2023-04-25 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2023-04-25
Time	18:00:00
Venue	PESC Auditorium
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: 2023-04-25 Board of Education Regular Meeting

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foreign [Music] good night [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] soon [Music] [Applause] Justice um foreign [Music] [Music] for justice untrue [Music] against [Music] thank you where Justice is done truth is done [Music] your heart he may watch [Music] system [Music] s and on Justice on truth and on Justice on truth justice [Music]
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please [Music] give it up for the Jackson Middle School choir everyone [Music] foreign [Laughter] [Music] [Music] oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah [Music] oh my God [Applause] [Applause]
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good evening everybody so this public meeting of the board of education for April 25th 2023 is called to order all items being considered this evening are posted on the PPS website under the board and meetings tab the meetings being streamed live on PPS TV services website and on Channel 28 and it will be replayed through the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times so before we move on um to our opening remarks let's give it up for the Jackson Middle School choir you've been enjoying this evening [Applause] to hear from them again here in just a minute tonight I just want to note we're really excited to be back in our newly renovated boardroom here in the Dr profit education center for the past several weeks the room has been closed as we made renovations to make the room Ada accessible so community members using wheelchairs can now access the front of the room using the wheelchair ramp I want to thank the project management team and the facilities department for helping to get this much needed Improvement completed it really does make a difference and I also so thank you to the to the facilities team and I'm glad we finally have an ADA accessible meeting room and I also want to let you know that superintendent Guerrero unfortunately will not be joining us tonight due to illness but we do have Chief of Staff Jonathan Garcia who is stepping in for him this evening thank you welcome to the dice we have we have a few questions for you but we'll hold them till later so just just be ready for them all right with that Chief Garcia would you like to introduce our student performers tonight sure thank you chair Scott so I'm actually going to turn it over to the lead educator at Jackson Middle School uh choir Melinda Murdock Melinda thank you very much the Jackson Middle School Ensemble is an auditioned group consisting of 7th and 8th grade students that meet daily we are on we are an ambassador group from Jackson and regularly performed throughout the Portland region we have participated in the WorldStrides Heritage performance programs for 20 years having twice been awarded the spirit of Anaheim award for our enthusiasm and choral Excellence The Ensemble recently returned from Nashville Tennessee having performed for our ninth time at the prestigious Festival of gold the choir performed beautifully and received many compliments from the guest conductors including Grammy music educator winner Dr Jeffrey Redding our music featured languages from around the world including Farsi bemba Hebrew and English we also premiered a brand new work composed by our accompanist hamadani an arrangement of the Iranian love song Johnny Mariam which you will hear momentarily The Ensemble continues to grow in recognition throughout the Portland area with appearances on television and radio and they consistently receive Superior ratings at the district Music Festival we were the only Middle School choir selected to perform at the music educators National Conference Northwest convention in 2007 and are very excited for this opportunity to represent our community and to share our love of music with such a wonderful audience thank you this is [Music] [Music] everybody [Music] foreign [Music]
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[Music] Empire today [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you so much again to the Jackson Middle School choir for the performance really really appreciate it it's fantastic sure Scott sir if I if I I just wanted to make sure in on in front of you you have your master Arts education plan which we unveiled two weeks ago and you know part of what this master plan calls for is more of this and so we're excited to be able to launch officially our Arts education master plan so folks in the community well I want to check it out it's on our website um and we also have a few hard copies uh back in the back great and as a Jackson Middle School alum I love seeing the music is still very much alive in our schools so thank you for that next up on our agenda we have a resolution to acknowledge April as Asian Pacific Heritage Month Chief Garcia would you like to introduce this item sure thank you chair Scott so while we greatly appreciate the board formally acknowledging this month I think it's important to share some of the ways our schools are marking and celebrating Asian American Pacific Heritage uh Dr Franco can you please come up and share some of the highlights you've seen in schools this month thank you good evening thank you Acting Superintendent chief of staff it's doing an outstanding job we he drew the Short Straw um chair Scott Vice chair Holland's School Board directors and of course um student rec McMahon and it's actually may right May is we're very excited because May is Asian American native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander heritage month and I have to say as a as a proud Asian American myself very extremely proud of my Filipino heritage um I am honored to be able to to talk about this and just talk a little bit about what schools have been doing and what they also have planned for May so um many of our schools first of all they're holding assemblies that include music that include dance that celebrate Asian Pacific Islander native Hawaiian culture brighter mile for example the brighter mile beagles they actually are teaching their kids a song in Mandarin which they are going to be singing at an assembly Aster for example is also having an aapi Asian American Pacific Islander Knight which is outstanding other schools also feature literary works that tell stories which highlight the experiences and celebrate Asian Pacific native Hawaiian people for instance this week author Dane Liu will be working with elementary students at Rose City Park as an example also I just want to call attention too and obviously being somebody who's new just the outstanding dual language work that's happening here in PPS in the languages of Mandarin Japanese and Vietnamese obviously you know being bilingual by literate and of course then bicultural is just uh outstanding uh traits and really proud to uh to be a part of it here in PPS so those are just a few things uh just appreciate the opportunity to talk about uh the great
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things that are happening and then also to to acknowledge and celebrate uh Asian American native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander heritage month thank you great thank you thank you for those comments and thank you for the resolution um do I have a motion in a second to adopt resolution 6689 [Music] hot director to pass moves director room Edwards seconds is there any public comment David swelton [Applause] great welcome uh if you could just state your name and spell your last name and you'll have three minutes when you start speaking okay thank you uh once my once my name is spelled because what's your name is spelled yeah because I got this time now uh my name is David scholten I'm a parent of a second grader at Richmond Elementary School and a crescent educator my last name is spelled s-c-h-o-l-t-e-n proclamations like the one we just heard now should be celebrations of the strength resilience and Excellence of our educators of color instead in this current context these proclamations become harmful gaslighting statements that obscure the true nature of pps's relationship with its educators of color and women Educators who dare to speak about the true PBS in [Applause] Portland Public Schools has the audacity to say it is aligned with this Proclamation yet through its actions PPS shows us that not only is it unwilling to help mitigate the systemic harm faced by Asian black and women Educators rather they are fully committed to perpetuating it Asian American educator Brian Chu brought forth concerns around the lack of community engagement for the I5 Expansion Project and its impact on Tubman students students and Families in response PPS acted swiftly to silence his voice opening an investigation and placing him on administrative leave even in the face of massive student and Community opposition the name of the department and the two people instrumental for this act are Portland Public Schools employee and Labor Relations headed by Genevieve Rowe and Sarah Fitch but the harm they cause is not limited to the targeting of Asian American Educators black educators are also being put under investigation by Genevieve Rowe and Sarah Fitch as they are held to double standards when compared to their white colleagues I have witnessed this person personally as Miss Lovely Abernathy's only black educator Sultan yes we generally don't hear Personnel complaints as part of this public testimony we generally reflect it's not a personal complaint it's not a personal complaint it is it is identifying the people who are instrumental in um in in implementing systemic racism in our district so if I've also Colton if I could just ask if if you could I'm not gonna not say their names we got the we got the clock calls here right yeah Mr school you'll get your full time um if if you if you could I I want you to have time to make the the statements you want to make about the district if we could just keep the Personnel issues out of your testimony not a personal complaint it sounded like you've mentioned people who are under investigation and people who are responsible for it yes and I have and I have Miss lovely's permission and I have Miss lovely's permission so that is not a privacy violation so the issue so I I'd like to continue I'd like to continue I've prepared these remarks and I'd like to continue I've also been reading about two respected black Educators at Oakley green Miss Harris and Mr Damon who are currently under investigation even as their Community Grieves their absence courageous women educators are currently raising concerns about the lack of safety for women and girls in our schools instead of acting to address concerns of sexual violence and intimidation Genevieve Rowe and Sarah Fitch and clear violation of Title IX Target these Educators with bogus investigations in an attempt to silence them that yellow light's off right now so that you'll let you see it fixed that yellow light's off so that's got to get fixed make no mistake Genevieve Rowe Genevieve Rowe and Sarah Fitch are using race and that's wrong are using race and gender to divide Educators and scare them into silence these are union busting tactics attempts to weaken Educators Collective Strength by making examples of our most courageous colleagues who refuse to be silent in the face of Injustice they see in PPS who conducts investigations into the people who had the investigation department where is the accountability where is the accountability for people like Sarah Fitch and Genevieve Rowe Whose actions harm female Educators and students and
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educators of students of color superintendent Guerrero Mr Garcia and board of the directors on behalf of targeted Educators across the district I demand an immediate investigation into Genevieve Rowe and Sarah Fitch's racist sexist and unlawful practice of unfair investigations all PPS employee and Labor Relations Department employees be placed on paid administrative leave Mr pending the outcome of this investigation I'm not going to shout you down all people yes [Applause] does to drive educators of color and vocal women Educators from our district thank you so we're going to move on [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the first week in May is also teacher and administrator appreciation week uh Chief Garcia oh thank you Liz uh actually we do we're going to go ahead and vote on resolution 6689 to recognize may as Asian American native Hawaiian and Pacific on their Heritage Month um we did have a motion for that so all those in favor please indicate actually these are board any board discussion something um I just wanted to say something really quickly um so I'm also an Asian American my I'm half um or Chinese and Filipino and this month is really important and special to me um also as a mixed race person I've definitely faced in the past a lot of confusion around how I identify with my culture and how I participate in um being part of that when I am half white and I think it's a difficulty that a lot of students face but don't necessarily talk about and I think it can be tricky when you're kind of torn not only maybe between two cultures of sort of the dominant which Asian American covers so many different people um but also just being half white and you know having the oppressor but also having the oppressed and I think that that can be something really difficult to navigate and so for the students out there that maybe this month are thinking about well where do I fit in in this do I have a voice within the Asian American Community if I am half white know that those are struggles that many of us face and continue to face and that it's a journey and it's something that's difficult to go through and can be really taxing and hard but I hope that you take this month to know that you are a part of a community and that you are celebrated and that you do have a right to claim your culture even if you have other cultures within you [Applause] any other comments thank you Dr Franco and thank you student representative McMahon for those comments all those in favor of resolution 6689 please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no student representative McMahon yes great any abstentions resolution 6689 is approved by a vote of seven to zero a student representative McMahon voting yes the first week in May is also teacher and administrator Appreciation Week Chief Garcia would you like to introduce this item sure thank you chair Scott PPS teachers and administrators are essential and Foundation to our mission I want to welcome our chief human resource officer Sharon Reese up to speak about the invaluable our invaluable colleagues sure [Laughter] it's been a long time warm directors last year I came before you on the resolution and honor of teacher and administrator appreciation week and a year ago we were in our first year back after covid we were in a critical Staffing shortage we didn't have enough Subs to cover our classrooms and our teachers and administrators were showing up day after day demonstrating resilience and consistency reliability for our students and for each other every component of our system was being called upon to stretch the needs of our
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students in our communities I think it's important to remember this context today because while the public health issue that dominated our lives in our school conditions for so long is being managed and no longer a crisis the needs of our children the needs of our schools the needs of our employees are heightened in innumerable ways as an ongoing output of those conditions we are seeing increased disconnection isolation mental health issues vitriol and violence and our teachers and ministrators are the ones who show up day after day demonstrating that resilience consistency and reliability no one walks into the profession of teaching because it's so easy no one takes on the complex and very public role of leading a school as a principal of VPAP because it's easy or at least no one stays because of that it's a calling it's a commitment to something larger than ourselves teacher and administration appreciation week is when we bring intentional pause and focus to that commitment and that service it is our teachers and our administrators who have the biggest influence on our students and student achievement we talk in the boardroom about policy about how to set systemic conditions but as our teachers and administrators in the classrooms who are doing it in a thousand interactions for 45 000 students every day we have very high expectations and hopes for our students and it is our teachers and our administrators who along with our school staff Who deliver on those there are teachers and administrators on the front lines we're creating places where everyone belongs even when they disagree and are on the front lines of building relationships of modeling and teaching constructive and empathetic engagement so their students can exceed our warm demand to be compassionate critical thinkers able to collaborate and solve problems and be prepared to lead a more socially just world and for that I and we are grateful I'm particularly pleased to be in front of you today because tonight tomorrow night we are recognizing 10 of our teachers and five of our licensed administrators in our inaugural torch Awards we're recognized a total of 30 employees who were pure nodded nominated and exemplify our educator Essentials I look forward to celebrating with them and with the school board tomorrow let me share the voice of one of the Educators I spoke with today I asked her why did you become a teacher she said that she had graduated the top 10 percent of her high school class and she was not ready for college she said she wanted to fix the system for other students like her and for students who had it even less than she did this educator is here working in this District because she wants to be part of the solution to provide better for our youth than she received that educator our Educators bring their heart and soul to serve our community we don't always see it in this boardroom but we see it in our classrooms this resolution is one of the many ways that we recognize and honor teacher Administration appreciation week if you're called upon to bring cookies and potlucks and flowers and notes of gratitude please participate in that as our communities do thank you for the board's attention to this celebration and this recognition thank you thanks for being here do you have a motion and a second to adopt resolution 6690 motion second great director green moves and director brim Edwards seconds uh Miss Bradshaw is there any public comment no is there any board discussion um so I just want to take a second and I'm a student I'm currently a senior in high school and I'm very excited to be studying education in college to hopefully one day give back to the people who gave so much to me um and I just want to say to miss stock said Mr Levine missing corvia Mr lemune principal Watkins principal Goldstein my Elementary School principal Miss troller my literature teacher from last year estasi the teacher who taught me math in the middle of the pandemic keska the biology teacher that made me feel like maybe I am prepared for the IB test Mr Murray and miss langdahl and miss Coda and to all the administrators and teachers both named in this speech and not named it does matter and it does make an impact and ultimately the reason that you all became teachers was yes because you felt a calling and I feel it too and I think that it's the most difficult job in the entire world because you have so much on the line and so much at stake but you were also the
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heroes of every single generation and I cannot wait to be among you one day [Applause] the board will now vote on resolution 669 oh go ahead I'm just gonna add a series of appreciation so as a parent of uh students in PBS for 18 years um they had a lot of teachers who made huge difference in their lives I was a student being paps so I I could come up with a similar list of people even to this day um who have influenced my thinking and the reason and reason why I ran for the school board so I just want to add my thanks because I look at my kids now and they're out of college and um each of them along the way had somebody who really made a difference in their lives and was at different times and there's somebody here tonight who had all three of my kids so thank you to that individual you know who you are because my kids weren't always easy um so just thanks to everybody and I know that um our community knows that you're at the center of our mission thanks foreign [Applause] they the teacher in the administration celebration that we're doing I guess I I feeling it it should be more celebrated and when I look out um in the crowd and when I hear all the email or read all the emails and stuff that's coming it doesn't really seem like they feel appreciated [Applause] I I hear your applause but I just want to just get what I need to say out first thank you um you know and so when I when I see this this type of appreciation I think is great I think this is something that should be on a more regular basis as far as appreciation um but like I said when I hear from a lot of teachers or when I'm getting phone calls from teachers it really doesn't seem as out there so I'm as I I appreciate all the teachers of course teachers had a big influence on my life I've mentioned it before from Mr Davis to Mr Mrs McKenzie to miss Wing to all these teachers that I had in my life to help guide me um I just hope next year this is a more celebration for all of us than that's just you know giving out some words that's it I also want to say a shout out to the teachers here I'm the daughter of teachers the sister and granddaughter of teachers in Portland Public Schools and I appreciate the work you do so much and I'll feel um like director Holland's really good when every single teacher and educator and every adult in our building feels seen and recognized and loved and appreciated but mostly seen seen for the value that they bring whatever that whatever that looks like thank you so the word will now vote on resolution 6690 to recognize teacher and administrator Appreciation Week all those in favor please indicate by saying yes yes I'll opposed please indicate by saying no uh student representative McMahon yes are there any abstentions resolution 6690 is approved by a vote of 7-0 student representative McMahon voting yes next up we're going to go back to our most well-spoken board member student representative McMahon would you like to please provide your report like I feel like I'm very emotional most weird for me okay um so first of all I'd like to thank everybody for coming I think these board meetings I've definitely found in the last um this last year is definitely a trip and it's hard and I appreciate you all coming out to show your support and for the causes that you support um I want to briefly go over some of the stuff that I've been able to do and schools I've been able to visit in the time since um recently I got to go visit Dunaway Elementary School which was the school that I went to for elementary school and it was so great to see the passion and the dedication to teaching that's still there I got to see my fifth grade teacher and my second grade teacher and it's great that you know people stay so in contact with their students and really care and then I also got to hold
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a student safety listening session at Franklin recently and I think that it's really important because sometimes that process is so closed off and hard to reach and so I really appreciate the effort that our District staff put in into making these meetings and being part of these conversations and also to the students that show up even though it is a very difficult conversation to have especially when so much of what's happening is a broader City issue something that is not necessarily exactly what we can address within our schools but trying to find that middle ground where where can our schools help solve these distance systemic there we go issues that are occurring within our country and within our community more broadly um and then also I just want to go back and say obviously it's not quite May yet but for all the students out there I hope and this month is actually Arab American heritage month and so congratulations to all the students and I hope that you've gotten time to not just think about what's happened I think a lot of times for minorities and students of color these Heritage months are more about the things that have happened to you rather than the things that you have overcome and I think so much of the time we get caught up in putting and and making sure that we're teaching and we're learning and we're doing all those things and I think that's great but the most important part of these months are for the people within that Community to celebrate everything that they've been through because you are more than the things that have happened to you and I think that that's a really important part to share and so I'm so glad to see all the celebrations that have been happening as well as the learning that has been happening for our district and also Frankie unfortunately couldn't be here tonight but Frankie Silverstein has been elected as her next student representative and we're very excited um for her to be joining some meetings soon to introduce herself officially to everyone she is a sophomore currently so she's going to be a young student representative not a senior which is very exciting and she's from Franklin High School and then also since we are amongst the election season for District student council and there are a lot of teachers in the audience if your students are interested in having that voice in District decision making the District student council is a body that really works to facilitate student voices within the district and we are always looking for more representation from different schools specifically this year we need a representative from Roosevelt and we are currently hoping to get a representative from Roosevelt for next year as well so if you've got students you know teachers or you can connect to the wider Community please share these opportunities because we do not want them to go unfilled thank you thank you thank you student representative McMahon so next we're going to turn to public comment before we begin I just want to review our guidelines for public comment so first the board thanks you for taking time to attend this meeting and provide in your comments your input in forms and improves our work and we do look forward to hearing your thoughts and Reflections the board office may follow up on any board related issues raised during public testimony we do requests that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a Personnel matter I'm going to stop there for a minute because I don't usually go any further to explain this this is something that we request to be directed for a lot of different reasons primarily because the complaints you have may or may not be valid and I'm not going to suggest that they're not but one of the things that I I do want to just say is that we are talking about people and we're talking about people who are trying to do their jobs as best they can now we as board members we get criticized all the time that's okay it's what we signed up for I would say it's what we get paid for but it's a volunteer position that's not true of staff and one of the reasons why we ask that you do this is so that we can have those conversations and if there are needed investigations if there are needed actions they can be taken through the normal course of action when staff get attacked publicly it has a real impact on them has an impact on their families it has an impact on their motivations and so it's just one of the reasons why we just make that request it's a human request it's something that I believe it's our job as the board and the superintendent's job who's not here today I believe it's it's our job to protect staff from that which is why we make that request [Applause] if you have additional materials or items that you'd like to provide to the board or the superintendent we ask that you email them to public comment all one word pbs.net public comment pps.net when you begin your comments please clearly state your name and spell your last name and you'll have three minutes to speak and there'll be a sound after three minutes at which point we would appreciate it if you can conclude your comments Ms Bradshaw I know we have both some students and people adults signed up for um testimony today yes Aaron Isetta
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before uh hello um I am aaronizetta easy TTA um I am a seventh grader at Beaumont middle school and I am here today to speak to you about safety in my school uh due to recent events I have come to question how serious PBS takes student safety from my perspective it really needs to be improved uh several weeks ago another student put an uncovered box cutter to my throat and then was allowed to come back to the school within weeks um The Assault happened when I was in the back of the classroom looking at a project with a friend there were box cutters left out and I was in the way of the student who threatened me he uncovered the box cutter and started poking my thigh me and my friend yelled at the time to stop but then he puted the knife against my throat and I said I will slit your throat not only is this against the school rule it is a felony and in the PBS handbook it states that there should have been a mandatory one-year expulsion and this has not been fulfilled and when he returned I was told that there would be one-on-one supervision not including the teacher this is not not been befilled either it makes me wonder does PBS follow their own rules and I continue to ask how is this school safe safety should be a priority and when something like this happens that shows the negligence on the part of the school and the district to provide safety of the students my stress my anger and my emotions have shot up since this has happened and it's been hard to focus in school and I know the student who threatened me is in the building when he could find me panic attacks in the cafeteria at home everywhere is not what I need as a 13 year old I should be playing with friends going swimming having a life not crying wondering if something is going to happen to me or my friends I know that I'm not permitted to know what his punishment is but I do know it does not fit the rules created and stated in the PBS handbook my safety and the safety of other students would be improved if PBS actually enforced the documented rules it would create a safer school and a more welcoming place please take just one example as something else that could happen in the future or something worse if PPS does not step up and improve safety then our schools will crumble from the inside we will not have an appropriate place for Education if everyone is so scared to go to school the solution is not just to send students to another school when they violate the rules the solution is to give them help that they need PPS has cut back in that field and is needed more than ever my school is not safe not safe when I know people in positions that can help are not helping me and probably not helping others well this might not be personal to you you may have sons daughters and children I don't want you to get a phone call telling you that your kid has their chance at life nearly taken away from them then an email a few weeks later saying that the offenders are training to school why does this keep happening please think about what has happened to me and do something about it don't ignore the problems with safety in our schools stop allowing people to break your own rules and avoid the consequences I don't need your pity or your promises I need action I'm not asking I am not begging I am demanding that you take charge and provide for student safety do something don't wait for someone to get killed oh [Applause] Jim Chambers Jim Chambers um but Olivia Hughes Kenzie Campbell Otto Shambo my name is Otto shamba s-h-a-m-b-a-u-g-h umley green is one of the only minority majority schools in PPS 62 percent of its population are students of color PPS and the principal at Oakley green are perpetuating the school of prison pipeline school is supposed to set all students up for success but instead they are setting many students up for not only academic failure but also putting some on track to prison seventy percent of people who are incarcerated can't read above a fourth grade level the administration and some other staff at Oakley have ignored concerns for years they have ignored what the students and staff have been asking for and seem not to care about the damage they are causing what's happening at Oakley green and other PPS schools with a large percentage of students of color is a prime example of racism and white supremacy culture the students at okley Green rely on their black and brown staff for so many reasons including a sense of community positive role models and mutual respect and understanding Mr Damon and Miss Harris are some of the only
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African-American staff left at okley and they are some of the only teachers holding the school together Mr Damon is a former Jefferson dancer he has prepared Oakley green students to be Jefferson dancers for 10 years Miss Harris is the only black librarian in the district she chose to be at okley where she could make a difference with students of color other culturally responsive staff of color have chosen to leave this year because of a lack of support from the principal and District now many classes are falling apart at Oakley over a third of my classes are taught by Subs instead of full-time teachers many of the classes watch movies all day or do nothing that looks like learning there is little no structure out Auckland students aren't held accountable for their learning or behavior instead many are just left to fail without support or help in 2018 when Chris Reiser was reinstated the school board said that you needed to act with to quote act with urgency to respond to racial Equity concerns at okligreen end quote now it is 2023 and it seems like yours response to is to urgently get rid of any teachers of color who speaks up to support students of color please do not fire Mr Damon Miss Harris my friends at Oakley really need them to stay thank you [Applause] thank you thank you for Testimony Adam Marr welcome thanks for being here thank you good evening chair Scott Chiefs of Chief of Staff Garcia board of directors and student representative McMahon I apologize for my anxiousness it's really hard for me to speak my I am my name is Adam Maurer spelled m-a-u-r-e-r I'm a proud 13-year alumni of Portland Public Schools as I graduated from Jefferson High School of Performing Arts in 1988 during the era of the late and great Dr Matthew prophet I've been an electrician for 30 years 18 of those years while I've been employed here at PBS and feel it is my obligation to explain to you the importance and value of our in-house maintenance department here are a few examples of our Legacy BPS requires our maintenance teams services to stay open we are considered essential employees though we are not incentivized to do so and are required to port for work here every day we do not get to work from home virtually because we need to be present in the buildings to work at the heart of what we do we need to be available to respond urgently to fix what is broken and to keep the buildings open safe and running properly for staff students and you our number one priority is keeping schools open because of this we work overtime on the weekends and sometimes during holidays this is how repairs get done and that prevents disruption to the classroom or a busy office environment when a school closing event arises we go to work hard to get it back open in the past we have worked with covet closure when teachers students and administrative staff were sent home we returned after six weeks off to work and make the most of our time to do vacant building repairs and update work during covid virtual learning when everyone was home we were here working in schools and the worst snowstorms events when most people would not drive to work or school we came in just like custodians shoveled snow off the sidewalks and laid down snow melt so students and staff could return to safer conditions that we arrived in we also responded to school needs during extreme weather events like flooding high heat ice storms and wind damage we have helped to deliver and set up dispensing water coolers and 5 gallon water bottles for schools that had water pipes and fixtures that contaminated the water with lead we came to work during Wildfire Seasons even when our own homes were at risk of evacuation we were exposed to unsafe smoke levels while setting up schools with air filters that the warehouse purchased to use inside the classrooms and offices we are First Responders and have responded to fires floods natural gas leaks sparking electrical issues and in some cases we provided institutional knowledge and support to fire department to resolve the issues that they were responding to and lastly our maintenance team is so
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dedicated that they sacrifice Prime vacation time during spring summer winter breaks when buildings are vacated to repair inspect and upgrade schools and offices so teachers and office staff will be less impacted it is my hope that providing these examples of our loyal and dedicated surface to keeping buildings repaired occupied and operational even in the most unsafe conditions have earned a place in your heart so that you may support our staff when we are in crisis thank you for your valuable time and consideration [Applause] thank you for your testimony and Mr Maurer thank you for your 18 years of service to Portland Public Schools Anthony here Harrington Joe McFerrin Eldridge fantroy thank you thank you for being here tonight welcome my name is Eldritch fan Troy f as in Frank a-n-t-r-o-y members of the PPS Board of Education thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you tonight as I stated my name is Eldridge fantro and I have the honor of serving on the board of Mount Scott Learning Center one of the district's option high schools Mount Scott has been successfully serving PPS students for more than 25 years I'm here in support of increasing annual student investment account funding for the PPS student served at Mount Scott specifically I'd like to request the district increase Mount Scott student investment account allocation proposing superintendents 2023-2024 budget to an amount much closer to the requested 2786 dollars per student this request is more than just a dollar amount to me I see the faces of the students who will benefit from this funding my personal experience in foster care and my many years serving and advocating for under-resourced Youth and families has imprinted in my Consciousness a face connected with every allocation of our resources I see the young people and their families I had the privilege of serving in my role as family Pastor for a local church I see the face of the 19 year old young man I mentored since fourth grade whose life was recently cut short by gun violence I see this student with the learning disability who sits silently in the back of the classroom badly needing help I see the student who works almost 40 hours a week out of necessity because their baby sister needs milk and their other siblings need winter coats I see students trying to overcome their Ace score students with mental health challenges students who have been historically marginalized by an education system that has not always seen them therefore I see something more than a dollar amount I see it as a hope amount because our resources are a tool which provide us the ability to plant hope in the lives of the students who need it most the students I described are PPS students that Mount Scott predominantly serves and they are also the students that the Oregon student investment account was intended to serve yet I am troubled by the reality that the districts propose investment in these PPS students is disproportionately small compared to other allocations this leaves Mount Scott with the responsibility of providing the bulk of the additional Staffing and expenses needed to appropriately serve these PPS students now I recognize that the school district has some tough budget decisions to make but as these decisions are being made I am hopeful they will be made in the best interest of all PPS students members of the board thank you all for acknowledging that the needs of PPS students are as diverse as the community that these students come from with this awareness you have provided PPS high school students with options like Mount Scott Learning Center understanding that not every student's path to graduation looks the same now our hope is that with the district and board support of Mount Scott you can put Equity into action and provide the basis for Mount Scott to continue this very important and
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life-changing work thank you all thank you thank you I have [Applause] just got one quick question what is the current level of funding right now if you have that information I don't have that information I I had a similar question and I didn't I don't think I got the number down that what what your ask was it was 2786 per student thank you Ike Harris thank you Mr Harris welcome thank you for being here good afternoon and greeting to the PPS School Board my name is aisham Ike Harris I am a photo year resident of Concordia neighborhood uh the purpose of me being here today is to make a presentation in regard to a community center at 42nd Street North of Killingsworth it has come to our attention that Portland Public School has developed a long-range facility plan that when developed will include an athletic herb on the corner of 42nd Avenue and Northeast Killingsworth the athletic herb would provide PPS students facilities for football track baseball softball lacrosse soccer and swimming the site is geographically located in the middle of two historically underserved high schools in the PBS both of which remain Tyler warned schools in the current 2022-2023 school year the Otis V McDaniel High School Jefferson High School the kids at PBS deserve access to sporting facilities particularly at the middle school and high school levels as this is a time when access to practice opportunities have been proven to increase academic building teamwork develop leadership skills and boost Seth esteem we also recognize that our community as a whole is becoming more dense with much needed housing in the form of multi-unit housing complexes and there is less opportunity for Gathering and connecting and we want to underline Gatherings and connecting with our neighbors we propose that when the sports sports hub and Facilities built the Greater Community is allowed to use is allowed to use the facility while the kids are at school what aerobics group fitness classes and Community meetings are some examples of how we imagine the facility could be used our neighborhood does not terminally offer a nearby Portland parks and recreation community center we recognize that collaborating funding Planning and Building a facility such as these can take years we would like to become a partner in this process we see an immediate need for a community hub a community center such as this so we are asking for immediate consideration from the board we propose that we work together and start initializing the project now so that in two or three years Our Youth and Community have the support facility resources needed for continued safety growth and a sense of belonging together we can do great things we look forward to working with you in community the Concordia neighborhood association thank you thank you thank you thank you [Applause] thank you again everybody who is here to testify tonight next up on our agenda the service employees International Union has requested to speak this
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evening and so I believe Chris Walters from SEIU is here [Applause] thank you so much for joining us tonight everyone thank you for having me I hope that you all have one of these everybody if you need more copies we can figure that out but all right looks like everybody's got some uh so yeah my name is Chris Walters I am the head chef at McDaniel High School w-a-l-t-e-r-s and uh so I'd like to talk to you briefly about the petition uh this petition has been signed by a majority of the sci SEIU members as well as members from our Union Partners uh community members parents and students uh I definitely encourage you to read some of the testimonies in there um many of our staff have to work second Jobs live paycheck to paycheck simply put these uh situations are not tenable for long-term employment with PPS and we are looking to change that within our in our bargaining and we hope to have the board support for that we would also like to address the grievance that we have about the snow day um some of our custodians had to walk home in the snow because Transit had shut down others had to get lifts for 80 or more if they could afford it otherwise they were walking many people were injured shoveling snow some suffered from colon frostbite and when we uh product grievance to PPS it was rejected we had some of our custodians show up for a rally on March 16th and they were locked out of the building even denied bathroom access a uh something that I would consider Petty cruel and also pathetic um so we would like for you all to at least give us some human decency when we show up about the [Applause] and going back into what we're bargaining about we've got a whole list of things including changes to the uh inclement weather policy our grievance was something about not getting Hazard pay for the custodians who in some cases literally risked their lives to keep the schools open uh they were denied Hazard pay in this grievance because this building was considered open most of the staff I'm assuming were working comfortably from home but in case anybody did want to come down and work here the doors were open so because this building was open despite the fact that all the schools were closed and there was a state of emergency the custodians were all denied Hazard pay nutrition services folks just sat at home and didn't get paid because you know so that's one of the things that we're looking to address but we are looking to go through the entire contract article by article and make some changes and the impression that we've gotten from the management side is that they want to discuss economic issues and that's about it that they're content with the status quo of the current agreement and judging from uh information from our Pat Partners looks like they're negotiating uh counterparts are also basically willing to stick with the status quo and that's about it and the status quo isn't working it just isn't um [Applause] [Music] thank you we have schools where the conditions are dirty Vermin infested no student should be in there in the summer it's too hot in the winter it's too cold because the heating and the cooling systems either are non-existent or don't work and that's not a knock on the custodians they work darn hard and folks like Adam Mauer that guy is incredible anytime I need something in my kitchen Adam shows up and he gets it done um and we work really hard and we're just not
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getting the support we've asked for an APPA audit for our schools and one has been promised it is apparently in the works but it has been delayed multiple times it probably won't happen until the next school year and having an APPA audit is something that would allow us to look at the actual conditions have an outside group that it's their job to look at public buildings and assess them and that assessment would show the actual true condition of the Portland Public Schools and what they would need the Staffing that they would need and it seems to us that the district is in no hurry to have this done um apparently more information is needed but the information that is needed requires highly subjective not particularly objective assessments by head custodians who often don't have enough time to do them anyways and so apparently the information that is needed to make this happen isn't going to come anytime soon so who knows how long this assessment is going to be delayed but it needs to happen soon because our buildings need work and clearly whatever Staffing levels we have is not working huh so yeah even the profit Center apparently has uh bug issues we would definitely like for you all to look into the app audit and see if you all can push to get this done sooner rather than later not during the summer please can you just clarify for us if we're looking up what an app audit is over here because I don't know what it is all right the American physical plan Association great okay that's the one yes go for Google uh I I got app audit saying how you need to audit your apps to make them better on social media and I did not think that was what you were talking about it's an outside group that comes in to see how you're doing right yes and that they give ratings uh currently we suspect that most of our buildings would fall into the category of moderately dingy um which is the third category uh just above the Nile neglect um certainly my experience at McDaniel is it's a beautiful new school I really appreciate the opportunity to work there but there aren't enough custodians and you know that 200 million dollar investment is going to go to ruin if it doesn't have enough people to to maintain it which you know I as stewards of public funds that should be a strong consideration for you because that's you know part of a billion dollar Bond one of a bunch of billion dollar bonds and if those billion dollars aren't being spent and maintained then why are taxpayers voting for it um I would certainly rethink book voting for the next one as a taxpayer uh so yeah those are a lot of what we're pushing for is to change the structure to change the status quo to make this District better for the students for the parents for the community members and especially for the people who work in the buildings teachers custodians the uh admins all those folks great thank you sure any questions for me or appreciate your testimony it's not a question so much as an observation and I know that you're already on board with this the the things you're asking for in terms of wages better major maintenance operations and maintenance funding something that I do in my day job as well for public facilities you know takes funding and and I know you're on board with with with the request at the state level as well and and I think that I would love nothing more than to make sure that we are investing you know between six and ten percent of our operating budget into you know our our major maintenance and into operations and maintenance so that we can keep up those facilities there are trade-offs right now because of the state school funding formula and so just continuing to push as hard as we can for increasing that funding to a more reasonable level which would allow us to do more of these things but I appreciate your testimony and it was part of our budget conversation which we're also having tonight and we'll continue over the next few weeks this issue is going to come up so thank you very much for being here tonight [Applause] so next [Music] [Applause] next up tonight uh we also have the
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Portland Association of teachers who's uh requested uh to speak tonight and so president Bonilla there she is [Applause] [Music] and thank you [Music] as um as president Bonilla is getting set up I just want to thank you for being down in Salem last week to do exactly what we just talked about and testify both on our Levy Bill and also um um give an incredible uh I thought an incredibly powerful statement about the kicker and including some ideas out there which may have been you know a little bit uh not what the committee wanted to hear but really important for them to hear so thank you for your partnership in that as well yes thank you um you just kind of jumped ahead in one of my Kudos but um Angela Bonilla uh president Portland Association of teachers I wanted to thank all of you on the board director Scott from Edwards Hollins constam and student representative McMahon for coming down to Salem to testify we brought down several Educators as well especially our special education Educators to testify to testify yeah [Applause] and we did this during spring break and then later um uh in the in the month in order to increase the bond cap so we can keep more of the funds we raise in Portland removing the sped funding cap which limits how much funding additional funding we can get from the state for our students in special education as well as increasing the state school fund to current service levels because we need to get to the Quality education model and we're not going to get there by going backwards I also want to give a shout out to the heart of Portland event I know our vice president was able to attend um so thank you to PBS for coordinating and special thanks to our Visual and Performing Arts Educators and tosos for the work they did to make that happen it was amazing people loved it thank you um got a lot of Kudos it's been a while since I've been here uh so thank you to Christina Howard and Lisa Blount for working with me to develop the peer mentor program for educators of color for next year we hope to recruit several educators of color in order to provide peer support on just how to survive in this District as an educator of color so I'm really excited we're going to get that off the ground and also a kudos to educator Lisa van Clark for organizing the reunification drill over at grout Elementary so a reunification drill is when a school works on the plan specifically to reunite students with their families after a disaster and so I just want to appreciate the support from the district and the opportunity to observe the drill with others on the superintendent safety task force it was amazing to see folks were really good at it for it being the first drill they've done in that way in several years and they were able to unite I believe the number was 90 families in 30 minutes so that is awesome and very exciting that they have a plan um and so now I want to raise a few questions that have come to me to the board um the first is around the topic of our summer acceleration Academy um so last year after I began um officially my term on July 1st I was Fielding calls and emails from Educators across the district who were teaching at the summer acceleration Academy and when I went to visit sites what I saw was pretty astounding there were water bottles melted by the heat students with high levels of need enrolled in these programs without the adequate support some who had never been in a general education classroom in their whole career at as PPS students we're now shoved into general education classrooms and I witnessed students running out into the street you know with an adult oh actually hold on wait don't um because they were overwhelmed by the sensory inputs in the new building and I also saw several dedicated Educators paraprofessionals and administrators doing the best they could with the Staffing that they had and I did bring those concerns I was able to meet with Jay buno last summer and I was hoping bringing those concerns to light would help PPS plan for a more inclusive Summer Academy for this 2023 school year unfortunately when the criteria was sent out for this year's summer Academy I was immediately Fielding phone calls again because the current criteria only allows certain students to be invited to the summer acceleration Academy but the criteria outlined in the FAQ sent to Educators effectively eliminates all students who may qualify or currently qualify for special ed services we were also told not to share the criteria as it would violate the family educational rights and Privacy Act um
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which I'm a little confused about because I know that we share things like a student has to have 70 attendance before we start uh doing Special Ed evaluations for example with families um so I'm still confused as to why that's something that we can't share out um but the biggest concern is that we've created the district management has created a criteria that discriminates against the very students who may need the support the most and so we I ask that you please reach out to the administrators that are in charge of the summer acceleration Academy to ensure that they're not systemically discriminating against our students with disabilities I'm sure it's [Applause] I am sure that was not the intent but that is the impact that we're seeing on the ground and we want to make sure that that is not followed through on um I also have some concerns about our assignment and unassignment process right now we have several Educators who are still unassigned and do not have a position and typically that is uh done before summer before spring break I know that Stacy Zhang in her office are working as hard as possible to figure out how to assign or reassign the 240 FTE they unassigned this year but unfortunately part of the plan is quote working as quickly as possible to identify new vacancies which include approving leave requests and processing retirements and resignations on a daily basis as soon as they are received why do we need new vacancies shouldn't we have enough positions for the Educators that are unassigned and if we don't I ask that PPS management be honest with Educators and tell them the truth if there is not a position for them educators are sharing that they feel like they're being strung along I have emails from Educators who are actively considering leaving the district because of the uncertainty and not knowing where they will be next year and then with this issue along with the over 50 toses who were unassigned I'm really worried we're going to lose our most experienced educators and of course you know we know that our most experienced educators are also our highest earning Educators so we know that there is a financial aspect to that but I'm I know that that's not part of the decision I just want to make sure that we can explain to Educators their current status do they have a position or do they not so they can make the appropriate choice for their themselves and their families um last I want to talk uh touch on or second to last I want to touch on the comments about educators of color and disproportionate discipline um so I want to be clear that I've shared this data with member leaders and committees within our Union I've also shared it with PBS and it was oh it's all good uh it was uh it this all comes from an information request that I submitted to HR so these are district numbers that I have disaggregated um according to Ode reports from 2019 to 2020 we had 79 percent white Educators and 21 black indigenous people of color color and multiracial educators 2021 school year we had 78 White percent white Educators and 22 bypoc and multiracial Educators and that is the same for 2021 and 2022 so we increased by one percent from the data around discipline we had 20 bypoc Educators accounted for 23 percent of our plans of assistance and that is two percent higher than they are of the percentage of the workforce from 1920 or for and one percent higher than the 2021 school year they accounted for 33 of written reprimands compared to their percentage of the workforce they that is 12 more than they are of the workforce for 1920 and 11 more from the 2021 school year yes oh okay can you can you explain what yes sorry yes a plan of assistance in theory is a plan given to an educator when they are struggling to provide um appropriate instruction or there's a lagging skill this is a way for administrators to provide a written plan saying these are the things we need to work on and these are the things I will Coach you on typically those happen after several observations and evaluations and saying oh I think we can support you with a little bit more um what we've seen unfortunately is sometimes plans of assistance are enacted before student before educators are given the support on the front end so they do end up feeling disciplinary and Educators end up feeling like they are now being supported by folks that they haven't gotten support from in the past so that trust is very hard to maintain um and president Bonilla may ask you to back up um can you repeat that statistic about the disproportionality just the numbers I couldn't write yeah I will
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slow down because numbers are I like to measure things so I'm trying to track so um and I can send this all an email to the board as well so 23 of plans of assistance while they were only 21 of the Educators in 1920 and 22 percent of the Educators in 2021 and 2021-22 they were 33 percent of the written reprimands compared to being 21 of the popular of our Educators in 1920 and 22 in 20 and 21. they were given 20 they were 26 of the letters of expectation so a letter of expectation is usually part of this Progressive discipline where an educator may be told you know this is something you're not doing I expect you to do this and it is given to them and it is part of discipline so educators of color and multiracial Educators constituted 26 of the letters of expectations given while only being 21 or 22 of our teaching population 27 of the tspc reports so the reports to are um to the state agency that gives us our certification to teach um came were given to educators of color who again were only 21 or 22 of our teaching Force and this was based on cross-referencing names with our database of self-reported race from educators so in my position I'm seeing more incidences of black indigenous and educators of color experiencing bad evaluations being unassigned being disciplined without a history of support and this is most impactful for our colleagues in probationary status so having the lack of support and not being seen impacts their ability to stay in the district and get renewed and I want to see what we can do and what a concerted effort would look like to make sure that we don't lose our educators of color why do you think they see us those are great questions the question was why why do you think this is I think part of it is as a person who moved to this state from a city that was much more diverse is the difficulty adapting to Portland Oregon if you're not from here and even if you are from here um and I think it is it is very hard to find community and so that is part of why we put in our contract that peer support program to make sure that educators of color who are new to the district will have an educator of color who can help them understand the ropes I think the other part is that we have a lot of Educators being pushed into like you are a great coach you are great at this other job please become a teacher and then they join buildings that have inexperienced administrators because those those are the buildings that usually have the vacancies and the higher needs so they're not getting the coaching and support that they need to be successful and that leads to that Progressive discipline um I also believe that we have had a just a lot of need recently so even our most experienced educators are struggling um as I've said before I I speak to teachers and they say you know a class of 30 now is not like a class of 30 when I started right and so new Educators who maybe are still learning on the job how to do the job are experiencing populations that have higher need than they could have experienced in the past and that maybe their University training would have trained them for so those are a few of the pieces I think are impacting that I want to remind folks that we have close to 56 percent white students with 44 multiracial and students of color as of 2122 so we already do not reflect our student population and we miss that Mark by about 22 so we have to make sure we retain as many educators of color as possible in addition to recruiting more educators of color so this is all to say that the disproportionate discipline happening against bless you happening against our students is not because of bad students or as PPS management has asserted multiple times due to our Pat contract they are being disciplined because they exist within a school system that perpetuates harm specifically for both students and staff of color this isn't a contract problem this is a systemic problem we need to train our staff we need to support our educators of color and we need you all to listen to us when we tell you that the discipline system is broken for both our Educators and students thank you um and this leads to my last Point um we were supposed to bargain with PPS management this Thursday about
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compensation where we were offered um the last time we we were offered compensation we were offered a 2.5 cost of living adjustment for each of the next three years um and in case you weren't aware of that meeting for this week was canceled and I understand that we're all working hard I know that Hungerford law which is the law firm that represents the district and multiple districts across the state uh is doing a lot of work they just agreed to over a 21 percent uh cost of living adjustment over three years and class size caps to settle their contract with the Woodburn Education Association [Applause] thank you the Woodburn Education Association had a strike vote in order to get to that settlement and I hope that PPS is not going to follow the lead of Hungerford law and other school districts who push their Educators to the point of striking in order to get a fair contract we want safe sustainable and Equitable schools we want to be able to do that with the least disruption to our students as possible and so we look forward to the next time we will be able to meet with the district at the bargaining table in order to get to that settlement and get a fair contract for our Educators thank you for your time I really appreciate it and I'll email you that data later and see you all around thank you merry thank you [Music] thank you president Bonilla thank you for being here all right next up on our agenda tonight our board community and Conference reports um so I'll just see if there are any updates from our board members I know the audit committee um has items on the agenda tonight so we're going to be dealing with uh those um Charter and alternative programs anything to report no director green intergovernmental committee director constant if anybody wants to join us at 8am we tomorrow we have a meeting and just direct everybody's attention to our updates from Lisa Merrick who's doing a great job of keeping everybody apprised of what's going on in Salem on a weekly or bi-weekly basis great thank you we have a meeting at 8 A.M our intergovernmental committee meeting's at 1 pm I thought okay meeting at one planning to show up all right uh policy committee director Lowry um we have a policy committee meeting Thursday we had a really great um engagement time with Community to talk about ideas for the foundation that was headed up by director Hollins and I supported him with some facilitation and it was great to try to get the ball moving and have some more conversations about a really important topic to our community sorry when is that meeting this week it's Thursday at 4 P.M Thursday or 8 A.M one of the two first day at four great facilities and operations uh report not a report but I do want to comment on the uh policy committee that we had on the 12th that director Lowry assisted me with I did a lot of him with I really wanted to let you know I really appreciate you um I think with how you handled the crowd how you handled everything that was going on it could have it could have went as well without you so I just want to say thank you for that this is one of the things I love about our board is we you and I have very different backgrounds we have very different skill sets and we come together and Magic happens right like we we make each other better and have different perspectives and that's that's one of the beauties of being on a board of diverse interesting people is when we work together it's amazing and it benefits our kids I love you both so thank you for being here uh local option Levy committee director from Edwards yeah and the only thing I noted it earlier but we do have a bill down in Salem and we're continuing to yeah actually going to wait to thought originally that the bill would move a little bit earlier in the session so it's probably prudent for us to um see what comes out um or what gets moving great okay next up uh we've lost a big chunk of the crowd but thank you for those who are still here because that's not what you think it is because next up uh Chief Garcia is going to present the superintendent's proposed budget for the 2023-2024 school year um let me just give a little bit of context this is one of the most important things we do as a board every year um I want to talk a little bit about where we are in the overall timeline for Budget adoption we've had a number of opportunities throughout this entire
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year to hear and weigh in on the formulation of the 2023-24 budget this began we had a first budget work session all the way back in November of last year we had additional work sessions in February and two work sessions in March we both meeting with outside groups that have been helping we've also met with our community budget Review Committee as part of that process as well so tonight is the what I would say is the sort of official step under local budget law but it's really the continuation of what has been about a six-month conversation uh on this 2023-2024 budget so Chief Garcia uh you get the honor tonight and I know the superintendent is so frustrated he can't be here tonight but you get the auditor honor of filling in and talking to us yes you talked about his perfect attendance to date so the fact that he's not here on an important date uh says something so uh again good evening everyone uh and thank you chair Scott uh for those of you just tuning in uh I'm Jonathan Garcia's PPS chief of staff uh the team and I are delighted to present the superintendent's proposed budget for the 23-24 school year I'm joined at the Deus by Dr Renard Adams chief of research assessment and accountability Dr Kimberly Armstrong Chief academic officer Juno Chang senior budget manager and Alexandra Martin Finance program manager actually no it's Kristen Johnson not Alexander Martin uh as you all know our CFO deladio continues to be out of the office we are thankful that he is on the road to a full recovery and hope to have him back with us in the near future uh maybe next week I want to thank the budget and finance team for your extra lean in towards during this budget season as superintendent Guerrero articulated in his annual budget message our district sits at an inflection point we have a Community Vision for who we want to be a strategic plan outlining the steps to realize it and a set of student outcome goals we aim to achieve unfortunately enrollment continues to decline here and across Oregon state revenue is not keeping up with the cost of operating schools and our students needs continue to grow this presents a set of real constraints requiring us to prioritize how we'll invest in the invest the available resources to accomplish our goal of ensuring Student Success the critical steps we take in the coming school year and the decisions we make regarding how to best support and serve Children and Youth will help to determine how quickly we improve educational outcomes and become the St the district our students and staff deserve given the rising cost of doing business our proposed budget attempts to be efficient in how we integrate and leverage all of our available Revenue resources it builds on our shared successes and continues our objective of providing a joyful and a high quality teaching and learning experience for every PPS student next year next slide despite many challenges our budget proposal continues our effort to align all of our dollars sourced from local state and federal resources to the vision we have for PPS next year's budget proposal remains focused on providing a joyful and a high quality teaching learning experience for every PPS student and that's exactly what you'll hear tonight tonight's presentation will include an overview of our budget proposal with a specific focus on the general and special Revenue funds these two funds represent the majority of dollars we spend on day-to-day operations and strategies that aim at providing students high quality teaching and learning experiences in every classroom every day instruction that helps every student achieve our graduate portrait and close persistent and unacceptable gaps in outcomes based on race you will also get a sense of how these dollars translate to activity directly supporting students and student achievement included in this will be a high level overview of projected K5 class size distribution and a look at how School leaders are planning to use their one-time Esther dollars pending your approval of course tonight is the first of many opportunities as uh chair Scott mentioned for directors in our community to weigh in so we encourage you to ask questions seek clarification and engage with the material we provided to you ahead of tonight's meeting next slide as I said at the top of my remarks we are on the road to becoming the school district where every student and educator thrives and achieves excellence as we align our dollars time and effort with our community's vision we are seeing encouraging signs unlike State and National downward Trends our standardized test scores indicate we have mitigated adverse impacts on student learning
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as another key indicator our graduation rates continue to steadily improve higher than an increasing faster than the state's posted averages and we continue to narrow gaps for historically underserved student groups for example for the class of 2020 our graduation rate for black students was 20 times greater than the state's average growth rate these early but positive signs are indicative of the steadfat focus on strengthening student learning across every school and classroom we've made Investments to provide students and their families a robust menu of Summer programming which helped mitigate pandemic related gaps provided enrichment opportunities for students and offset typical summer slides we are making sure students who require the most support have access to more personalized interventions including access to learning acceleration Specialists and high dosage tutoring we know that foundational literacy skills are pivotal to long-term Student Success so we continue to place an emphasis on early literacy our investments in professional learning instructional materials and assessments are narrowing gaps in receiving praise here in Oregon and across the U.S and with mental and behavioral needs growing we are making strides to make social workers and councils available across every school we continue to expand Career Technical education courses Arts education Pathways and out of school programming in fact over the last five years we've doubled our student enrollment and CTE courses and strengthened our nationally recognized dual immersion programs which have tripled the number of graduates earning the Seal of by literacy I understand we have a long way to go but the successes come in part to all of us aligning our strategies our actions and our very limited resources to ensuring Equity of access to high quality learning experience across all schools and classrooms next slide before I turn it over the team to walk you through the proposed budget overview I want to share one more thing I am proud of who we are as a district we have grown as a learning organization and understand that to be a high performing school system we must fundamentally and I say fundamentally this is what the superintendent would would know emphasize a focus on high quality teaching and learning in every classroom and we must remain committed to equitably supporting our schools and our students to realize our graduate portrait of course and the board knows this well our challenge is to honor all of our commitments within the constraints of the moment we Face Rising expenses we have limited revenue and we have declining enrollment our general fund has remained flat and we have fewer sources of special Revenue as directors have noted we must make prudent decisions now to continue building on our successes and with that I'm going to turn it over to Juno to walk us through some uh the next slides uh thank you Mr Garcia good evening directors my name is Juno Chang and I am the senior budget manager for PPS our proposed budget for next year totals 2.17 billion dollars this includes a projected 823.4 million dollar general fund these dollars are used for day-to-day operations of the district and include the local option Levy for 114.7 million dollars which supports over 850 teacher positions the Arts education and access fund for 4.5 million dollars which supports high quality Arts education and our proposed reserves for 43 million which maintains the minimum Reserve Target for five to ten percent as per board policy it also includes the 247.7 million dollar special Revenue fund These funds are assigned for specific purposes such as one-time restricted funds from Esser which was about uh 36.3 million dollars or the state integrated integrated Grant funds like the Student Success act and measure 98 51.9 million dollars our 2023 24 proposed budget also includes 1.09 billion dollars in capital projects and Debt Service funds we want to thank portlanders for supporting our bond program which is now celebrating 10 years of modernizing Portland schools as you will know in this Slide the general fund revenues have remained somewhat flat uh year over year it's about a 2.4 percent increase special Revenue dollars significantly decreased by 25 percent from last year
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that's mostly one-time Federal Esser dollars and capital project funds went up significantly by 44 percent I will note that the significant increase here is due to in large part to the recording of the 120 million dollars for the relocation of Harriet Tubman Middle School 419 million dollars for the 2023 Bond and a 224 million dollars spend down on other capital projects compared to fiscal year 23 adopted budget next slide please before you leave that slide just a question about um so it looks like we have over a billion dollars on the operating side what number of students are we projecting I'm just trying to think about like what our per student uh dollar is on the capital on the not the capital side the operating side uh per student do we have the person just like how many students are we projecting yeah there's an enrollment slide uh I can get to that in just a minute director Broome Edwards um yes uh next slide please because one of the things I'll be interested in is just the comparative of what the per student was last year versus this year just given our enrollment changes absolutely thank you um there are many ways to look at and interpret our budget um for example how do these dollars translate to FTE or people in roles around the district for next year our general fund and special Revenue fund uh budget proposes a total of 6148 FTE this includes 3439 fde who support direct classroom instruction of which 740 FTE are sped that's about 21.5 percent of those fde another 2 385 FTE who provide direct student support uh of which 297 FTE are sped about 12.5 percent and these include uh social workers guidance counselors School psychologists speech pathologists principals assistant principals nutrition services custodial staff and student transportation and then an additional 324 FTE to support the operations of essential District services so in total close to 95 percent of our FTE directly supports students in schools it would be possible to share like the that breakout it's just the way it's done in percentages they're huge categories and so like students understanding what students support like what student support means and again this is for like our broader public who sometimes um wonders like seems like we have a lot of money like what where exactly is that going so having a little bit more I think is what you just read would be super helpful but to have oh on the track I appreciate it being told I'm a visual learner and I know I know that every year comes up and when you have like the big categories like what actually does that mean like where are the custodians where's the absolutely so let me just ask John well I know we are um keeping that sort of running list of budget questions so this is great we'll put things like that on the list so that we can obviously don't need to answer everything tonight but we'll put it on the list so we can get answers back as we go through the process yeah I would just um it'd be super helpful also to well as many as we could have answered tonight since we have such a it's like whatever three and a half weeks um well I guess the other thing is if we're doing a running set of questions just like how it where it links to inside the budget book so um it when after the meeting when we get to answer the questions like here's the slide that said X and you know here's where it would link to you know page 80 just so we can bring the numbers all together because the budget books are great it's just not clear necessarily where the pieces All Connect that's right thanks we'll make sure and before you move to the next slide I do have the numbers for you uh for student counts so uh just for the last 22 23 you're looking at 44 773 14. 44 773 44 000 773 and for 2324 projected we're looking at 44 288 so about a 500 percent student decline is that correct Dr Adams um that is correct and I want to also say that is our total District enrollment which includes students that are not in um our Public School how well not in PPS buildings but are in Charters and cbo's as well if you if you would like the numbers um that factor into Staffing our particular schools I can offer those up at this time if that would also be helpful for the
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for the current year that number is 42 573. and next year's projected is 41 785. so that's um you take out the Chargers and the alternative programs yes thank you where where are the like where is the reduction in population coming from this primarily like is it kind of across grade levels or is it concentrated in a certain area more concentrated at the elementary level in the primary grades kindergarten first second and uh director Brandon Edwards to answer your question about per pupil spending uh this document is in your um it's one of the ham handouts and it includes per people spending uh from the last three or four years by school yeah I'm yeah I appreciate that and I I'm trying to look at like also the bigger like District just level um because we compare it to other other districts there's a chart later on if it's like also what we look at class sizes is just then you know what what per dollars we have generally for um instruction so thank you great thank you uh next slide please so while our budget is made up of five distinct funds uh totaling 2.17 billion dollars we are going to focus tonight's presentation on the general fund and the special Revenue fund uh two sources that pay for the day-to-day operations of the district uh first start general fund what you'll see on this slide is the combination of resources that make up the general fund in total we are receiving 737 million dollars in new Revenue this includes three major categories but not exclusive of Revenue 330 million dollars from local property taxes 260 million from a combination of state and federal revenue it's nearly all of which is the state school fund dollars and the 115 million from the local option Levy so in all our Revenue total 373 million dollars uh or about 34 million dollars more than last year you can see the breakdown and comparison uh to last year by Source here uh our proposed beginning fund balance uh those are the funds that we plan to carry over to next fiscal year is 87 million so together this makes up the 823 million for the proposed general fund this is a question that can be answered at the next meeting but at the end of last year there was um a whole host of actions the district said it was going to take sweeps and freezes and everything else and I'd be interested to know exactly how much when we tied it all off um what those savings resulted in and then the second question is and I brought this up when we talked about it um at the time was so some of those freezes is like so then we're going to reopen positions and I think the answer last year was like well we're going to strategically maybe open reopen positions even last year but um the positions that were swept and the dollars that were swept um did they get reset into this year's budget so I'd like to better understand that yes so um if you uh the adopted fiscal year 23 uh contingency was about 50 million right now we are budgeting for fiscal year 24 with a beginning fund balance of about 86 to 87 million so it's about a 36 million dollar savings that we were able to kind of capture throughout this year it was just great I know there was like an um like a number of FTE so teachers and other you know and and contracts and other things it's like I'd be interested in what like what how we achieved the 36 million dollars in savings and then what of that is going to be carried forward so if say say there were 100 teachers I'm just using that for illustration that we said we're not we're not going to fill those positions this year and the question is is that that reduction just carry forward into the next year so I'm interested in the specific thank you next slide please and so the last slide was the general fund Revenue uh this uh slide represents the proposed expenditures by category compared to last year so as you will know on the far right side uh of this
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slide we expect to have 43 million dollars in operating contingency these reserves of 43 million represent just above five percent minimum threshold that is required by board policy for the general fund Reserves which is 41 million so it's a little bit higher in total proposed expenses for next year total 780 million or about 27 million more than last year two notable increases you'll see 13 million in more in services mostly an increase in transportation costs to True up kind of actual spent for student transportation and another 11 million in Associated payroll costs this is a slight increase in our pers contributions and other employee benefits like health insurance this also includes the implementation of the paid leave Oregon or also known as the Paid Family and Medical Leave Act so that is also included in that next slide please ask a quick question on this slide actually two things are we um we participating in the state plan for the Paid Family Leave Act or are we doing a an equivalent plan we're doing an equivalent plan and so our contributions will start in September yeah I hadn't made that connection thank you um on the contingency side I want to make sure I'm reading this right um we're expecting sort of beginning from bounce uh next year of 87 million but operating contingency 43 does that mean we're essentially spending 44 million dollars of our contingency in order to balance so the proposed budget spends down or contingency by about 44 million dollars in order to balance correct I just want I want to we're going to come back to that to talk about it because I think it's and that gets us to write about the five percent which is the board minimum absolutely and as we talked about last year and you're going to hear me say about a dozen times over the next three weeks that is a very fiscally risky place to be not saying it's necessarily unnecessary but it's a risky play thank you so I have a question about the five percent so the question I asked last year um was how we look you know do we have a plan to replenish those funds at that time I was told yeah we're working on a plan to replenish those funds it seems like now we're not um hold on go ahead if you respond remember if you respond you got to take responsibility for whoever you're asking for so well I was as good I was gonna reframe it a little bit because because in fact we did rebuild it to the 87 million dollars and the proposed budget spends it back down again right so that means not building so at the end of the day it's still not building back up it's going lower than where we started at last year with a contingency foot left right yeah you can't you can't say it you can't say you add and just to subtracted me that's it that don't equal so when we talked about I don't know when we when I asked when I asked a question he was saying here talking he said yeah we have a plan to rebuild the fund back up so now that you guys can answer how is that plan progressing or if that plan is still feasible that's the question I have unless you guys can answer that well my only answer would be yes we did build it back up and this is a proposed budget and so as a board we can say that we would you know prefer to increase our reserves and keep it at that higher level at 86 million or whatever higher than five percent this is a proposed budget based on the appetite that I think the superintendent has uh has assumed that he's heard from the board but it's proposed so do you remember what our contingency fund number was last year not exactly but I remember where it was in terms of a percentage of the budget and where was that percentage of the budget-wise last year I wanted the folks who had these answers the answer not us to try to answer for someone who's not here I'm just putting the questions out so they can be answered that's all I'm trying to do it and then I'm gonna I'm gonna still make my comments go ahead yeah all the comments you want I'm just saying the list you can answer the questions but yeah you know I act the same literally they forbade them okay thank you yes uh absolutely director Hollins um I believe our percentage was about six percent for the adopted budget for fiscal year 23. uh we did come we are planning to come in a little bit higher based off of the sweep and reduction exercises that we've gone through and so we did we were able to uh
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give us a little bit extra cushion for this year and uh depending on leadership and your direction we can um come up with other ways that we might be able to uh hopefully increase that number but right now this is the uh proposed budget and of course we are able to move that Target around based off of your discretion and vice chair Hollens I think you know what's also important to to know is you know which is the kind of the point of the the presentation here is that the the costs of operating is not keeping up with the revenue that we're getting from the state right so at some point we are having to make go into those reserves to to to address those issues right because we hear you know very every day right about the growing need of our students so I think this attempts to balance you know a need to keep a contingency and uh ensure that we are providing the direct supports to our to our community and and I know that that's a continues to be a challenge right I understand that there was a question I asked last year this year we're proposing them to use even less so and in 2025 I'm looking at well where we're going to be at consider to see fund wise 2026 where we're going to be active because if we keep dipping into our Reserve funds there's not going to be anything to to come out of unless we're building it back up or in our staying stable where it's at so we can use it again when I so that's all I was asking the question and I appreciate the question so we'll take it back and see what uh more information my issue is is with the framing and I think it's important because I you're you're you're your point is not lost your questions seem to imply that the district hadn't done enough to rebuild the reserve and that's what I was pushing back on let me let me go ahead because I just want to be really clear no what I was saying I want to know what the plan is that was all I was asking what is the plan that's all I was asking what is the plan for us because I asked that last year how are we doing with our country funds and Roberto is saying will we have a plan to do that I was talking about asking what is our plan now as I say we're dipping more into it which is what's the plan for us to continue to make sure we have a viable contingency fund so I want to make sure we get the causality around the budget right so we because of the superintendent's actions this year we increased that correct me if I'm wrong in these numbers the contingency fund from 51 million dollars to 87 million dollars that that is you know that that as a beginning fund balance that could be used this is the superintendent's proposed budget but as the budget officer for this government he takes direction from the board we over the last six months have been giving very clear Direction about what we want to see we can definitely make those adjustments but I guess I want to be clear when you say what's the plan I'm going to ask what's your plan what's my plan what's director constant's plan if we don't want that contingency fund to be at five percent we need to go back and decide where the additional Cuts because this budget already is going to include some reductions need to be to build that back up so I just I want to make sure that we're being very clear about our job leading the district and and being very clear about why we're in the place that we are yeah and that's going to be my next question as far as you know if we continue to go down this road dip it into our contingency funds if we choose not to what other trade-offs and I just just one thing I know that it's iffy how many people necessarily watch the meetings but for the public obviously they see this and they're like so would someone just say really quickly like why is it important that we have that money left over just for you know everyone that's looking at like well you have all this money why don't you spend it like why is the five percent important so the the contingency or our reserves are important because we don't necessarily get our funding uh on July 1. it usually comes around October to December time frame usually around November or December so we have those reserves built in to basically float us for the first couple of months and so to keep the lights on essentially and another reason by irony is because we have a board policy around um contingency but I think the important question because this is really important for the public to understand because it comes up all the time and if you don't mind take us to the liberty for a second there's a there's a number of reasons one of those is cash flow right making sure it goes through another one is our bond rating which people are always like ah does that really matter well you know the the we did maintain our rating with this last issuance but the bond rating agencies did put us on notice that they were looking you know at a potential downgrade that did not end up downgrading us to the extent that happens every dollar we borrow for our long-term facility plan is going to be more expensive so taxpayers are just going to pay more to to to to build the same things that we would have otherwise and finally I would say because the district doesn't have the option of going bankrupt and so when you think about a sorry What's the total I mean it's over two billion dollars total funds operating Capital the operating fund is over a billion
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um a reserve of 43 million dollars is actually a very small amount if anything goes wrong throughout the year that number can't actually hit zero it's it's actually illegal for the district to hit zero we it's not like there's some ability to like oh we could just deficit spend for a couple months and we'll come back like that's it's actually not allowed to understate budget law the district would down all our students would go home the district would stop nobody would get paid it's catastrophic and so all those reasons are why why that's there but it's an important your question is so important because I get it the public looks at that if they don't do public budgeting and they're like 43 million dollars and and it's just like we got to continue to explain that so so I can give a real life example in 2001 um that I got on the school board and the board before us had taken the reserves down to 200 000 it was right after measure five so you know nothing and then uh the state went into the country went into a recession and when something like 85 of your budget is people and you have no reserves um you're looking at mid-year um you don't go back you don't go bankrupt you actually just make massive cuts um or you at the time will be looking at cutting the school year by five weeks which would have been the shorter school year in the nation because there's just less flexibility um when you don't have any reserves um and it just got got worse um I have a question though about um so if through all the sweeps and the savings and everything um we actually got it back to 86 but then the superintendent um I guess I'm looking then this budget spends it back down so it went up and then it spins it back down so at some point in time I'd like to know what so what were those things that we the choices were made on the superintendent's proposed budget of what we we had it up here and then it is now being reduced in this budget um so what what brought where was where are those funds going in terms of the the new spend I don't need to know right now but I want to make sure we can just be clear about the question I I mean but I because I want to make sure we capture it correctly I isn't the answer that's just the entire budget right spends it back down so I mean I'm not sure we can point and say this is the 40 million because I think you could point to any 40 million right well I'm assuming they're ads um so we I guess this also goes back to my other question so it could be we swept we froze that's how we made the savings and then in next year's budget we actually put the FTE back in so that may be the answer to the question yeah so it's the comparison of like yeah if a position was held Frozen for the last part of this fiscal year but is projected to be hired that's the kind of thing you want to see right yeah so it kind of goes ties back to my question but because I think people will ask like hey we seem like we made progress we're on a plan and then now we're back to another point and it there's anything is that a wrong answer yeah yeah and your question about whether it's one time or ongoing is essentially what you're asking yeah one time around going great director green I think that was exactly my question if the attrition that we saw was simply a we had positions that we were going to hire for we didn't hire for those positions so therefore we created a savings because this was money that we had left over and down that money is going away because we have plans on filling those positions so we gained it because we didn't hire them but did we ever really gain anything because they just didn't go to the people people didn't come in the bodies and so that's what I'm looking that was my question if if the attrition was simply we didn't hire a bunch of folks so we didn't have money to go out and now we're going to hire those folks back so that money is going out so it was a wash because that was a zero-sum gain if that was the case sure that makes sense and we'll we'll make sure to provide you uh information uh uh directorates I would know uh slide 33 in your appendix as a maybe starting point that's looking at Esser uh and how how addressing student learning needs uh and how we are using Esther how let me rephrase that how Esther how the use of Esser has shifted for the last four fiscal years maybe gives a sense a little bit about you know so for example set aside FTE we used s server fiscal year 2223 but we've also now moved it into another funding source okay it was it was sent this morning as an up there was like two additional slides yeah no sorry so we'll make sure you have that yeah of course you know do you want to continue yeah thank you uh next slide please
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uh we just we're stuck on that one [Laughter] um all right oh one too many great thank you um so the second fund that we're focusing on tonight is the special Revenue fund uh totaling 248 million dollars this is a total of uh 63 million dollars less than last year as we noted on slide 5 the reason for the sharp decline is largely due to the use of one-time federal dollars under fund 205 on this chart you will see that reflected on the next few slides as well the remaining special Revenue funds include dollars for nutrition services about 24 million 36 million for the student investment account and 21 million for the per stabilization fund that's the reserve fund used to mitigate budgetary impact for any kind of significant rate fluctuations to pers and persuil next slide please thank you here you will know in the aggregate how we expect to use special Revenue we won't go into the details here except to note that similar to revenue expenditures continue to go down as we have less dollars to work with I would note that while you saw a decrease in licensed salaries in the general fund the special revenue is holding the impact of that decrease so in other words the FTE in all other categories are decreasing relative to our Esser funding losses but license salaries is remaining stable uh this is due to the schools using grant funding to maintain school-based staff like their Title One Esser School Improvement Grant or other resources within the special Revenue fund I'm going to turn it back over to Mr Garcia to continue the presentation thank you great thank you so as we've noted the special Revenue represents a large bucket of dollars aimed at augmenting school operations so we thought it's important to go into a deeper dive so so much of the information that you will see you're very familiar with next slide so as a reminder on April 21st the school board approved our integrated Grant application to the Oregon Department of Education thank you we're still waiting for a response from ode regarding the status of our application for those in the audience who do not know what the integrated Grant application is a year ago the Oregon Department of Education released a lining for Student Success and integrated guidance for six ode initiatives connecting six programs and funding sources that PPS is responsible for administering each Grant has its own discrete purpose and is intended to augment our general fund efforts in specific areas we expect to get just under 52 million to support these six initiatives next slide how we've proposed spending these dollars are clearly in line with our community needs and helps augment what we're able to do with our general funds this includes close to half of these dollars being used for mental behavior and student supports so for example this pays for 17 mental health professionals qhm qmhps psychologists Ellis LCD SWS that's licensed Community social clinical social workers thank you 46 school-based social workers and 17 school counselors 23 percent are used to support the success of our high school students this includes implementing our very successful freshman Student Success program across our schools ensuring a college coordinator across our high schools and continued expansion of our CTE program just under 13 of our dollars from our integrated grant that includes the Student Success act helps improve class size across our elementary and K-8 schools Dr Adams will share a bit more in just a few minutes and eight percent of the dollars are you that in the integrated Grant expenditures are used to establish and continue our partnership with community-based organizations Partners who bring demonstrated racial equity and culturally specific expertise to our schools next slide now we like to go deeper in on our one-time Esther revenue and expenditures first it is important to acknowledge that we've been very fortunate to work with a total of 115 million dollars from Esser on your left is a breakdown by each congressional action and how much PPS received more details can be found in your appendix on Slide 29. as you can see on the right we have attempted to balance the use of these
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one-time dollars across the four eligible years we are projected to expend 39 million of the remaining 75 million in this school year leaving us with about 36 million dollars for the next school year next slide how we expect to use the remaining one-time dollars can be found here I'm going to turn it over to our chief academic officer Dr Kimberly Armstrong to give you a brief description of these line items thank you to top of the slide we plan to continue funding 20 reading and math learning acceleration Specialists these Specialists provide deep and targeted interventions in grade level standards-based instruction for students identified for extra support in order to address unfinished learning gaps and support their progress towards grade level standards in achieving our PPS graduate portrait it includes 8.8 million towards our school-based Improvement Grants the site-based grants offered in direct response to school leaders and Educators enable principals and their communities to make specifically targeted Investments to close student performing scaps so as you can see here as of today school principals have used their one-time grants to fund a total of 57.24 FTE in keeping with that Spirit of these one-time dollars and we also continue to use a portion to support credit recovery and high school student success we also continue to use these funds to invest in our Educators by providing curriculum-based professional learning so using 7.6 million dollars we plan to offer structure learning activities such as coaching expert support study groups professional learning communities institutes workshops and learning walks to achieve effective implementation and support thank you Dr Armstrong as you all recall last year we were able to use Ester dollars to augment the state legislature's investment in summer learning and enrichment as a result we were able to provide the largest summer offering in Oregon's history unfortunately this year the Oregon legislature isn't prioritizing and hasn't yet moved forward and approved resources to support summer programming across the state which is troubling because school districts require time to set up and launch programming in just a couple of months we know the value that summer programming brings to our students to continue accelerating learning access fun safe and enriching opportunities so we as a district have prioritized Monies to ensure we offer a level of Summer programming giving the unsure Outlook Outlook of dedicated resources from the state for this purpose our students need and deserve Extended Learning opportunities and we will be providing that to them so that's why we're proposing to invest 6.9 million dollars towards Summer 2023. this includes about four million dollars for learning acceleration across 18 Hub sites serving students from across PPS it also includes about 2.6 million dollars to ensure our community-based partners open their doors for an array of activity we're also earmarking 1.5 million to support and pay for continued maintenance of airflow ventilation and restock of cleaning equipment and supplies this year we've also been marked by growth and how we respond to the climate crisis we've begun to implement our response to the crisis garnering the national school boards Association Magna award we purchased our first electric buses or I think you will be voting on it later today uh continue to expand our Reliance on local farmers and vendors and increase green spaces and Gardens across our schools not only will we continue this work next school year but we expect to continue creating opportunities for students and teachers to shape I mean shape our response and is important celebrate more and more of our successes as you all know the PPS Innovation Studio led by Miss Camille addedevo launched as a problem-solving accelerator to support PPS teams with designing equity center Solutions in service of our vision this year the Innovation Studio focuses efforts in supporting the planning for the center for black student excellence and we fully expect this small But Mighty team to continue its work to support our schools to address challenges in the system using a culture of creativity iterative design improvements and manage risk taking it is also important to address the 6.7 million dollars FEMA hold as CFO Delgado has explained in the past we've had covet related operating expenses that use Esser dollars but are also eligible for reimbursement from FEMA the Federal Emergency Management agency we've submitted a reimbursement claim
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and are holding it until we get a response if female reimburses eligible covid-19 expenses it would release about 6.7 million in Esser funds there's currently no timetable for a reimbursement decision from FEMA but I want to be clear if we are reimbursed it frees up these dollars to be used for other Esther eligible activities of which we have an outline list or next tier potential Investments that could benefit our students if the claims are rejected then Esser would be used to pay for these reimbursements next slide oh I have a I have a question about this slide go ahead so uh you said that in the current Staffing process you've got just over 57 FTE under those um School Improvement Grants but the reason that number doesn't match up with the total dollar amount Advocate allocated is because they can also be used for non-fte and in fact some schools are prohibited from using them for FTE isn't that right so we'll make sure it's on um we're going to get to that in just a few slides um I can wait okay okay sorry I didn't realize that was my opportunity to ask you for it moved um so a couple questions the um health and safety airflow and circulation so we're getting lots of emails about um what's being ordered and I don't know if this has anything to do with it but it would be really helpful to know there's a lot of community interest in the OHA um things we have to order so and my understanding is the 28th is the order is it will we be getting um before I realize the superintendent was out I sent a note to him asking for information but will we be getting information about what it is we're ordering and what criteria and everything absolutely we're actually staff is working on a memo right now to the board with those details awesome thank you and then the other question have and this is I'm not quite sure where it goes generally but so it looks like for sure um as for sure as you can get um well the critical players are lined up behind the read the money for the reading um grants so is that currently is there a placeholder for it somewhere um because I mean it if it's I don't know last time I saw I was like 120 million if we get nine percent of that or Harvard's done is that included in the budget or would that be just like awesome we got an extra increment no that's a great question uh I don't believe it's con it's not currently contemplated in this budget uh because we don't have a clear you know result I mean to your point uh we know that our governor and our legislator are pushing hard for this bill which is exciting um so if we do get that Revenue we will adjust you know uh as it comes okay and then broader point there is that we don't know where the state still School fund is going to come in necessarily based on new Revenue projections and the possibility that that could be a carve out that's what I'm saying do we know that bill would be additional or just to carve out it's so advocacy is for it to be additional but right so if the deal is not done so it's more you know just thinking about um how all the pieces fit together um and then the last question I have is um we had a communication from the middle school principals about adding the appreciative of having the instructional coaches but um just the sort of Behavioral and mental mental health issues and um you know when I looked at this part of my response was the middle schools but also what about the k-8s and that that have that Middle grades component and you know just like tonight's testimony was just like one more piece of the middle school I think what we're seeing in our middle schools and I guess I'm once again just like last year interested in how we're going to approach that because last year there was the ads for um certain middle schools and so I I'm I guess personally so like just very sympathetic to what the principles raised and just knowing like it doesn't seem like hey it's just these three middle schools that need some support it seems pretty much everywhere so um I hope we can have that discussion about how how we're going to address the issues that all the middle school principals raised asterisk plus the 6 8 of the k-8s absolutely I forget exactly but it was to the tune of about 13 FTE I think their request
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they asked for one total of 15 FTE but again it's just the comprehensive middle school so that we still have some k-8s that certainly have middle schoolers that have very similar issues that proved the comprehensive middle schools additional questions on this slide just my sorry my final one is the reading and math learning acceleration specialists um so we're paying for that with one-time dollars is the thinking that in the following year that would get sort of rolled into the try and roll it into the permanent base or will you be you know the acceleration that came out of covid do we feel like the slope the trend is heading the right direction that that can be eased off or right great question and as noted that we're in the first year of our implementation with the learning acceleration specialist and so uh what some of the work that we'll be doing next year is evaluating the effectiveness of that model and seeing if it made a difference for students and and certainly um if it has then we'll be back at the table and thinking about how we resource but we also know that that means that if we're wanting to add additional Resources with general fund dollars then we need to then think about what it is that we need to let go of and I think we'll be in a better position to answer that after we've reviewed data and did some observations and not just for that particular program but for all of our programs yeah and I'm still getting used to asking on the right slide so I could definitely be on the wrong side here but uh I know that the student safety we're obviously working on a recommendation for the board I know primarily obviously we're looking at ones that hopefully wouldn't have a giant fiscal impact however do we have any flexible dollars in either of these buckets that could be put towards student safety if a recommendation is made from the task force that is fiscally involved yes we've allocated uh We've set aside some money as as the conversation happens on May 9th or May 9th is the conversation uh and and figure out how we move forward the other thing to consider is that there are a number of State uh legislation State bills um that are running through the Senate and the uh in the assembly uh that would also provide additional Revenue around safety particularly around some of the the Panic buttons and some of the communication pieces that are coming up so so there's there's still a lot of uh possibilities for additional resources coming from the state on that continue all right so next slide uh so in the previous slide uh Dr Armstrong Dr Armstrong and I started to give you a sense of how our limited dollars are aligning to our efforts of providing a joyful and high quality learning experience for every PPS student the next uh slide summarizes and highlights key Investments we're proposing for next year thank you Jonathan so whether you're in the classroom a school leader a central office administrator we all understand that our current students have height heightened academic and support needs we also understand that we must meet those needs with an attention to equity and inclusion that has historically been lacking across Portland Public Schools the superintendent's proposed budget takes steps to institutionalize two forces for Equity following this year's visioning process next year's budget includes plans to launch our Center for black students Excellence black student Excellence despite gains that was noted by Jonathan Garcia earlier our system continues to see achievement gaps among our black students and we're hopeful the center will help address these we also intend to hire a civil rights coordinator to ensure students are provided School environments free from discrimination from harassment and bullying we also remain deeply committed to providing multi-tiered systems of support we will continue to fund increased mental and Behavioral Health Services school counselors school-based social workers School psychologists and substance abuse support we will continue funding work to strengthen Safety and Security and create school-based restorative justice systems that address conflicts in our learning spaces you'll also see sustained commitment to both strengthen and extend learning most broadly this budget continues to prioritize Student Success teams which offer space and time to consider how we
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meet each student where they are it funds student attendance coaches systems to track early warning indicators and coordination to ensure on-time graduation we also continue to work on challenging academic transitions particularly the shift from 8th to ninth grade and between 12th grade and post-secondary options on the other end of the spectrum we know that a student's reading proficiency will impact all other education so we must continue robust early literacy and dyslexia support this budget funds a high dosage tutoring expanded credit recovery options and instructional specialists this budget also continues to fund a trends formative racial Equity agenda this agenda includes Partnerships with culturally specific community-based organizations on works such as summer programming Sun services and violence Interruption through programs like coach to classroom we will continue to develop our Workforce so that our students have teachers and staff who look like them share their lived experiences and speak their languages as we continue implementing our instructional framework this budget ensures that Equity remains a Cornerstone of curricular selection and professional learning targeted learning acceleration for black and Native students will continue during the school year and the summer as we strive to close persistent generational and an unaccepted unacceptable achievement gaps we will continue to support student Affinity groups and Leadership opportunities for students of color so school-based supports to reach our lofty goals and we recognize that they're lofty and we also believe we can meet them we must increase instructional leadership capacity across the system that is why this budget proposes to invest in full-time school-based instructional coaches in every elementary middle and K-8 school and to continue ensuring that principals receive professional learning sessions on instructional coaching in addition to each in addition each school will be awarded a site-based school Improvement Grant ranging roughly between 100 and 120 and I think I already shared the FTE so far that has been allocated the site-based grants offered in direct response to school leaders and educators will enable principals in their communities to make specifically targeted Investments to close student performance gaps this budget continues to build the capacity of our Educators and our school leaders to do their best work investments in high quality professional learning help School leaders and Educators maximize the impact of our new curricula and instructional framework and to teach with best practices we focus on professional learning at our comprehensive and targeted support and Improvement schools educational assistance in Para Educators represent the additional capacity for our licensed Educators so we have preserved funding for those positions and their professional learning we're also funding release time so Educators have dedicated capacity for Student Success teams and we're continuing investments in full-time educational assistance for Title 1 kindergarten classrooms so before I turn it over to Dr Adams to discuss classroom Staffing I want to share about our commitment to teaching and learning Excellence so as an education as an educational institution sorry I get a little excited so let me slow down right as an educational institution our core mission is to provide a high quality teaching and learning experience to every single one of our students let me say that again to every single one of our students every single day no apologies amazing Educators strong learning materials and a cohesive instructional framework are at the heart of that this year we began operating with our new instructional framework in newly aligned curricula that are rigorous in standards-based this budget continues that critical work in Earnest and funds professional learning opportunities to bring that framework and our curricula to life thank you I have a question about this slide um if I may so this is a really great slide because it talks about you know basically our board goals and our strategic plan and what are the strategies that we're putting in place that are going to help us realize the goals that we have for our students one question that I have that might be a
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little difficult to address is with each one of these inputs it would be nice to see does this represent a continuation of effort does this represent an increase of effort um is this a new initiative altogether some sense of where each of these Falls in that spectrum and of course you know we're able to see most of these inputs in other places in other ways but as far as looking at them all together as the strategies that are really going to advance student learning it would be nice to see what this really represents in the budget okay does that make sense yes absolutely and I'm not necessarily prepared to speak no no tonight but I will note that and I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again adding to that question too if we can see like with the new implementations what is the structure for like regulating them how do we make sure that they're like a worthwhile investment for future years that we know are new like the Civil Rights coordinator or stuff like that absolutely so this is like a super basic question um but I'm just looking at this beautiful Masters Arts education plan this strategic plan I notice it's on this um list as well like do we have something like this for reading and math well uh overall plan like just uh like here's here's our strategy and here's how we need to invest in you know what we're investing in in terms and Partnerships we have and you know capacity building I'm just thinking um I say this is amazing and um so I'm looking at focus and it's like okay we have we have some things on for reading and math um like the accelerating acceleration specialist there's 20 of them so you might there might be students who like that's clearly not going to be at every school and every student's not going to be invited to summer school so I'm thinking so like where's that base piece knowing that we have lots of kids who aren't proficient in Reading yes absolutely it's not a criticism I'm just like does it exist and like you know should it exist or yes we absolutely have a literacy plan and a math plan as we have a team convening around an update to that math plan so both of those I think can be printed on on glossy paper and and readily available but no I get your point and yes we do have a literacy plan and um a math plan to your question version um but it would be good to have because I think a lot of um something coming out of the pandemic a lot of parents are fear trials on at um Benchmark to to get the knock and glossy plan but like we have we have a plan and like here are the and here are the Investments that are tied to tied to it because I'm thinking if when I look at this it's like if you're not if your student's not proficient in reading or math and they're not at one of the schools where there's there's only 20 FTE for the acceleration and they don't have access to summer school um how's that going to happen um so that just being able to answer that question absolutely so I feel like I can answer the question now about how like all kids are going to get access to Art and how we're going to have teachers trained so I'm just looking to be armed with absolutely I can arm you thank you perfect and director from Edwards I think it's it's a it's a perfect question given the earlier comment about the state uh input the possible State investment on literacy we want to make sure that that we have a robust plan in place for if and when those dollars come and we definitely do thank you as I said the only other thing is I don't see middle schools on here and I still continue to believe that we have to focus on them it's just it the the tales from middle school parents um and staff it they I think are this part of our system right now that's most in I don't say a crisis right and need um and so you know how are we approaching that in a comprehensive way because it's very clear that it's not just at some schools so so just longer term I I'd like to that for whatever the next presentation like how is it that we're investing in addressing the the very clear needs that are manifesting themselves in our middle schools director Hollins yeah so um I'm looking at the presentation you know I think PPS guess you know do very well in presentations you know I mean it is what it is but when I look at the data the presentation does not match in the
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data for our kids of color you know and we can keep having all these different plans and everything and I don't so I'm just I've been a little pessimist here um I'm trying to get the connection between last year's presentation and data that we got compared to this year presentation I'm sure with presentations before that is presentations before that how do we move from the presentation stuff to get down to where our kids is at and giving them academically ready for the world that they're going to be living in I appreciate the question director Hollins and I would say that that's the work that we're doing every day um and so if there are some specifics like I can bring I'm certainly willing to prepare that third grade reading for the great math I mean this is stuff that's been going on for years right so I guess maybe I'm just a little frustrated um at this time because you know I've seen this I mean I just pay the textbook presentation last year and I'm sure the board seen it before that I'm sure the board's in before that once again is What specifically or what are we looking to actually accomplish and if we don't accomplish what's the accountability of that right well I mean I I will I think you all have heard me speak to my enthusiasm on our instructional framework and our new curricular adoptions and knowing this year with K-12 literacy and how significant that is to make sure that we're presenting and providing high quality materials for all of our students is I think a gigantic step in the way we operationalize that is making sure that we have the training available ready to support teachers the mentoring and coaching aspect I think that was spoke about a little bit earlier today and then just the tracking making sure that we're creating those support structures that we can wrap around building leaders and their teams to be able to support their teachers who are in the classroom teaching and learning and then our partners in the office of student Support Services really fine-tuning those interventions that are being deployed to students when they are not performing at standard or when they're struggling like I think that's the work that that we do every day and and I know sometimes and and we've heard this you know we come out and we're presenting these shiny um packets and these presentations and it looks beautiful I I think um and it's like okay that's great but what's happening and I would just say that it's our it's our eight to six um it's the it's what we're seeing happening in the classroom and and when we don't see the achievement that we want to see when we don't see the progress that we want to see then we're looking at the interventions that we have in place like our learning acceleration Specialists and the reason why I'm not able to answer the question is will we have a budget for that next year is that we want to evaluate the effectiveness you know I heard someone say that you can have efficient systems but also note that ineffectiveness can live in efficient systems and so really what we're doing is teasing out that and making sure that all the things that we're doing is supporting learning and moving it forward so so I would say that all of that lives within our instructional framework um so this so stuff that you just explain is this has this not happened before like last year when we're talking about these systems and checking to see if these systems work and checking the efficiencies of these systems has that not been happening before what it sounds like it sounds like we're doing it now and we've got to wait and see but we've had that already so I'm just trying to get for me if when we're looking at our budget when we're looking at our budget and saying okay this is what we want to pay for and it goes on to a line of um director um costs down sorry that you know is this a new initiative is this an old initiative what worked before like where's the status of stuff that we funded last year with the report on that stuff with stuff that we budgeted I mean that we approved for the budget the year before that was the status on that stuff so because I don't I'm not seeing that stuff and then I'm definitely not saying when we look at these reports so at what point are we going to just for me a budget wise when do we stop evaluate correct and and move forward because it seems like we're we never receive all that we say okay we want to do this we want to do that but then we never get the follow-up stuff so like I said in the line of director costume where is those alignments from year to year for us to say okay we want to give this budget for this year yeah that sounds like research
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evaluation and assessment well what I would say to that um Vice chair Holland is that we're constantly in a stage of continuous Improvement for example last year we implemented a Mathematics Curriculum we heard loudly that we didn't provide adequate professional training on that Mathematics Curriculum even so when we got our osas results we were the only District in the state that didn't see a decline in elementary math scores and the only thing we changed was the math curriculum and so this year we continue to implement the Mathematics Curriculum with the added professional learning piece that was missing from last year and we're hoping to see more gains over time and so we are making those adjustments that's the day-to-day operations of the work of the school system so and will those results for those results stay the same or hire for our African-American kids or kids of color or did a decline for the math skills I'm not talking about overall so as for as you see me present every time I come before you we have deep inequities in our student outcomes and so when you say we're looking at and I'm trying to get this to go to the budget piece is that so when you say overall our math for our kids but our board goals is specifically for our kids of color right I'm not talking about every kid I'm not about our kids a couple of them I don't see an improvement there I'm looking for where's the assessment piece where the correction piece for that from last year budget to for this year well as you might recall our osas scores from last year are our Baseline so that's where that's the floor and where we're starting from we don't have new scores yet but we are monitoring student growth we are in schools observing instruction and observing the implementation of the instructional framework observing the implementation and use of the curriculum because those are leading indicators that will help us understand if we're gaining traction across the system I have a follow-up comment as we're looking at inputs to the system and I think what I heard you asking for were what are the what what are the outcomes and if the outcomes will know them in a year from now then what are the outcomes from the inputs that we did last year and the year before how are those playing out specifically for the kids of color in other words these are all inputs you know professional development for classroom Educators would be an expected outcome of x climate crisis response and decarbonization you know that's a that's an input what is what is the expected outcome of our investments in these inputs well I would say we have a three-pronged approach to educational Equity that has the high quality resources the professional learning and the unified vision of what effective instruction looks like for every child and every student in every classroom every day that is the plan that we are trying to work and it's going to I would hope that we see some benefit when we get our next round of data back however we also are monitoring the implementation of that because we want to understand to the extent that we do or do not see the work that we want to see why or why is that not possible or why did that happen or not based on what we've observed along the way so we are in the process of doing that work are we um then evaluating on each single measure or each single input or in the aggregate because if we if we evaluate on the single measure then we'd be able to tell whether that measure was effective or not does that make sense right but that three-pronged approach all three of those prongs are necessary I would think of them almost as a three-part singular input you can't to provide curriculum without training is inadequate to provide training without a vision of what we want effective teaching and learning to look like would be inadequate it really takes all three and those are the three major inputs that this budget among others that this budget is putting forward for us to see if we see some results okay I think that I think that mostly answered my question thank you Mr representative and also it hasn't been very long right that we've implemented all of these Solutions right that's great and so I yeah and so like really it's a progression right like this is the first or this is this year maybe last year the first year that we've really like when I wasn't on the board then so when did we Implement those board goals how long has this specific like third grade reading fifth grade math how long have those been our goals they adopted in 2019 yeah that's cool and then refined two uh two years ago just disaggregated more but and we also didn't have a baseline we also had covet in between I I don't want to lose this point because it's the reason why we do budgets and so treasure Holmes I just I want to really appreciate why
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you're raising it and you know in terms of of what are the outputs and and I also want to kind of respect what what um Dr Adams is saying in terms of this is again the work you do every day is doing this evaluation um and and making those changes I I think we need to absolutely concentrate on the problems but also like this I mean our graduation rate has skyrocketed from where it was 10 years ago right and and I'm gonna no I am gonna bring it up because because what we've done and we've done it appropriately is we've moved the goal post what we said originally was we want a graduation rate to increase our graduation rate has increased and now we're asking the question of is that graduation rate the most effective measure do we want to have a higher standard for our graduates the exact right question but the data I would I would still rather have what are we up to almost 90 85 to 90 of our students you know graduating I would rather have that than 60 even at that lower standard so okay so let me assist so you rather have I'm gonna say like a heart surgeon who because we lowered the standards for medical school so our standards our standards are the same yes they were hold on because what well the last two years they suspended the required the the central skills fees for the last two years so there was no those things for the graduation race so I'm just saying so I'm assuming if we put those back in the graduation probably will look different I don't think that's accurate but I'll turn it over to Dr Adams I mean that was a Statewide requirement but I just think we should be careful talking about um skyrocketing graduation rates and because we do need to have a conversation about we needed to have the conversation about whether a d is which we know is not proficient is the bright map absolutely but we can have that and still recognize that more students are graduate even if the standard is insufficient than they were 10 years ago they were five or six years I feel like sometimes we Pat ourselves on the back a little bit too much because without having that if a student leaves our high school and they're not ready for the next step because they had D's which is not proficient I mean we need to have the conversation but that same problem existed five or six years ago we need to have the conversation I mean we talked about this before covid we talked about it when we looked at the graduation I mean we we've been talking about it since 2017. um and I mean okay this is the board's part of the board's obligation I think we should talk about that and we should be getting data we got data in 2018 and we haven't or maybe 18 19 but we haven't had data since then and you know I when we talk to students a lot of students said like raises the bar and we will meet it uh and I might disagree with that at all but I'm frustrated by is our inability to to look at any of the successes we've had we can we can see those successes and still recognize the need to do so well I guess so it's hard for me like it's hard for me to say we're looking at celebrate those successes when I see kids who look like me not getting the same advantages of kids who look like you because of the inadequate education system they have been getting I grit I get it for you it probably is it's probably okay our black kids are graduating at a much higher rate than they were five years but they're not being if you're telling me that they can't read and write at a proficient level the longer they're graduating they was graduating kids who couldn't even read is that okay just because they got their graduation just because they got their because they got to graduate if you can't read but you get to graduate it's not the same thing I you can't celebrate I I I I I hear what you're saying if 60 of our black kids were graduating five years ago and 80 are graduating today I really have 60 that was I really have 60 of kids graduating at a higher second that's not what you had five years ago lower kids more kids graduated at a lower standards but that's not what you had five years ago you had you had kids graduating at the lower the fewer kids graduate the lower standard I'm saying we can see that success and at the same time say we need to be doing it's hard to see that success when I have 10 or 15 applications from kids from kids coming out of PPS these are applications that comes to my office and I'm looking at their resumes and I'm looking at their grammar and I'm looking at how they present themselves and I'm looking how it's different so I I get it for which from your angle I I it must be different but I'm seeing them stand in front of me doing interviews I'm seeing their resumes I'm seeing talking to other business owners who's saying what is going on with these kids I'm hearing that all the time from business owners and and were you hearing more of it five or six years ago I mean my point is is that if we if we can't claim any success how do we go back and evaluate what we've done you brought up the graduation race I was just saying I would just bring it up how do we make sure we can evaluate the stuff and we get it every time we focus on our budget this year it would be nice to know where we're at from the previous years as well and I
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guess my question is do you are we not what are what are what are you not getting in terms of that data you have in 2022 African-American kids was at 50 this year or this is actually they're at 46 we're going in and this is the map presentation that Dr Adams gave us the other day right that's what I'm seeing so I want to know how are we changing and what we need to do for our budget of where do we need to change stuff at because when I first got on the board these numbers were slow these numbers are low right now I'm here they are right here in in gray and blue I want to know what do we need for our budget to make sure that we're addressing these issues because I would hate for us to be having the same conversation four or five six years from now and I don't know what happened in 2017 or 2018 2016. all I know is that where's the data that shows this is what we did last year this is what we need to continue on and this is what we need to correct that's all I'm saying I think Dr Hall I mean director Hollins part of it goes back to the conversations we have around um you know the board creates our board goals the communities created the vision and then the superintendent creates the strategies in his team so you're here talking specifically about the strategies that you as a professional are betting on to enable us to meet our board goals and to raise achievement and to eliminate our persistent racial gaps so you know it's up to us to question whether or not we're on board with the strategies that the our professional leadership team are bringing to us but that's the conversation that we're having right now and to your point byronie um when you said well we haven't had our goals for very long in terms of our board goals we also haven't had the same set of inputs very long long enough to necessarily be able to track whether we are seeing gains that we can realistically causally connect to the inputs so curriculum adoption you know happened during covid you just said recognizing insufficient professional development around it like fine-tuning you know not just the provision of a new curriculum but the support that goes around it and all that I mean you know maybe we might hear that some of these inputs that have had we've been working on for a couple years maybe maybe maybe that's long enough that we think this isn't working or we do need to Pivot on this somehow but that's you know to to your point that's the tricky question do you do you believe in the effectiveness enough even though it might be slow to continue to invest in the same strategies and to infuse more support in them or you know do you want to have a conversation about maybe this isn't the right approach maybe there's something else we need to be doing and something else we need to be investing in but that's exactly the conversation that we're having right now and we up here need to rely on you and it's up to us to be skeptical as well because you know we we all feel the urgency about about seeing those differences for our kids um so so that's that is the heart of the budget conversation always absolutely you know this is a really important topic and you know I'll say I'll speak on behalf of our staff we support high standards for our students we want high expectations for our students so we look forward to having the conversation with the board about you know uh any coming to consensus about what that looks like you know do we need to have a higher standard at PPS in order to graduate that is your prerogative so we will um come back to the board and having that conversation do we do we want to move to the next or maybe yeah um yeah we'll finish the slides and do a quick run yeah all right if I can have the next slide please uh we know and continue to understand the class size remains an area of interest for board members and our community the slide before you shows our projected class sizes for the next school year each grade level is a different colored histogram the various class sizes are along the horizontal x-axis and the count of each class size is along the vertical y-axis the average projected class size for next school year is 22.6 students per homeroom teacher at the elementary level what's more 98 of K-5 homerooms are projected to be staffed below the class size maximums that means we have just 16 home rooms out of 816 home rooms that are projected to be right at the class size maximum
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as you look at the chart you also know can note how relatively few home rooms we project to have 28 students or more this is because we're maintaining our class size investments from last school year into the next school year class size is the largest investment we make here in PPS our total investment in student-facing teaching positions totals 369 million dollars I know you've only got one more slide I just want to amplify the average projected class size for next year's 22.6 students 22.6 yes sir and and I just that that gets lost right in the in the larger public narrative around that PPS has really large class sizes there are large class sizes in in isolated schools and there are things that we continue to address but I just I just want to reiterate the average class size is 22.6 I think the other thing that's important to note here is that we don't make class size we make class size Max right and the superintendent's proposed budget maintains the same maximum from last year but we don't make class size decisions when we do like by we don't say like one grade school is going to have a class size of 30 and others can have class size of 26 now those classes 20. that depends on the number of people who live in that catchment area the number of the capture rate the number of people who go to that school correct me if I'm wrong about any of this and that only when you get to that maximum is the time when you might go from a class size of 32 down to a class size of like 20 right because you would add another another strand so I just I think from a public conversation perspective it's important to note that we don't make the individual decisions about where people buy houses where they move you know what what schools they enroll in we do respond to those decisions and that's what the budget reflects here yes sir okay and no class size will be larger than 33. correct so just to clarify last that was the conversation last year that if you moved to the the max that there would be um so that there would be another teacher added and so I'm just clarifying that that's the strategy versus like in October we're going to do like um do blends so um we because I think we should be clear if that's a strategy if that's a strategy because it was shocking to people when they thought it might happen last year so those are typically I I don't know if Dr Franco's still with us but those are typically site-based decisions we we thank thank you doc uh we don't mandate Blends um we try to counsel School leaders away from making Blends um we have it's seen such I have seen situations in my time here where a leader may make a decision to blend one grade to keep class size smaller in a different grade that is not the way we allocate staff we actually allocate per grade level at the elementary level with a suggested number of homerooms and when homerooms go over that threshold we allocate additional staff yeah because I think what happened last year is it wasn't it there wasn't an initial staff and then there was going to be a blend um so thank you for the the answer so if somebody gets to the max um rolls over well wait I I think I heard that it is still possible there would be a blend it's a it's a building I think you said is a principal may make if you have you could have a blend say if you're not at the max but it's a site-based decision sometimes they make a blend we do not dictate that but if you get to 30 say you're at a fifth grade class and you've got 34. well last year what was told repeatedly was you get almost 80 Staff last year it wasn't just what we it wasn't just what we were told it's what we did we allocated staff right and so I'm just so I'm just confirming that that is so a principal could say I don't want the extra staff but if some class size got to 34 the district's position was here's the extra step yes could a principal though get allocated staff decide to do a blend in four or five and use that other staff in second grade like do we dictate yes I just don't want families to expect I'm over the max so I'm definitely not getting a blend when a school-based decision might allocate that Staffing differently that's not how it worked last year they do get allocated specifically yeah for the grade level okay thank you yes and that's what if we're saying something publicly I want to make sure we're we're clear on what our power is versus yeah yeah so then my other question is and I think I look at this and it seems again nobody's in an average classroom so there are um there are a lot of lower class sizes which and I really appreciate that and I know that parents appreciate that coming out of the pandemic and the whole ketchup um just to ask in those places where we're over the threshold in the pat contract but not yet to the maximum is the practice going to still be to continue
03h 05m 00s
only to pay overages uh that's my understanding yes chair Scott I before I turn it back over to Dr Adams I did want to know on uh in the appendix on slide 29 which is on your which is in front of you uh is a uh it's a a graph from the Oregon Department of Education or else the sources of the Oregon Department of Education that com that does a staffing ratio of teacher non-special Ed to students and as as you can see here among the top 10 largest districts in the state we are among the the lowest student to a classroom educator ratio just wanted to point that out this we're on um FTE I know you answered this in a email but could you share the the 10 FTE so part of the southeast guiding Coalition and the smoothing to provide supports with some schools that were going through really big transitions um some of those were allocated last year and whether it be reallocation I noticed like for example Bridger which is a heavily impacted school has a higher class size how are those going to be allocated and will it be before October or what what's the what's the process and when will that happen sure so um let me level set we have two buckets of set aside we have our general set-aside bucket and a special bucket for the southeast guiding Coalition schools Dr Franco in working with Dr Proctor created a process by which principals can request FTE for the reasons outlined in the board resolution around bridging a program and things like that those um that process was initiated and sent to principles I believe last Monday not yesterday but Monday last week and we are receiving those requests at this time to be decided on in the near future great so that'll happen this year that'll be super appreciated by school communities because then there probably will be staff to fill the positions and everything is I can tell you're about ready to say something that Dr Frankel thank you well you do need to be ample we do want you to be Amplified so your comments can be heard no thank you so yes uh director broom Edwards we have created a process and we have sent it out to principles of the goal it's it's the 10 it's 10 FTE uh and and really the the criteria is the bridge right it's a bridge to schools into programs uh and so we are collecting that the idea is next week we'll start reviewing uh some of the requests uh and then we'll just go from there but but we're um obviously happy that we're moving forward with this process and principals are excited about it as well thank you um I know two more slides right it's like senioritis right there's some testimony and there's some timelines sure um if I could have the next slide please I do think it's just interesting to note on the class size that you know are that's our average but when we look at our uh heat map of FTE which is included in the budget you know we know that we have wide variations between our schools we have a lot of schools with a lot of classes that have 15 kids in them and then we have other schools that have you know around 30 in every single classroom in every single grade um just because we have gotten to a place where we fund we have really different funding levels for our different schools so I just think it's important to keep that in mind when we talk about averages because they look really different from one another and then and this and that histogram comes from the memo that we share that are in the budget documents for this meeting and so it also shows the median class size and the amount of deviation at each grade level as well between the class sizes that's also under the histogram in the board memo um thank you for providing that histogram and um so with the Dual language that are co-located in schools the Mandarin programs are there disparities between class sizes between Neighborhood Academy and there there are sometimes yes absolutely okay um penultimate slide as um Dr Armstrong mentioned and directors will recall we allocated a portion of our Esser funding totaling over eight 8.5 million dollars for one-time School Improvement Grants each School how this was done is as follows each school was allocated a base
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of a hundred thousand dollars plus eleven dollars per student the slide before you outlines the number and types of positions that have been funded through these grants as you can see the most frequently funded positions are educational assistants teachers and mental and behavioral health support positions these 57 or so FTE total approximately 5.1 million of the total total budget that we set aside for the project the remaining amount not claimed by or used for FTE is um roughly three and a half million dollars principals have been asked to also create plans utilizing this funding to align to their individual School Improvement plans without the purchase of additional people again we didn't want to set up situations where we're putting long-time positions on one-time funding where we could as this requires principals to collaborate with their school-based teams and communities not all of the non-fte plans have been solidified yet at this point though I can share that roughly 65 000 has been aligned to contracts agreements for instructional Improvement services 75 000 has been aligned for other materials and supplies to enhance the learning experience in schools and 675 thousand dollars for non um position related payroll including paying for substitutes or extended hours for teachers primarily for site-based Teacher professional development and planning as more of our schools determine the appropriate use of funds for their students they must submit that to their area senior director for approval and provide details on how they will evaluate the effectiveness of the funds and one of the ways we do that is Dr Franco has initiated a school Improvement plan a step back process where principals come and present to senior leadership and Dr Franco on their school Improvement plans throughout the year so we can monitor progress towards their individual goals because we know what the goals we want to see at the district level happen each and every day in the classroom and so we have that continuous improvement process going on with our principals as well and what is the rationale for prohibiting some schools from using their school Improvement Grants on FTE from a student learning perspective why why are some schools prohibited my recollection is that was initial guidance but then it was revised but so that they could correct so the idea is because we know that some schools just have different varying funding sources for example Foundation resources and so the idea is so um PD targeted invention for focal sets of students FTE academic support or other non-fte related types of support so those are kind of the four key areas that we looked at that we know schools could potentially use money for and then they went through a process of going through their Area Senior directors making sure that it followed directly alignment with school board goals through their Skip and so the the criteria of if you're for other funding sources was this is that the plan to if you had principles that plan to use more than 75 000 from local school Foundation resources excluding PPS parent fund Awards cannot use or couldn't use the one-time Grant funds on staff FTE schools that plan to use less than 75 000 from local school Foundation resources can use mostly seven seventy percent of the overall Sr School Improvement Grant on staff FTE so the idea behind this right is is is is we know that schools just have different varying funding sources and so we really try to use this as kind of a criteria given this is the first time really we had the one-time Esser grants so they could use it I guess director constant it just depends depends on what other funding sources you had um I mean I I want to I want to hear more about this later because um from a student learning perspective I want to understand why that makes sense because those schools with foundations are the schools that already have by far the lowest student to or the highest student to teacher ratios and the least resources in their buildings and we also know from our achievement data that all of our schools have struggling students so I would just want to hear from our academic leaders why that makes sense from a student learning perspective sure so now we just not for tonight yeah that's Foundation policy discussion or very related but it's but it's related and I I just I again it seems pretty related right I mean
03h 15m 00s
it's not the same but it's pretty related and I think my question that again I don't want to answer tonight but we need to think about as a board are we going to try and establish that policy through a budget which I would not recommend I recommend we establish that through the policy committee um but but we used to spend a lot of time on it is is my is my point which seems like a small piece so this is a discussion I mean I just want us I want to know the academic justification so but not right now um um and I was wondering for schools that elected to fund one-time positions did we have any sort of requirement for them to communicate that with their like General Community because I just definitely see and I mean we talked about this before I think it was a super great idea and I think it'll give schools the freedom that they need and allows them to trust us more readily but I wonder like have we required principals to communicate with their community that like we made this investment but it won't be here next year because I think if we have that information now it'd be valuable to make sure we're requiring principals to share that just because I see like next year them coming back being like well look you're cutting our staff and we're looking at the bedroom from last year and you knew this the whole time so why didn't you say something but your timeline oh sorry oh sorry I don't know if you want me to respond to that or is that a question for later or go ahead so this is why I would say I would say um I really like the suggestion I would say there isn't necessarily a requirement to communicate that but I would say that principals are very aware that this is one-time money right and so what you generally have will see is principles for FTE making staff whole like that you generally see that type of piece as opposed to your hiring you know a full-time whatever person because they know it's one-time money and we know that if you can't support it moving forward then the reality is it's a staffing issue moving forward so um they're very and that's why you see and then you know other piece that you're you're seeing is is like EA support or those types of things but again I would also say that it's not necessarily just hiring these full 1.0 full-time positions it's making people whole with the understanding the communication that if you were 0.5 and this is going away you know say you add a 0.5 to 1.0 you potentially know that you're not going to have that that full-time position next year yeah and I guess my request would be that like rather than it being understanding it is a requirement because I think principals have a lot to communicate out to there um community and I think that sometimes things principles know not everyone in their Community always knows and definitely not always students know um yeah so even if it's like hey we'll write you an email and then you need to send it out to your community or something like that where we have like a thing to point to next year when people come back asking about this like we did tell you because I think those things and like having that clear communication is valuable when we're justifying things next year and when we're trying to explain why we made our decisions and can kind of prevent conflict okay timeline real quick slide uh yeah so I have the timeline but I do want to I have like a closing comment so keep in mind the whole board's probably gonna have closing comments sure 9 15. do you want to go there you want to go to the next uh next line the timeline slide so here's the timeline so we're at the April 25th uh next week May 4th or not next week next week sorry May 4th we have a budget work session in public engagement so we will hear from our community May 9th is a work session where we will hear uh uh the cbrc report then may 20. yes May 23rd uh the board will consider and vote on the approved budget June 13th you will look uh consider and vote to adopt a budget so uh next slide and I just want to do some closing remarks to bring it all together I know that we had a lot of conversation in the in between uh Roseanne next slide I think uh before uh before I turn it over to you all for comments and questions I just want to share some closing thoughts the most recent budget the superintendent has submitted all reflect a need to address covet 19. the previous three 2021 to 2023 had largely reflected direct impacts but in this budget we see a shift this budget proposal is informed by the impending end of one-time relief funds students leaving public education in our district and the shifts in student exhibited needs these Trends necessarily uh necessarily influence the direction of this budget
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and how we will manage our resources in the coming years as a broader Community we will need to keep a critical eye on our shifting enrollment and perhaps consider additional enrollment balancing School consolidation and or programming Cuts in the near future but whatever complications we encounter we believe in the Brilliance of our students I want to say that again but whatever complications we encounter we believe in the Brilliance of every single one of our students we are continually inspired by the dedicated Educators and staff with whom we work with to realize our vision for PPS our students and Educators have had their talents beautifully showcased in numerous showcases and competitions recently our school leaders support staff Central staff families board members and Community Support the amazing work happen in our classrooms together we can continue to meet the real challenges in front of us we will continue to be guided by an equity centered approach one that strives to provide high quality educational opportunities and the support needed for every PBS student to experience success we believe this budget proposal presents it represents a comprehensive and a coherent set of Investments and activities that will keep our school system moving forward forward and on route to accomplish our shared goals thanks Jonathan and thanks to the team so um I we have a lot of stuff on our agenda still to get through it's 9 15. I want to summarize a little bit about what I heard tonight um I'm not going to shut the board down if you all want to say something I also want to know you can say something on May 4th you can say something on May 9th you can say something on May 23rd and you might want to keep some of the things you want to say for those moments just I don't want you to run out of things to say um before we get all the way through the budget process so here's what I heard tonight I heard there were a number of Technical and data questions that I did not write them all down but I'm I'm hoping staff did the things from the board um I Heard uh sort of on the more substantive front um we want to have more conversation about the Middle School proposal both the focus Middle School proposal that we got from our principals but also the larger Middle School conversation I think they're related right so so I think continue to have conversation on that um I think we want to continue have a conversation about the contingency fund and the trade-offs what does it mean staying at five percent what would it mean going to six or seven or eight right what are those trade-offs um a question I didn't hear but oh no sorry one more thing 22 23 sort of reductions are those ongoing one time like what's what are those comparison numbers or that from a couple of board members and and one thing that we didn't talk about tonight and I didn't hear from but I want to put on the table what are the reductions in 2324 that we may hear about from schools or community members because I think what we what we what I saw here tonight was from the superintendent his budget message and staff is look Within These limited resources and you've noted the limited resources and constraints we have put together a plan that we think is going to continue to move us on this path we also know that 9.9 billion dollars which is what the Assumption here doesn't fund current service level so we know that there are adjustments and I'm just thinking as we as we go through these next few weeks all of a sudden we're going to hear from some school or some community and it's important that we hear from them about hey we're losing a teacher or we're losing a program or we're losing something so just I don't know how the best way to identify those but just sort of sort of talking about those trade-offs um the other thing I will say I'm only the board chair which means I have only one vote you all can do whatever you want however I would suggest as a board we have this community budget here and is noted on May 4th and then May 9th prove to approve the budget May 23rd If board members have substantive amendments that they want to bring forward I would suggest that you bring those to the May no later than May 4th and the reason for that is so that staff can take those ideas do some fiscal analysis come up with the relative trade-offs so that we can come back on the 9th and the 23rd to have that conversation if we're dropping amendments on the 23rd there is no time to understand what a trade-off might be or what the impact might be so again the board can do we have the authority to amend the budget up until the 23rd we have the ability to amend the budget for the adopted budget as well but I would say for this for this approved budget stage if if if you've got a substantive you know Amendment you want let's bring it no later than May 4th for discussion and then they'll give staff a little bit of time to do some analysis and come back to us for future conversation and then again just from a process standpoint as a board we can make amendments for the proposed budget and then we can also make Amendment sorry we can make amounts to the approved Budget on May 23rd and also the adopted budget in June however those adopted budget changes should be relatively limited there is some restraints that 10 of the of the general fund I don't think we'll get there but um as a general best practice it's better to make your substantive amendments as part of the approved budget rather than adopted throw that out there anybody have anything they really need to say tonight yep let's start down there and it's 9 15.
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okay I just want to say because it will get lost it's just huge thank you to all the staff that put so much time and effort into this it's such a long yet extremely fast process and you spend such a long time building this perfectly balanced budget with all these amazing Investments and then everybody here is like I don't really like that part I don't like that part and I think sometimes maybe we don't recognize that that can be difficult to take and that I just want to recognize so much work so much effort and even though we are about to go through a bit of a crazy rip through I think that the work is recognized and you're really providing the future for students and that's a big deal so thank you for being here and doing the work you do anyone don't have to you don't feel compelled I must because I didn't know that we get closing statements I didn't realize that that was a thing so in in this moment my my closing statement I watched this weird movie on the plane and it said um and I remember the quote it's called the um the independent and John Cena was in it which is weird because he's not a great actor um he's great in commercials not at Movies um but in the beginning of the the movie it said um in a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act I was like got dog I watched the movie because of that and I was like I like that why am I bringing that up right now I'm glad you asked him when when we start talking about the budget it's convoluted it makes sense to you because you get paid a very good salary to look at this all day long to go through it to process the data to analyze the numbers to to do all this other stuff but for community and for somebody like me that's sitting at this you send me you know seven big old books or whatever it is that you're giving me and a whole bunch of stuff and say well just take the time to comb through it and then when you come to that way when you come to the meetings you can have everything and you'll know I don't even know where to start with some of this stuff I don't even know what page I'm supposed to go to and I got a lot of questions and I I bring those to the meetings because this is where I'm supposed to bring those things no one ever gets upset for a trauma victim for going to the emergency room because that's where they're supposed to go this is what we're supposed to be doing which is asking questions and if we can't handle the question then you're the wrong person for the position and so there's never a wrong time in my opinion to ask the question there's never a wrong time to to be blunt there's never a wrong time to to be very open when it comes to these numbers this is our job we we don't have a whole lot that we're responsible for outside of this budget making sure that we set the trajectory we set the course and in a time when people are so accustomed to just like just go along just go along sometimes standing up or making a pause to say I do not care if it delays the delays the event I need a clean answer and I cannot move forward in good conscience without a clean answer and that is the Revolutionary act the Revolutionary Act is that it is our job to make sure that we understand exactly what it is that I'm supposed to sell back to the community that put me in this seat to represent them and so when we come with these questions at these meetings and I'm and I'm saying this for for all of us we need to suck it up and eat it that's why we're here for this is this is why we're here this is this is one of the few moments that truly matter and in a time when everybody is just going along I think it's up to us to keep peeling back the layers to make it make sense keep peeling back the layers to make it make sense and if a third grader can't get it then we're not doing something right this is not the college level everybody ain't reading at that college level stuff we need to be able to break this stuff down so the third grader gets it and that's what I want to push us to to do so let's keep peeling back the layers let's keep asking the questions and let's just suck this up because this is why we're here and that's that's my closing thought and treasure again I just want to be clear you're not implying we haven't spent enough time on the budget right where are you felt a little like an implication and I just want to I want to be clear tonight I mean perception is reality the book says so a man thinketh in his heart so is he it is irrelevant it is irrelevant what I believe that we have done it is about the perception of the people that are that are looking at us I can tell you all day that this is a
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red shirt I am wearing a red shirt if I believe it in my heart that it's a red shirt when you get finished talking it is irrelevant I'm still going to believe that it's a red shirt so perception is the reality whether I believe it or you believe it whether I'm saying it or you're saying it if the perception of the people sitting on the other side of that table is that we are not doing due diligence then guess what we have not done due diligence because our job is to make sure that they understand it our job is to make sure that they get it it's not to tell them that we have done it deal with it we have done what we're supposed to do and that's enough that is not our job our job is to if if they say well I still don't get it then our job is to go back over it again if they say I still don't and it's not to Simply it doesn't mean and this is where I get in trouble my kids tell me this all the time Dad are you just going to say the same thing slower and think that I understand because that's what I have a tendency to do I have a tendency to say Okay so if you move it here then it will do that what am I supposed to move okay all you have to do is move it here and then it will say and it's slower doesn't help them sometimes we have to rephrase it sometimes we have to rephrase it we have to um we have to invite them into the conversation so what is it how can I help you get this back we have to figure out how we're going to see where in this regard the Educators and so we have to figure out how we're going to teach is it a kinesthetic learner is it a there are four different learning things or are we going to Simply say well this is the way that I teach everybody else has to get it the way that I teach it and if you can't get it that way then the problem is you not me no I have to change something about me because in basketball I don't care if you can do a no-look pass the pass is only good if they can catch it so regardless of how great the past was if they can't catch it it's still a turnover regardless of how we're trying to do it if we can't if they can't receive it it's still a turnover if they can't get it we still failed so it's not that I'm trying to say that we have or have not I'm saying to the people that sit on the other side of this table we haven't communicated to a point where they haven't they can't get it then we haven't done our job and we need to come back to the table we need to reassess and we need to figure out how do we give them the information in a way that makes sense to them not in a way that makes sense to us and in a time of universal deceit sometimes telling the truth is the Revolutionary act now this doesn't mean that I'm lying I'm using this in every single aspect of everything that I do in a season where it seems like going one way is what everybody is doing does that make it right no I got I gotta figure something else out so we can apply that to what we're doing here on this board we can continue to sit here and say we've done the due diligence we've done this we've done that and then the people out there continuing to say I don't understand what you're saying I don't understand what you're doing this doesn't make sense to me I voted you I voted for you guys because you're supposed to represent me and then you get up there and you just start doing whatever and they don't understand all the work that we're putting into it we have to change something we can't keep going along saying well I've done my part it's up to you to try to figure it out we're the idiots because we're the ones banging our head up against the wall saying that well I did the same thing and now you didn't get it it's not them it's us we need to change something that's all I'm saying and so that was my closing statement and I'm here all night I got more questions or statements but I'ma Hold'em because as a black preacher we only get five closes and I used all of Mines up just now and so I'm I'm done so a couple things one I think it's a great call out um chair Scott that we need to know what understand what's not in here um because it will come out at a certain point and it's always it's always better to to know at the front end so we can have a discussion about it because we have a pretty condensed um time frame so I'd really like to see that next next meeting and it's not just what it what's being cut or what will change in school but also here I think that's an important conversation if there are reductions or we we froze five positions here or say for example the 50 tosas what's going to look different um because of a budget reduction so getting getting that and understanding it next week um love to have the answers to the questions that I raised the um a question that I didn't raise but I'm for sure will want to know that next week is that um
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we're in the budget that we can see the actual I was looking in the budget but I had the the Ft the so license FTE so teachers the classroom so there was a budgeted FTE number and then there's for last year and then FTE budget number but actually the budget number is different from what the actual last year is From the actual number so I'd like to know for for teachers in the in schools what last year's budget FTE number was and then where we actually where we actually landed and then where in this budget I can find that this this year and then also for the other categories um as well but again that when I'm looking in here just the budgeted number because we had the freezes and everything else that doesn't really for last year doesn't really tell me the comparative necessarily so um so that's another thing and then I think the the last substantive piece that I wanted to just fly I can flag right now on amendments is I would be interested in doing something on the middle the middle school piece on the social emotional sports and the um the um issue that the middle school principals called out and then I I don't see in here and maybe this is coming with uh when the piece that comes with the if we get the money from the state um and maybe getting more detail from Lisa of what that looks like whether it's a carve out or separate but I don't see um like the extra early literacy supports for sort of K3 and so um if if they're there I don't I don't see them um and so is that part of the bigger package so it's just it's more of a question because I don't see it but I would be if it doesn't exist I'd be interested in what our strategy is well thank you director Lowry would like to go home I've already had my say Victor Hollins anything more directly to pass anything more I just want to quickly um appreciate the staff for putting together the budget and doing the work to get it get us something to review also a field this year like there's been more time to understand the budget and digest it so I appreciate that as well um I'll be curious to and keep optimistic about to learn more about how the inputs that we talked about translates and translate into outcomes and then also I'm really curious to hear about those trade-offs and especially where that ending fund balances are our reserves what we decide to do with that and if we can build that in fact build that back up um yeah I want to say that this is the most coherent budget that I have ever seen um I I think the the Preamble or the superintendent's budget message which is long it's like four pages long and includes probably 25 hyperlinks is really an incredible document in the sense that it links to what the specific strategies are it links to what specific goals are so that we are receiving this budget within a framework that we've developed over the last few years that really makes sense these are our goals this is our pathway of where we're trying to get for our students as opposed to um you know really just in past years I've had the experience of just kind of minor modifications to the prior Year's budget based on how you've how we've done business in the past and so here we are continuing a lot of the same strategies but they all link back to a stated goal and a stated framework for what we're trying to do here at large so I really appreciate that and I encourage everybody to like dig into that document and all those links to what's going on I really encourage the public to do that I have a lot of questions from the budget document that I'll just submit in writing I continue to have a lot of questions about social emotional supports at all of our grade levels and about the availability of of counselors and mental health workers and then also just looking at how much of that type of work in particular we're loading onto our one-time funds because that's a that's going to put us in a little bit of a precarious position so I'm interested in maybe starting to wean ourselves on things that we know we're going to want to sustain in the future and starting to find ways to embed those in the general fund budget and then lastly I have said this before in our
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last couple of meetings around the budget but I think we need to be having some of the Bolder conversations now about some of the big changes that this district is going to have to make in response to declining enrollment and that may mean budgeting for processes around school consolidations I I probably will advocate for that for investing in um a road map for how we get there because we can't just kick the can down the road it's never easy either logistically or politically you know it's going to take political will which historically boards have not been very good at um in terms of making those hard decisions so I'm going to want to have really deliberate conversations about um that and it's it's really hard we're not going to be making those decisions in this budget process we're not going to be saying what but we're going to have to talk about a process for it because it it looks pretty inevitable I'm really excited to bring you out of school board retirement to help lead that Community engagement process so just outside of the southeast thanks yeah we're done being processed thank you everybody for that conversation more to come over the next few weeks um next thank you again staff as well really really great presentation um next we have a report on the hardship transfer audit that was conducted by our office of internal performance audits our senior internal performance auditor Janice Hansen is here to provide an overview of the findings which were also previously shared now I know you had a long meeting with the audit committee where you covered this if anybody hasn't benefited Janice also will do um uh uh individual briefings if you have a lot of detail questions but we wanted to give you at least a couple minutes just to present this tonight um so that we can see it as a full board in the community you can see it because it was a great audit so thanks much I really appreciate it can you hear me okay yes okay um I did get over an hour to talk about it in the audit committee and I still went over but I have practiced a five minute presentation so y'all are gonna get that version and I'm happy to follow up with additional questions so I will just get started on that um generally when students enroll at PPS they're expected to attend their neighborhood schools um and a focus option schools are available through our Lottery system and outside of those two processes we have a petition process where students who don't want to attend their neighborhood school or the for a variety of reasons they can petition the district to change to a different School these petition transfer requests are processed in the enrollment and transferring Center and they do a lot of these so a last couple years have been around 2 700 with currently the current year is about 2200 so that's quite a few transfer requests every year that are being processed by that department the this audit was requested by members of the board who had indicated that there was a concern about the granting or denying of the petition request consistently and on a standard set of criteria and there was also a concern that there was a overall lack of transparency into this process so we did an audit and we had three primary objectives we wanted to assess the internal controls related to decisions to Grant or deny a hardship petition request specifically determining whether there's adequate documentation to support the request and that the decisions were consistent and that they were compliant with policies and procedures and the the third objective was to determine whether the petition request process has a disproportionate or inappropriate or inequitable sorry impact on any student or School community so we looked at three years 1920 2021 1819 1920 and 2021 and um I will go ahead and give the conclusion so what we found is based on the results of the audit we found strengthening the internal controls over this process the hardship petition transfer process is necessary to maintain the overall Integrity of the program while we did identify instances of non-compliance the audit did not identify any evidence of an intentional bias or lack of care so while we did Identify some concerns it was definitely things that needed to be clarified as opposed to like some bias or um lack of care so that was great we
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provided five recommendations which I won't read for you but they are in the audit report and these are very high level recommendations related to internal control structures that could strengthen this process to ensure more transparency and you know relieve some of the concerns about the process and in addition to the recommendations the five primary recommendation recommendations in the appendix we actually added this time some additional recommendations just for consideration so at the high level we said strengthen your internal controls but in the appendix this time we added well what what that might look like and we listed some items in there that they can choose to consider to implement that might help strengthen that process um I want to conclude with thanking the enrollment and transferring Center they were very kind to us this was a long audit and we had to look at telled emails I mean we we had a lot to look at to try to identify why a decision was made and I know that it's not always lovely to have an auditor asking you a bunch of questions but they were very kind to us and I really appreciate their transparency and just giving us everything that we asked so Judy Brennan's not here tonight but her Department was very kind to us so we appreciate that any questions thank you so much and I just want to say this is the kind of audit um Juan thank you for your work it was very detailed it went into a lot and two I mean I think the the recommendations are the types of things that you you know they're in the weeds but they can really help right and I think it's one of those things that I hope and it seemed like you know staff you know it's it's the kind of process where yeah you're right being audited which I have been many many times is never feels like a great process but I think when you get to the end and you've got concrete recommendations that you can move forward on that are going to improve the process it actually can be a catalyst for things that they probably knew maybe needed to be done anyway but now they've got sort of that that push to do it so so thank you for your work any questions from the board about this audit clarifying I just want to thank you for your work um of it just maintaining a Fidelity with your office and your your output your report um really grateful that the department was so Cooperative I think that makes it easier and um I just look forward I mean the recommendations were all things that made sense to everybody so I'm really happy to to have read that and and thank you oh I should have added that the enrollment and transferring Center agreed with all of the recommendations so if you're interested just a plug for the audit committee if you're interested in learning how they're going to be implementing the recommendations we'll be following up on that in the audit Committee in the fall about what specifically they're going to do to implement those recommendations so hopefully all of you want to join the audit committee for next year that that was just the only point I was going to make is that I think it will be really important for the audit committee to check on the implementation of those because some of them are are pretty substantial and it's most of them are more about communication than actually changing practices and then the last thing is just ensuring that we there's transparency about it because we busted a couple of urban myths in this audit where there are parents who you know believe certain things that we hear about a lot that weren't actually happening so just really really um hopefully we'll put this audit on the website and under the enrollment and transfer and just share with parents what our processes are and what they're not and how we're looking to improve great thank you very much for your work appreciate it thank you okay next up uh policy revisions we have the second first reading of the community use of buildings policy director Lowry so this is those one of those fun things about democracy and about the way we structure things we in the policy committee do a first reading and then the policy is out for a 21 day comment reading and then we do a second reading and we vote on it but if they're substantive changes that come about during that first reading period we go back to the drawing board do some work and then we do a second first reading which helps us track that yes this policy has been before the public before but it's different than what was out there so I'm going to read the changes that that came from the policy committee that result in this being a second first reading um the policy committee recommended to add back the following paragraph which had been deleted from the first first reading the district encourages the development of robust out-of-school time programs for youth education comma the mission of its schools comma and the use of its buildings and Facilities by these programs such out of school time programs may be offered as a school program or by other organizations and Community Partners I don't know why I felt the need to add the punctuation to that for sure but I did um and so the this was considered to be
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a substantive enough change to the policy that we put it back into the comment period if we make like scrivener's changes little grammatical things or you know stuff like that then we don't redo it but adding a full paragraph um so I'm gonna just keep reading the policies will be posted on the board website and the public comment period is a minimum of 21 days Hong Tech information for public comment will be posted with the policy and the board expects to host to have a second reading a first second reading of the revised policy on May 23 2023 but you never know um next we have a second reading and approval of a revision to the military recruitment policy this came before us for our first reading you know a while back and uh we didn't need to change it so we don't need to do a second first reading this is the one that um changes takes out the language about um if people are talking about military recruitment they have to include all the viewpoints of the military on certain things and was very important at its time and and things have changed so we're we are revising this policy great now do you have a motion and a second to adopt resolution 6691 motion director green moves and director brim Edwards seconds is there any more discussion about this policy and is there any public comment the board will now vote on resolution 6691 all 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 6691 is approved by a vote did you vote director constam on your way back I thought so uh is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative McMahon voting yes last thing our consent agenda we will now vote on the consent agenda if there are any items you'd like to pull for discussion we will set those aside for the next time we meet uh are there any changes to the consent agenda and our board members are any items you would like to pull [Laughter] do I have a motion a second to adopt the consent agenda so moved second constant moves directed The Past seconds uh the adoption any board discussion on tonight's consent agenda board will now vote on resolution 6692-6698 on favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes please indicate by saying no student representative McMain yes are there any abstentions consent agenda is approved by a vote of 7-0 student representative McMahon voting yes the next regular meeting of the board will be held on May 23rd with all those budget sessions in between uh and we are

Sources

PPS Board of Education, BoardBook Public View, https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Organization/915 (accessed: 2024-04-27T22:47:08.866461Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)
PPS Communications, "PPS Board of Education Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbZtlBHJZmkdC_tt72iEiQXsgBxAQRwtM (accessed: 2023-10-14T01:02:33.351363Z)
PPS Board of Education, PPS Board of Education - Full Board Meetings (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk0IYRijyKDW0GVGkV4xIiOAc-j4KVdFh (accessed: 2023-10-11T05:43:28.081119Z)

2023-04-25 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: 2023-04-25 Board of Education Regular Meeting

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