yeah that's okay I can always clip it maybe post it to our Instagram later um just before I begin with a few in the room and for those watching online I'm going to be talking about um the events that took place at Cleveland obviously it can be very triggering for a lot of people so I just want to put that warning out before I
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start so um for those of you that don't know Cleveland had an incident of gun violence at our school yesterday I personally was in my literature class I I'm a Cleveland student and I sat through our lockdown and then the lock-in that followed yesterday I was in my literature class for about probably two hours-ish it was obviously a very scary incident and I know that it's also happened within the Jefferson Community as well and someone came forward Brazil came forward today as well just to talk about how we've had six incidences ultimately gun violence is a pervasive American problem and I think that the solutions have already been voiced and it's really going to come down to that Community Partnership and working with the agencies within our community that also are trying to solve and mitigate the harm and mitigate the likelihood of instances of gun violence I want to kind of talk only briefly about it just because for a lot of people I know it's hard to process and the emotions will fluctuate but I really just want a voice to all my fellow students at Cleveland and also to the students that have experienced it in other schools that it's perfectly fine for your emotions to change depending on the day the environment and how you're feeling in that moment for me I definitely reflected on it differently it happened only yesterday so I think the emotions are still kind of running through as to what it really felt like for me my sister actually heard the gunshots and having to hear about that and wait for her text can be really scary um I also just want a voice too and really important is that the teachers also experience this I think a lot of times we just expect teachers to be the safeguarders of their students and they're expected to just move into this protective role rather than really getting to experience the trauma themselves and so I hope that all the Cleveland teachers and the other teachers in the district that it's happened to take the time to process for themselves and know that you are equally as affected as the students that were part of it and that it's and I think that a lot of times teachers don't necessarily get to process it in the same way and don't necessarily have the space provided that for them to process it but it's not something you ever expect becoming a teacher it's not something you ever want and it's a sad reality that it's something that we had to experience yesterday and that I know other students and teachers have experienced so my heart goes out to the Cleveland Community and I'm looking forward to going back to school tomorrow getting to meet with my teachers and talk through what happened to us and how it felt um and yeah it's just emotions will run high and I hope that everyone knows that we're here and that as a Cleveland Community we can move forward from this um sorry I'm a little sick as well which did not add to the joys of yesterday um I also moving forward I was hoping like I had this whole like wrapped 2022 wrapped thing since we um are this is our last board meeting before but I obviously just wanted to talk a little bit about that but I'm going to move into that now so I got to visit a lot of schools over this past um 2022 and over the summer and so I just wanted to talk about some of the great Joys that I had and how lucky I feel to be student representative so this year I got to go to Franklin to meet with shamia Fagan and talk through how students can show up and show out to vote and the youth vote actually in Oregon and Portland specifically did increase in this past election so that was very exciting I got to go to Lincoln and I had a booth at their Club Fair where I got to talk about what DSC does and promote getting involved with the district I got to go to hayhurst elementary with congresswoman Mo minichi at the beginning of the year on the first day of school to welcome our kids back to school I got to attend the summer art showcase at the Newmark theater over the summer it was all about creating the future and it was so great to get to see what the students had put in in such a short period of time there was a band there was theater there was some Visual Arts and it was just so great to see the creativity I got to attend Roosevelt as well to see some of their summer programs like the IAM academy and our sun programs and it was so great it was my first time at Jefferson it was awesome to see the building and to meet the students and I actually spent the rest of the afternoon volunteering in one of the sun program classrooms and it was just so fun and I met a lot of great middle schoolers who I actually keep in contact with now um I got to visit Markham Elementary and
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saw their black Excellence program and got to meet with some of those Elementary School students who were taking part I got to go to McDaniels this last Friday for their winter assembly where I talked about our upcoming student Summit as well as got to make some Ceramics in their Ceramics program apparently I'm a natural that's that's what they told me I made a bowl and then I tried to make a cup and it like did not work but they told me that I was good at the bowl so I got to go to Abernathy for the day where I volunteered in teacher Debbie's kindergarten classroom it was so great to get to see all the happy faces I volunteered during recess and I also worked specifically on a math game which with some of the students and it's so great to like get to be involved with some of those younger kids just because they're so happy and they love school and that's definitely something at the high school level you sometimes lose sight of and I also got to visit Alameda Elementary as well to go and see their bike bus program which has obviously gotten a lot of news notoriety um sambalto their PE director who also puts on the program lended me and Danny cage one of our other student Representatives bicycles so we could take part and he plays music and everyone's running together and overall there was so many students and it was just so great to see something like that that was so joyful with the community and finally it's probably a bit of cheating but I also went to Cleveland both for school and I held a listening session there recently about the summit and how we can make student experiences better um and then finally we also have a majority bypoc individuals in our district student council this year which has been really exciting and it's among the first years we also have more female representation than previous years as well so um it's been a great year overall I think unfortunately events of yesterday certainly have dulled a little bit of what I was hoping was going to be a very positive student report but ultimately I feel so extremely lucky to be able to be the student representative I remember my first meeting last year I was filling in for Jackson and it was a budget meeting and I remember just walking out to the parking lot and Parker one of our student Representatives on dsu's over there and I just remember like dancing in the parking lot because it was such a great opportunity and I got to see so much that other students don't get the opportunity to and I think that that's a feeling that I personally have not lost this job is such a privilege and getting to make a real impact and getting to visit schools and meet students is such a central work and I feel so grateful that I get to be involved in the work that we do and the impact that we make so I leave this last board meeting of 2022 very hopeful that I'll get to visit more schools meet more students and make a bigger impact and I'm so grateful once again just to be part of this job and to have the role that I do and I say this a lot but I am the luckiest student in the world because I represent the best and that's just so true and even after today like coming from hardship and moving forward I definitely feel that that really sticks with me so thank you but I just want to quickly recognize that we have our former student rep Nathaniel is here with us tonight and that Daniel almost your his entire tenure was just online when he served as a student rep so it's nice to see you in person thank you for coming out thanks for recognizing the trauma that not just the students but also the teachers experience and and I also want to recognize the secondary trauma that parents experienced and I um you know I have a co-worker whose son is a sophomore and and talked to him at lunch today about you know the impact and we have board members who have students at Cleveland and um committee and Conference reports given the late hour um so I won't go through episode one but are there any um key board reports or board committee reports that uh folks would like to make sure my words I have one just from the levy committee because I think it we had sort of hit a milestone the other day um so the committee is recommending that we um not go this next May um but that we look at the two preferred dates for the local option Levy which pays for about 850 teachers that we go either in um November of 2023 or may of 2024 and so the committee is going to take a
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brief Hiatus and pick things up again this spring so we can have some meetings some Community engagement with our school Community uh before school gets out so that we'll be ready to go um in the fall of 2023. and thanks to the committee members for their work thank you any other committee reports I have a brief committee report we heard basically from tkw tonight in the audit committee last week and our we have an upcoming audit committee on January 19th at four o'clock I also want to report just really briefly I attended the cube conference in Miami and attended a couple of really powerful sessions one on the science of reading another one about the power of just breathing correctly and its impact on teaching breathing to adult adults in school systems around the country um produces really great great um calming the nervous system is really important especially for kids uh social emotional and and the adults that they that serve them great thank you um next up is our legislative agenda and a superintendent yes uh directors as you know historically PPS has developed a legislative agenda to serve as a guide uh particularly as PPS approaches elected State officials each legislative session uh in 2023 uh you find that the legislative agenda is centered on helping us realize our district Vision uh helping us continue to make strides in our strategic plan and it's very focused on our student outcome goals that we have for third fifth eighth High School graduation post secondary Readiness our board goals so we're we're also calling upon the Oregon legislature to reaffirm their commitment to pre-k-12 education by prioritizing a robust investment to the state school fund uh we'll go into some of the details there because we do want to hear consensus from the board on that to help inform our continued conversations but here to tell us more our government relations team thank you do I have to push something oh okay it'll pick me up there we go um board directors superintendent Guerrero Courtney wessling director of government relations um and Lisa do you want to introduce yourself yeah governing board directors and Lisa Merrick and the legislative liaison on the government relations team here um and I think you said a lot of what we were going to say which is we go through this every couple years we'll likely start doing it annually we obviously have annual sessions but the um the odd years are our budget sessions they're the five month session it's the long one where we primarily focus on on the resources that we're getting from the state um and so the agenda that most of you have well it went through committee intergovernmental committee approved it um it's been shared multiple times so I'm sure it's not new to you but um you know this is the next step in the process um so one thing we want to make sure you see we did insert the state school fund or sorry the CSL number according to school districts in the most recent version which is the 10.3 that's what the Coalition is settling on Coalition being The Advocates in Salem um the the our labor friends uh Cosa osba um uh the Oregon Association of school business officials are the ones who landed on the number they did a lot of Outreach to school districts around the state to get numbers to Crunch so that is where that comes from um and yeah we are just nesting all of our high-level priorities within the board goals and the the Strategic plan and our vision we have really great North Stars to focus on so we we want to make sure that that's really clear in what we are sharing with legislators we're going to begin meeting um well this won't be the first time but we'll begin meeting with legislators ahead of session we we had a meeting yesterday in fact and By Ernie I should tell you that Senator Frederick is very excited about the summit so the student Summit in February so we're going to start just talking about this document but also all the things going on in the district and encouraging them to attend in February to visit with students so I'll kind of I guess leave it up to you all to discuss anything you want to discuss but um and we'll be here for questions are there any questions about the legislative agenda I just want to say that I think uh you know all the board members have had an opportunity to review it most people have you know fed feedback back to me that we've filtered through our committee I want to really thank the superintendent for two things one is just being a real leader in the Statewide Coalition of superintendents to help develop some of our key
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priorities but also make sure that they're aligned with other powerful voices around the state so we can just all come together for kids and I know you're in Salem last week I don't know if there's anything you want to report but before you do I also want to say that um aside from the financial pieces that Courtney just spoke to uh I would say our other key priority is around early literacy and supporting a bill that is being you know largely championed and crafted by Stanford children around supporting science of reading strategies so we are all in on that and byronie we're going to be working together to send a bunch of kids to Salem during the session and I was talking to some legislators and I said get ready they're coming um I I think that's correct we have our third grade reading goal so it seems apropos to be present advocating uh offering testimony this past Friday at the state house around a potential bill that will support an emphasis on effective reading instruction largely informed by what we know about those components that should be in place in our primary grade levels you know which many folks are referring to is the science of reading and it's important to be clear that that means taking a multi-pronged approach it's not just materials it's professional development and training coaching time for planning Etc so that is the theme you know early literacy and making sure kids can read is a universal theme that folks are getting behind Statewide and states that take that kind of an approach are seeing Real Results for all students so we're hopeful this has come up in a couple of different places um but it's around our Levy and it came up in the levy committee early on um and right now there's a state cap in terms of how much our Levy can be um and one of the things that I would like to propose is is actually an amendment it can be relatively high level in generic I don't think we need to get into necessarily the specifics um that one of the things we'd be lobbying for is is either an elimination or a lifting of that cap the reason why I put that on the table is it would give us options if we had that they're not options we would necessarily have to take as a board but if we were able to lift that cap it would give us options in the future when we go out for a levy renewal to either keep the Levee the same as it is now or to talk to our community about whether they would be interested in increasing the levy and if so what those resources could be invested in within the district it has to be a two-step process increasing our Levy without getting that cap raised would just mean that we would raise money in the Portland area that would go into the state school fund and be distributed to the rest of the state I'm sure they would love that I'm not sure our taxpayers would love that um so it's a two-step process but I would like to ask whether there's support on the board for including that in our legislative agenda and then Courtney and her team can develop the specifics and come back and talk to us about what that specific ingredient a mechanism might look like I would support that increase that language um yeah yes it is a motion yes I will make a motion to amend um the legislative agenda um that one of our one of our principles would be to uh um request from the legislature either elimination or increase to our Levy cap and I will second that motion great so discussion from the board my only question is of uh Courtney um whether adding that to our advocacy agenda you think would diminish our capacity for uh lobbying around both the financial the current service level and the just overall State education budget um or it's it's an easy and I I think director constant it's a good question I know I've said that I I worry about a muddled message but I do think that we can use high level enough language that we are you know interested in looking at this issue like this is a complicated technical um dare I say wonky part of the state statute that we have um we have worked through in the past four years ago we were able to pass a bill in a short session to increase the statutory limits so it's done been done before which actually I think is helpful in this case um and it's not certain yet we're still having the discussion but I think including it in the legislative agenda as something that we want to examine um is easy enough for us to do and we can figure out where it lives and find a language that works and I think it's a good flag I think there's that potential I actually think the argument can can be these these these complement one another the state school fund is for all districts in the state and to the extent
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that the legislature you know comes through in a way that supports kids coming out of the pandemic it might obviate the need for a levy increase but I think you know if if they don't or we can even be talking about you know what what we could be doing with it we're not really asking we're not by this we're not asking the legislature for more money that's on the state school fund we're asking for the opportunity to ask our own voters what they want to do and and I I hope that resonates with local Portland legislators that you know um and I want to be really clear if our own voters and we do some polling and they say not interested well we're not going to move forward with that but if our own voters are interested those voters are the same people who support uh our local you know Representatives so I would think there would be a general consensus that that would be a good idea and I will add that even without asking voters to increase the levy rate if we continue to see enrollment drops we probably will run into the problem sooner than later I'm been talking to Carol Samuels about how soon so we should probably be considering this either way so I'm okay with adding it to the legislative agenda um because I think it's I think it's worth exploring I do think we should have uh a like a several click down discussion about what the options would be because the reality like what happened four years ago like we totally drove that that was not any other like entity getting it passed and like you know we we had a we had our own legislative language we had some Champions on both sides we went and lobbied the whole thing um so it didn't just like happen or there was a natural Coalition I mean we we had to pass it um so I think I would suggest to come back of like what what are the possibilities and are so are there some that are more viable because I do think then there was a point in time and if you listen to the governor-elect kotech the other day at the business Summit um she was about accountability and oversight of the money that everybody already has I mean I think we're there will be a certain point in time a prioritization of like hey you've got a lot of money asks what's the most important thing on the list um so we should just be prepared of how we might prioritize that like and by you know if we if there's other allies do we have a champion who will help us so I think it's fine to add now but I think um it it probably will just be sort of Wishful Thinking unless we come back and have a real conversation about like how would we create a strategy to actually make it happen and what's the trade-off with other things that we have on the agenda and I think it's important to frame it it's not a money ask and and I think though but that from right from the very beginning if the legislature thinks it's a money asked from them then you're right it's going to compete it's not a money ask from them so it's actually a local it's a local it's an ass because they actually have to like somebody has to carry the bill they've got to go ask a lot of money and and frankly there will be people who are like hey my district doesn't have a local option why do I want to let Portland so it it's not uncomplicated and we should just be thoughtful about all the other things and if really if this is like our biggest thing on the agenda then we should just then we should say that and you know put together the strategy and see if we can make it happen but I think we should get more detailed and and think through what all the other things like we may get more money if there's a huge um appropriation for the reading initiative um if it's big enough pps's piece of it could get us like additional resources um but so I just think we should we need to place it in there and it it it it's an ask it's not it may not be money everything wasn't a money ask it was a technical correction but you still had to get people to vote for it and work on it and like not leave it behind and and we can bring back those options that would include beyond the eliminate and increase you know probably not as viable but the Constitutional change that we could you know there's there are other things it's again it's about that's you know but and then the other and the other thing is we we do have 2024 as an option we could go and try to do this then so I'm not saying that we should yes necessarily but that makes it more difficult if we go on November 2023. um great so any other uh let's move forward on a vote on the amendment I'm sorry I have some questions about the rest of the agenda actually can we vote on the amendment oh yeah I'm sorry that's the agenda great so um so the amendment is to add the levy language to the legislative agenda all those in favor say yes yeah yes all those hoes and representative McMahon yes any abstentions the amendment pass is seven to zero with student representative McMahon voting yes and director Bim Edwards on the rest of the agenda yeah a couple questions um I know essential skills um isn't on the list and I'm sure it's going to come up and it may be that we're not going to Advocate it but I'm I think um there will be people who want to know
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where PPS is on it and so is that something that you when we have a better idea what the proposal is that you come back to the board yeah that's one that we don't know what's shaking out from that report yet um when we do we'll be able to share that through the intergovernmental committee or come to the board whatever you guys want yeah I'd love to have that come to the board I mean I just think it's a really substantive discussion about our graduate it fits that our criteria around our board goals so yeah and that's our that's our guiding yeah light yeah well we because we don't have a lot of specifics around a lot of things yet this is meant to be you know not a non-exhaustive but as inclusive as we can be at this stage yeah I mean it's just going to be one of the one of the bigger education policy issues the other question I had was about the Balmer Institute um what are they asking for and I noticed that we would be supportive on what they're asking for that we would be lending our support to I have not heard yet but we would because it is a value of ours so it falls into the things we're already supporting and um uh and advocating for so we will find out what those are as time goes on I don't know are they asking for an appropriation I haven't even heard that okay yeah it'd be great to know once yes they have it and we work I mean these are people that we work with you're in your year in and year out from various Corners you know the university system the behavioral health system a variety of people that we um you know that will coordinate with at the appropriate time thank you there will be things we have no inkling of at this moment but we have identified our guiding principles and it'll make that process easy in terms of whether we're going to weigh in yeah and some things some things will be small and you know relatively innocuous and we'll say yeah PPS supports that it's it's on it's fits into this it it aligns with our borgo's vision and strategic priorities or plan and then there are there will be bigger more controversial things I think essential skills will be one of them for example where we'll come back and say hey what should we do here so one other thing and I know she didn't go through your slide deck given the time of night but um there is a um bullet point on like next steps and it lists um the fund and DSC as as partners um because of coven we lost some of our connectivity and our like larger School Community advocacy and I'm wondering if it's possible and I think there will be a lot of benefits for some other things um to be partnering with labor like p-a-t ptas osba SEIU stand so that we that we get back in that practice that we used to sort of like the school Community is going down to Salem yeah we have a regular meeting that's already starting it's not quite on a Cadence yet but we've historically had regular weekly meetings with all of our advocacy Partners including labor stands Cosa osba uh I'm sure I'm forgetting folks we talk we've just we've been meeting with foundations for a better organ they represent a lot of our community organizations just staying in alignment with them we may not always have the same priorities but we want to be supportive and likewise for them so I think those those connections are starting back up again and it was very weird to be in the capital last week because it's under construction and there's somebody said that their top 10 um suggestions for those working in the building during session bring a water bottle and it was literally everyone was bring a water bottle bring a one there's no water fountain in on the first floor of the Capitol so it's going to be an interesting session for a lot of people yeah well I know with our the discussion around the foundations and fundraising there is a lot of energy about what we can do together um and you know one of the most effective ways is either our advocacy around referrals or um around our Salem advocacy because that its money into the big the bigger pot great superintendents you have something yeah I wanted to make sure early versions of the legislative priorities had a blank space for oh yeah I know what we feel is the appropriate level for the state school fund advocacy and I want to make sure we're not out there quoting a number that the board isn't in consensus about I think you just heard recently School uh School efficient business officials along with the Coalition arrived at a number of uh no less than 10.3 billion which is a bit higher than the 95 9.5 billion number that was initially has been floated out there as a first step at it at the state level so uh we don't want to be talking out of turns so just for the boards clarification it would be good to know that uh what the number is that we're
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advocating for thank you for for making that clear yes and and that is that is what we're voting on and I will just say and I appreciate the framing you just said it you know it's it's a no less then and I think that I'm I am I am only comfortable with the 10.3 billion dollars in there as sort of a no less than you know current service level and then let's talk about what's more um you know I just you know I if someone needs to pick up the the the um uh the Rita model of like you know reminding people every year I mean we have we have a quality education model the state has a commission that comes up with this we do this for a reason and then the state legislature promptly ignores it and pretends that it doesn't exist and and I think if we you know if if if if it's not important then then the state legislature should get rid of that commission and not come up with that number but as long as we have it I mean it means something it should mean something and um you know I again I understand the state budget challenges I also understand for many many years of public budgeting that the folks who ask for what they need are more likely to get it than than the folks who who come in and say well maybe we can compromise with you and get something less so the 10.3 billion dollars where osba is it's fine um you know but but but it's a minimum fine right and even at 10.3 our students are going to suffer um from what they could if the state adequately funded education uh in the way I think that they should so I'll just put that on the table um any other comments on the legislative agenda before we move to a vote representative McMahon anything to add great let's move towards a vote on this um I always brought you any public comment no great the board will now vote on resolution 6626 the 2023 Portland Public Schools legislative agenda has amended uh all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes approved by a vote of 7-0 with student representative main voting yes just a reminder PPS board members have an opportunity to be heard this Thursday at mesd hosted legislative dinner for those that are able to come out I would have received an email with a lot more information from Lisa tonight yes so because it is almost 10 o'clock and I prescribe to director Scott's idea that meetings should be done at nine we are going to only take the first reading of the compulsory enrollment age and grade level at entrance at this moment that is policy 4.10.020-p this policy is coming to us there's a staff report there in the board books that you can see and hopefully you've reviewed the staff feels that this is not best practices especially given the racial Equity implications of this practice and you can see that there in the staff report so the policy committee reviewed this policy we looked at it at two separate meetings and we've now brought it forward for our first reading and are putting it in the 21 Day public comment period at chair Lowry just just a quick question um so normally we'd have 21 days and there'd be a policy committee meeting in between where we could consider any public comment but we won't have one well we actually wait to left because the next policy committee means it's up to the 25th uh at legal counsel large would you speak to that unfortunately I don't think it's a pure legal question it's a practice question for enrollment for kindergarten in the fall and I understand this is time sensitive what I don't know is exactly where the timeline is that's super sensitive but I know that this having it first read at this meeting was cutting it close and we don't have I don't know that we have anyone here who knows exactly that so there's an opportunity board meeting yes we'll just move it to the full board s outside of the meeting or is there something that's relevant ages well we should do our business in public but I I can send the questions well it is because then if you if you consider the public comment then you're voting on at the same meeting that you're you're that you're hearing the public comment and the best better practice would be to hear the public comment at a meeting and vote on it at the on the next one so you can consider any okay most of our public comment comes at a meeting where we also take a break so let's I'm just saying from the policy committee standpoint that's generally what we do so that we can of course I think we're offering in a sort of different um space here just because of the time sensitive nature of this so let's do this let's um look at any public comment we get and
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um if and get in touch with the early Ed people and see what the timeline is and if there is possibility for us to um concert it or at one meeting and then vote on the next we'll do that but if not we'll we'll follow up and we'll make sure that that comment is shared as soon as it's received so that the full board can consider it ahead of time before the meeting thank you reportable now providing voice officers all in favor of Katrina Dowdy please indicate by saying yes yes yes homes um would you like to ask your question or just move as a separate program so I would like to move it as a separate vote um so the reason why I actually called this one is once again when we talk about the consent agenda and we talk about you know having equity and Contracting and these contracts again there is no CB there is no certified firms on on some on these new contracts and so you know and I look back at my notes you know I've been bringing this up since October um and I know chair the path has brought this up as well in in the past for for years and so you know I I don't want to continue just going with the status quo of this voting on stuff and we have a policy that we're looking at Equitable things um and just keep moving things forward you know I bring it up it's like okay he brought it up it's over um I think if we're really talking about Equity we have to vote with Equity as well and so for for that alone um no issues with the company with Dr masonry I think they're a great group they I know they started in 1994 and started as a one-man guy you know they got up to 100 you know employees but with that came a lot of opportunities um that they got because of because of who they are a lot of our minority contractors don't get those opportunities um and so if we're really talking about Equity especially in Contracting we can't just continue just going with the status quo and just keep voting yes on these things even though we bring these up year after year after year at some point we have to take a stand and for me on this vote here that's why I'm taking a vote of no um because we have to start really being intentional of our contract measures and not just be saying no here today I want to also make hackstar my board colleagues to look at our policies regarding these contracts and our certified firm numbers or percentages I have a comment on that I stand with you on that and I've been exhausted bringing it up you know I I think I said I as I asked to add a column and the column never has a check mark in it for a minority or women-owned businesses very rare and so um that that hasn't worked very well I'd like to know if we can look at each division of work for a contract starting from zero zero zero all the way through all of the divisions of work for all of our contracts and identify which of those divisions have minority and women on contractor and what the landscape looks like it's in Portland and which ones don't I mean maybe there's you know steel work there's some specialty areas that we might not be able to find minority owned contractors but there are so many uh areas and divisions of work that do have minority-owned businesses and we we should be employing them we should be spending money in those communities so I appreciate your courage and uh director Hollins in bringing that forward it's been my sentiment as well and I haven't had the courage to um to fight it like this Dr Hollins did you ask about the bid process here and how many other uh uh bidders there were and whether any of them were minority contractors no I'd ask about this specific beer but I know the big process because I myself have tried to be a process here at PPS no I mean no I'm not look no I haven't asked about this specific one but when I look up the scope of work for this one I know there are a lot of minority contractors that can do this type of work as well
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I I was just going to ask that too are there um I I don't know whether that division has a pool of contractors but they do okay um which I understand the policy committee has chosen not to make any changes to but you know trips to say you know I'm not going to approve that one or I'm not going to talk they can actually get at the policy question that we're asking is how are we doing after the field trips and I think the policy question we're asking here is how is the district doing certified you know Contracting how are we doing in terms of again recruiting those funds and supporting those firms um and that feels like a question that we should be asking the superintendent of his team to report out and work and works to come in and talk about the process talk about the numbers and as a board you know there are certain things we can move I also want to be careful and I'm gonna here me as a very my understanding because I cannot say a new boss contract with who is certified firms that that would actually be a violation of of law what we can do this is in place I think those those companies in the whole process and support them in in the contract process so that we could grow them and this is what and directly to the Past you know you've talked about this quite a bit this is what other governments you know in our region have done somewhat successful successful some more again that is different than saying you know the new must contract with a certified firm and I want to be I want to be careful because if the bird is saying that for instance on this contract if if any vote no on this and there was a legitimate process that went through I think it was setting up a little Challenge from the contractor who would be able to say run this contract s on terms that are better than that and I just want to I want to set up and not just legally allowed to your point but on the criteria that were specified to the bidders like the rules that they thought they were fitting by and I'm assuming our criteria and I don't know I'm assuming they include you know diversity in terms of our bid process I know that you know at Metro city of Portland there are there are those you know you get a certain number of points for for things like that um you know and again I I would have to refer to the superintendent and staff on that but that that that's so I I want to reiterate I'm not I agree with you wholeheartedly in terms of the end goal and and and I think it's just a question of how how we get to that to that place I like to chime in before we I think when I made a note here earlier um around about way I think we should get a light so that we're all listening to listening to to here fully versus listening for a pause so that we can jump in that's just I'm just throwing that out there yeah we hit a button and then somehow then that way you can look down the thing to see that people some people have a question or they would like to have something to say versus you know what oftentimes is we're sitting here biting at the chip waiting for my turn but the unfortunate part of that is when I'm doing that I'm not fully engaged in the listening aspect and so I'm not fully in my listening mode and I say all that to say that I've been biting at the the thing with something to say um I would say that I heard the soup or somebody say earlier that we we decide like we vote on the contracts that is up to us that's what I heard earlier I heard earlier that it's it's our decision who who gets it so to come back and say I have to ask his permission or what he thinks and maybe that's not what you said that's short of what I heard but that's why I need a light because I'm not fully I'm not fully hearing I'm hearing aspects of things and sometimes I don't like what I hear so I have to say it out loud so that I can give somebody else a chance to say dude that's not what I was saying at all you didn't hear me clearly so I want to make sure that I put that out there as well but if I am responsible for the hiring and if I am responsible for who gets the contracts um then I can say that I don't want to sign off on anything until I've seen the bidding process and that I understand that organizations of color have been given the the same opportunities that we have put this out there and that they had the same opportunity to see it and that it was it was a fair practice all
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the way around because I want to be very and and not even fair I shouldn't even say fair because the fair is in Salem and they judge pigs there so this ain't about being fair this is about being intentional so I want to make sure that I that it's very clear that I'm intentional about making sure that um that organizations contractors construction companies of color get a the same way we're saying that we want to re we divvy our money differently because we want to make sure that we prioritize towards our our black and Native Native students so I'm going to divvy my Contracting money differently because I want to make sure that I prioritize towards a certain area now if the airlines can do it with you know certain people there's a there's always this loophole you know there's always this thing I I haven't been in HR for a while but you can you can say that I I want to focus on a certain thing and I'm only going to hire based on that if it's my job it's my responsibility and it's my money then I can hire who I want to hire right and so that's what I'm looking at I want to make sure that I'm intentionally looking at organizations of of color and that's why I would say no tonight me personally I think maybe we could look at our most most of these contracts get scored in other public entities you get up to 100 points you get 15 points if you have a um if you partner with or if you can prove that you're you know minority owned woman minority or woman-owned firm and I'm not I don't I'm very unclear about our Contracting processes but what I do am clear on is the result of our processes uh result in in contracts that uh that don't support them that that don't end up enriching the minority business community so I do know the outcomes I'm not sure about the process internally um director Hollins I'd like to uh ask that we that we an agenda item in the facilities and operations committee so that we can go over our aspirational goals go over our dashboard and really with an eye toward thinking how can we change our policies and practices if we're not getting the results that we want to see I think that would be a good place to start or we could start with a full board work session because I think I think it would be helpful for everyone to have a review of our Contracting practices to begin with anyway and then to see you know what's in the policy realm where we can make improvements I like the idea of a work session also so we can ask questions openly and we can all be educated at the same time I'm not usually able to make the facilities meetings they start a little bit early but we have we have been given briefs on on this process but I think it would benefit us to do that again um one of them about the process so director Hollins would you like me to make a motion to separate a separate resolution with that contract in it sorry I couldn't hear what you said I was just asking director Hollins if he'd want me to make a motion for resolution with that contract in that so the rest of the business agenda can go it was already approved this is the only outstanding item from the business from the consent agenda do you want me to make a motion to move to vote on the contract I move we vote on the separate agenda item of the contract for DNR arrest masonry restoration second I would really like to hear from our I'm concerned about um I've heard some board members say the reason we would be voting no on this contract is because of race and I feel like that is illegal no issue now let me make sure it's clear it's not raised it's a policies that we already have with certified firms so certified firm thing just raise well I heard say something different what I'm just saying is but it's based on certified first so when I first talked about it I've talked about certified firms not just black firms latinic firms based on our certified firms policy that we have from October until today we had almost over 40 million contracts zero certified firms now I don't know how many more times you guys want to talk about Equity how many more times do you guys want to throw out the work Equity but if we're not voting with Equity then we'll just continue to talk about it and that's what we're talking about so um I wanted to make sure it was clear that was it wasn't just by race it was just certified firms
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um general counsel Larch I'm going to suggest that maybe we go into executive session to talk about this because I think there's a legal there's a legal issue here that we need to talk about as a board before we take this contract though I agree with your recommendation okay um I don't know how we do that and Jefferson High School but I'm hoping there's a room that we can go into okay I have a question can we table it to the next board meeting and have an executive session later on I mean later or before the next I think that depends on the business needs of the contract I'd like to know from Dan uh it's a flexible service so we've got maybe two dozen of these and what they allow us to do is when we have projects that need we need to be able to address them quickly uh we have a firm Authority on the contract so even though it's a big dollar amount there's no guarantee dollars there so so we can respond quickly don't have to go through a formal procurement process there's there's no identified scope in which they would work on this it is not dinosaurs that could be moved on explaining okay so um I'm going to suggest that we find time um to have an executive session to talk about this and defer the vote to the next board meeting and find time to talk about it prior to that okay what's what's the legal question we were asking I actually think having that discussion creates legal risk in not an executive session it was mentioned earlier I just don't um I want to just say that in situations where there's a flexible Services contract we could have more than one firm in other words it's masonry it's tuck in point could we have could we not have three firms and then rotate I've done this before because uh we did do a formal RFP uh procurement and there was only one proposer okay that's critical information that was my question that I asked before no there was only one respondent to the RFP for this flexible Services contract for masonry so for me personally that's all I need to know to take a vote on this contract and so there's only one reason I have a work session there was a one respondent and it's one reason I'm just wondering in terms of Outreach what we did again there used to be a person at PBS that specifically went to Namco and went to all of the places and so um that we got only one bid doesn't not necessarily reflect on the fact that you know certified firms aren't bidding it's that we maybe could have done a better job in in our Outreach and explaining that there's opportunity I've had situations where I've had two or three um contracts and and it's rotated and you know it's it rotates through the need the demand and so it's a way of spreading the dollars in the community I don't know if it's possible with this but if if director Holland says there's other firms that I wonder why why they wouldn't bid on this is great work this the district pays on time and small businesses love that actually paid great by the way about 21 days so that's really good um I don't know a lot of specifics about this particular procurement I do know that we regularly do attend uh uh our awabi and nemac meetings and Latino built as well we also have a routine of weekly sending them our active procurements and then where they can find those active procurements I presume that happened on this one I you know I can double check to make sure that for some reason maybe something didn't happen I also what I know about Contracting is very relational and so you know sending something out is great but those meetings really do um they do result in in real work uh because of that relational that reaching out so I'm gonna go back to what I said a few minutes ago it sounds like the board wants to hear more about the process the specific bid process and and I think we're going to find time in executive session before we vote at the next board meeting we we have a motion on the table so we would need to was it second I don't think it was seconded it was oh I'm sorry I'm sorry but I think that's what we're talking about is table in that till the next board meeting do we need to take a vote on the table so it's not a tabling it's a motion to postpone um to a date motion to post I moved to table I move we postpone do we need to do we need to vote to postpone it or can we just say we're postponing it I there's a bunch of stuff we've postponed we postponed the book we posted you have a motion on the table so you uh I think you need to vote on the motion on the table which um so I'm okay with emotions I want to get clarity here from our general counsel right do so it sounds like we we in order to postpone this to the next board meeting right I'm just what is it it's a motion post to postpone to a certain time or a definite time that's the Robert's Rules motion I had to look up the last um uh piece and I think you could make that motion while this motion is
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pending and then that motion needs to be voted on it's just a head not it's okay yes then I will make a motion to postpone this until the next board meeting I will second that and and if we're gonna have to just discussion so the just so I understand what we're going to do we're gonna at the before the next board meeting we'd have an executive session discuss whatever legal issue there is and then at the board meeting we could either approve it not approve it or um postpone it again or whatever right is that that's that's the process yes okay and staff will also provide additional information probably just by email about the uh about the bid process um I guess that's what I'm having an issue with right if we're going to get the same information that they give for their bidding process but in the last three months there haven't been any certified firm what would be the point of getting the information so we can know why they're not getting it I might hear what you're saying that we want to get the we want to get the process but that process the process currently that they have has not been working so we're going to get this current process to tell us what we already know what they say is this hasn't been working and and I think that's what leads the board then to talk about policy changes that we think will be effective so are we going to so the course of what you're saying as far as I'm not saying tablet but referring it we're going to refer it we're going to move it to the next board meeting we're going to have executive session about the legalities of voting yay or nay for this resolution we're going to have a board meeting we're going to vote on that and then later on we're going to have executive session about the policy no we're going to have an executive session to discuss the legal issues around the vote on this contract simultaneously help me understand a legal issue because if we're the board so the reason we're not talking about the legal issue right now is because to the extent we talk about the legal issue openly then we're creating more legal issues so that's the reason why and frankly I think we should go into executive session right now because that's what I said 10 minutes ago we wanted to postpone it I think we need to have that executive session now because clearly there's questions that need to be answers yeah I agree okay great let's go do that will find a room we're temporarily what are we suspended thank you everybody um we are reconvening is that the right term reconvening um uh and uh just uh wanted to note for the record we did go into executive session under um Under Oregon statute 192.6602h to confer with legal counsel uh and now we are coming back um our remaining item there's a motion on the table to postpone the uh vote on the contract which I do not remember the exact um name until the next board meeting and that motion has been seconded is there any board discussion before we take a vote so I just want to make sure I'm clear I'm voting to postpone the vote because of concerns about process not the contractor itself great no thank you any uh any any other comments before we take a vote okay um all those in favor of the motion to postpone this until the next meeting please say yes yes yes the motion any abstentions motion passes by a vote of seven to zeroes yes I believe that was the last agenda item thank you everyone uh it was a really exciting day to be here at Jefferson to pass the uh master plan moving forward


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