2023-10-11 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2023-10-11
Time	16:30:00
Venue	PESC Windows Room
Meeting Type	committee
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: 2023-10-11 Board of Education's Policy Committee

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on the committee um director to pass is running a few minutes late so we're just going to start with um introductions and we'll start on the inner horseshoe and then on the outside so okay I'm rachela paralal um this is Mary Kane senior legal counil sorry I'm Liz large I work with Mary Kane who's always prompt jul AB Edwards um board member and committee member anyong uh board member commun member EST assistant superintendent Elementary Emily courtage director of purchasing and Contracting Department Aaron Martini principal Forest Park go ahead and yourself this is ver fman student at K Elementary Russian imersion fman um mother student and the Richmond's JD program second grade teacher and I am not school Chief Chester I'm a mother and a of a child at K Elementary the father of three kids Russian I'm Katherine day I am a current parent at a PPS Elementary School I'm Serena hollingworth I am also a parent at El Elementary School executive assistant yeah okay okay welcome everybody to the committee um meeting so uh we're first going to start with uh policies that we have out in public comment um last night at the board meeting we had first readings or the introductions of the diversity and employment and the naming of school district policy property and those will both be open um for 21 days and if we receive public comment we'll um consider that in the in the committee and um if there's no comment or no suggested changes we will have a vote or on the second reading or adoption of the changes um at the next board meeting after the 21 days which I think is November 7th um we also have um an additional uh policy that's out the class siiz guidelines and School staff allocations and um we have received a fair amount of comment about it and I did ask uh for some data and I don't know that about um the class sizes and the DLI program yeah I got it you have it yeah so just as background on this policy uh we had a very basic on line um description of uh Class siiz Staffing and added um a sentence to conform with our current our practice now which is that um DLI and focus programs um that are have a lottery basis will um have similar Staffing to Neighborhood schools and um we received a fair amount of comment um specifically and the reason one of the reason we did that is currently what had been understanding that most of the schools in the district the principal set the St uh I'm sorry the staff Staffing for all the schools and classrooms was set centrally using the Staffing guidelines um and that for some schools the principles had been setting the Staffing the Staffing levels and the and the class sizes and that what this policy be doing is this last year and then the previous year and this year those programs have shifted to be staffed centrally using the Staffing guidelines that we um we use for all other schools that they have a similar level although it's a little bit of an
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art and ass science sence because it's not um that classes aren't going to be staffed up until the to the upper limit and what we see sometimes in immersion is that the numbers in later grades go go down um just because for a variety of reasons uh their family is moving and um you often you can't have students joining an imersion program in later grades unless they're a native speaker um so it's essentially was just adding to the policy to be clear that we have one Staffing policy for the rest of and so some of the comments we received um specifically around um schools in emerg uher on the class sizes and so I have some I have some data the class sizes at Kelly and how they're staffed and one of the complications is uh for Kelly is it appears is there one is there one strand per grade by Kelly yes in neighborhood for neighborhood and the immersion yes looks like there two neighborhoods two neighborhoods and one strands one and one ersion strand um which changes the just dynamics of um you Le less flexibility to smooth out and that's true um at all our neighborhood schools that only have one strand so the you have you have less flexibility certainly with three if you have three strands or three classes per grade it's much easier to um smooth it out but with one um it's coming and going have a big impact on that one class the second issue is um that was raised is that students in imersion programs um if they're not native English speakers might need additional resources and I had a conversation with with Dr Franco is that please jump in um that those students who aren't native English speakers there is additional um for E students that comes into the schools but that's different from the s for Staffing but there is yes but that's different so there you have the El and then you have the kids who uh learning a second language those are two different strands so you're Eng the students who are in the ersion program who it's their they let a second language um we need resources for them and some of them get resources others of them have to be creative and Kelly happens to be one of those schools that has to be cre just because of question think her question is if the second language is English are there elll resources there should be all the students yes yes which is decided by the it's by the district based on the numbers of students and then but what interventions and you should jump in since you're a teacher um yeah that the district would [Music] send um resources based on the number of students um elll students and then at the school level the principal decisions based on the levels of the ESL students and the resources they have so you have some that are um don't speak English at all and then you have others that as the year progresses or as they from greater grade they acquire a little bit more English language they still need the resource so you have a distinction between ESL and ELD but they get resources so there are resources for students okay yeah the because because the part that I was unsure about is is the ell resources um provided because of a immersion program different than non-immersion so an immersion program an immersion program means that you acquiring a second language so you get the resources for that um es coming in as an English speaker getting Spanish Japanese right you get the resources you already have a base language but for your ESL and El you're actually trying to learn the language so there are certain proficiency levels you have to H and the resources are designed
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to help you get there been student I'm gonna have the data we're not going to move on this and we're not going to move at the next board meeting either but so I'm going to send the data around and what I would ask is that people have additional questions um that we I guess I guess my my question when I first read this policy I thought it would help the DLI programs reduce their class sizes because of the guidelines you know for example like my kid I'm sorry um when she was in kindergarten was you know I think the kindergarten recommended class size was like 21 but hers was at6 something7 um and so yeah so I'm just kind of curious yeah I would like to know more about the impact yeah I think primarily it's because you have one strand um there two strs no there's only one strand of Russian which gives less flexibility and sometimes with later grades and they merge the classes we'll send around the the data okay yeah that' be helpful um and since you're the resident educator fine um if there's something that you think would be useful for the committee to know about um both elll services to students who are in immersion programs um can you share with great we're not we're not going to vote on this at the next board meeting so I just want to make sure that we had um and I want to thank all the people all the families and parents Who provided um public comment was helpful and we'll take it into consideration as we do just want to clarify our issue is not as much learning ESL more so our main language we are learning to read in we are in an immersion program which means we in the kindergarten we were 90% educated in Russian in first grade 80% in Russian so we are learning you know the statistics show if we are strong in that uh side that we will actually better adjust uh and we do have a new Commerce who struggle they've been in getting perhaps an enl in the English classes so they jumped into our class in second grade however in second grade in Russian in our main language what we are struggling is they are just learning alphabet so our knowledge is not equal we have other students for instance my son who struggling to read he should qualify for intervention but he can't because there are students who whose education have been interrupted and they have to have that resource so I just want to clarify I was reading there is a lot of perhaps resource about ESL and enl but our issue is our main classroom our main teaching uh and I think it's not fair for our other English speakers we have neighbors and I think jacn should be here too who son is we will ask her uh only English speaking they have no Russian connection and they are learning Russian however you know at this time it will be said g may have to just leave the program because he's not successful among 31 students to learning our main language learning the uh in the classroom so not as much an issue I I feel like if our main classroom is strong our integration with ESL and all the other part you know goes smoothly great thank you for sharing that appreciate it I appreciate it make sure it's not about the yeah in some ways I was also reacting and sharing information based on other comments we received oh yeah so the other question I have I mean we we have you know guidelines is about you know like Title One schools the the the maximum class sizes for K3 and five right is like I can't remember exactly 25 so does that not apply to if there they op I I assume if they're a title School the same if they're a title School the is are lower but they don't necessarily use the same formula for our imersion programs uh
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imersion programs have almost the same class size as everybody else maybe 27 26 depending on the level because as they progress um the numbers increase like in fourth grade I think it's 32 um so the design doesn't necessarily require us to make the adjustments in terms of class size numbers when you say the numbers increase you mean the threshold the yes the threshold is yes the the threshold increases by a grade level but often the immersion classroom actual enrollment decreases because it's not being repopulated by students with language aptitude for that level it it it depends so um after Kinder students have to test to get into an immersion program but we don't often times have a lot of students who can meet that proficiency level however the students in that program benefit because they can always leave the program and join the neighborhood side of the program so the neighborhood side continues to grow the class size thresholds are the same but we don't have a way way of asking kids not to leave a program or to say it if they're not being successful so they move so what happens that's that's why I went into the whole school Dei model what happens is your emerging side decreases in number as kids leave but your neighborhood side grows in number because they switch over to the neighborhood side however we do have a threshold yes both sides and it's um we almost have the opposite we have the opposite issue when it's a single strand neighborhood which is we had with I think it was and L too yes and reg before we made it so um the next item on the agenda is policies for revision discussion potential action um we had one board member who came to the last meeting not a Committee Member but who indicated they had some changes or some suggested changes and I had hav haven't received them so um he's in the Andrew oh Andrew hey sorry I haven't sent those in U do you want me to talk about them now or do you want me to send them in after this meeting why don't you send them in because that way um we'll have an verion that we it and post and everything else I wasn't going to move it any anyway sorry um but yes please send them in yes apologies for not getting that to you sooner and thank you yeah I will I will send in my suggestions so and welcome director thanks I'll just be mostly observing but thank you okay all right so next uh we have on the agenda a recommendation from staff for a recision and it is a Precision of a policy that is labeled it's a 0.10 and in there's no even year on this but I think this is from 2012 they created a street plan and they made it they dropped it into a policy it's got 20 it's pre 2005 oh yeah okay it reads very 2005 thank you yeah when I was reading this I was like yeah yes little 20 years ago re reference so since this is no since since this time in 2017 we or 18 we embarked on a strategic planning process and we had a set set guiding principles we have a new Mission um so this is very dated and you wouldn't necessarily put a strategic plan in a policy format so the suggestion is that we resend this policy okay and we we have a current strategic plan we do and we we don't need to put it into policy but we probably should take this one out because it's literally we see in our um yeah the lineup of policies okay yes I'm okay with that you okay with that yeah it seems kind of repetitive since we already have most of the stuff I agree with all most of it we already have that everywhere so and we have different goals now and right okay um so we can send that to a first reading to rec send that policy um next we have a number of policies that um I'll talk about them just generally we have three draft policies that we are
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going to disc discussed today or just have an overview from staff really an overview on the Contracting and procurement but um a a general overview and what I'd like to ask um committee members is um is there anything in here that you have questions about that you need data about that you have wonderings about um and we could maybe have a preliminary discussion but we'll come back the next the next meeting with additional data are you talking about the ethics religious and cultural that group of attachments this starts with it's um number five in the agenda policies for discussion future agenda items yes purchasing Contracting just holidays find that fund good question about that Contracting I it just seems like most of just keeping up with inflation so what what we're going to do is um on each of these I'm G to ask staff to um do not a section by section um especially this one um a broad overview of what the um what's what the elements of it are what the changes are and why they are and for and same thing for the ethics and um the religious holidays Emily if you would present there's some changes that are um either required or to update the statute then there's some other ones for our consideration and they're color they're color coded correctly um what I did in the red line is just highlight those that are uh updates to discretionary rules rules not based in statutes or attorney general so um if you'd like me to just give an overview of what we have here so I tried to lay out in the staff report sorry could you maybe back up and just like because it may surprise people that we have this big thing to yeah just generally what what is it every couple years what are the public Contracting rules so public Contracting rules that govern how we procure goods and services and construction and architecture and engineering are all tied back to statute uh in orgon those the ORS 279 statutes and we're required to follow those statutes um there are also a whole set of administrative rules sort of expounding upon those statutes and those um are the attorne attorney General model rules we um of course comply with the statute in our rules and we also try to adop pretty much wholesale the Attorney General model rules um as other agencies do as well it creates consistency uh across agencies consistency for contractors um and then there's a uh a a local Contracting Review Board of which uh the Corp Public School Board is one for our agency it is the Contracting review board for our agency has discretion to adopt some unique rules to meet the needs of its particular agency and uh you will see those in the unique rules are usually around uh what Authority is delegated to the superintendent and and his delegates uh to sign um contracts versus which the Board needs to see uh you'll see that those unique rules in some special class procurements that address some of situations that we have in a school district um and in our direct uh in our rules around personal services Contracting statutes do not uh specifically address personal services Contracting and leave that to local review boards to either uh create their own rules or just default to some goods and services rules um so with our model rules you may have seen there's a booklet it's about two nearly 200 Pages um sorry those are not the model rules those are our adopted rules uh we update them every few years to be um consistent with statutory changes and model rules changes as well as to uh you know meet evolving needs of the district and so the last time we did this was in
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2019 um I'm bringing a group of changes now some of which I felt like we needed for a while but I was waiting until some new rules new statutes were adopted by the legislature so the this session there were a number of changes to um the procurement strategies uh for different kinds of purchasing and those uh lay out when we have to compete and what kind of competition we do and when we can just go direct to a contractor of our choice so um in this memo I tried to lay out a sort of C by category the changes we're seeking here um some of them are simply uh adopting the statutory changes and updating to be consistent with statute um and that is uh the first category I laid out and then there's a number of changes just to bring us um you know in alignment with model rules just been grammar changes capitalization changes just all kinds of of little things definition changes uh those aren't substantive but we absolutely want to be in line um as much as we can be um let's see the next set of changes are questionary yeah I'm I'm curious and you tell me if this is part of the what you're about to say but on contracts in which um it's not like a competitive it's like a soul s source are those being like what categories are those in so a a soul Source contract um could be it could be a goods and service contract rarely construction with rarely see it there but it's usually goods and services and that is a separate um statutory and model rule rule that we also have adopted but that is a uh a a justification uh in compliance with the statute and the rule and and some paperwork around it but you see Soul Source definitely in the good the basic goods and services and is that for when there aren't very many vendors or suppliers in that particular area it's for when you uh the good or service required is is available from only one source only one source yeah and then how does that differ from direct negotiation direct negotiation is for personal services so personal services as opposed to regular goods and services are services that are unique to um the person that some some agencies call them professional service but they're going to be like um your doctors and lawyers and accountants and um your um consult counselors various kinds of Consultants um tutors like uh services that require a very unique skill set and um have a lot to do with the person um and I think I laid out in the memo the definition that comes straight from our rule uh we say those services that require specialized technical creative professional or communication skills or talents unique and specialized knowledge or the expertise of discretional judgment skills so they're not you wouldn't call you know think about lawyers Forman here you wouldn't say they're all interchangeable and one is as good as the other as long as the price is the same right was um so they're they're unique to the person and a unique skill set so Professional Services uh and jul director B Edwards if you'll remind me of going back to your question where do the where does direct negotiation F in okay so direct negotiation is um well it's permitted currently for Professional Services personal services under 50,000 50 and under um but it is also permitted for various categories of services even above 50,000 um when those are uh very unique kind of services that are really not subject to competition um if we um you know want to work with a medical provider to work in our schools like medical services are usually not the kind of services that you would uh go out and competively procure um or you know one-on-one nurses for uh some of our students uh perum it to their I
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so did I answer the question there I think so I'm sorry that's fine so there are those uh statutory require um changes and model rules changes then uh there are a couple um discretionary changes uh one is to raise the board approval threshold um from 150,000 to 250,000 so um for the last 12 or more years we the board has looked at every contract over $150,000 and had to approve that before we could sign it um I am uh suggesting it should be changed at 250 to be in alignment with the new formal procurement threshold so that's the Threshold at which we must procure by an RFP request for proposal or invitation to bid um and and again it also hasn't changed for so long um so that is the first one the second that would be for any type of contract under 250 right well direct negotiation yes Soul Source yes competitive right we don't differentiate kinds of contracts or per we don't different among procurement um methods when we when we uh when you the board delegates authority to the superintendent it's just anything right now it's anything 150 and under right so it raise that to 250 and under the next change is to raise the small procurement threshold for personal services contract so as I mentioned uh personal services um can be directly negotiated without competition they're 50,000 or under that threshold um has been in place since uh 2010 it's uh I would argue it's time for a change and if we're adjusting the formal threshold upwards from 150 to 250 for Professional Services uh I I would argue it's also time to change the um direct threshold so a lot of those yes you know are not only to make um our purchasing and Contracting a little easier in the district but also honestly just to keep up with uh changes in pricing over the last 10 15 years I think I remember when it went up to 50,000 it's a long time ago went from like 25 yes and then does 75 it goes up to 75 does that hold us over for another 10 8 to 10 years or um you know I would argue that the probably be changed more often and it's just been a very long time since we've done some adjustments um changed these in 2018 these procurement thresholds no okay we adopted the new policy we we did we um have a 2019 set of rules that was the last revisions uh but there were no changes to procurement threshold or board approval thresholds during that time and then this is something like I know this isn't what how we do our Auditors but say for example we need to have something it's less than 75,000 we could just use this and wouldn't need to go to board approval you need to have something well if it's if it fits the small procurement threshold if it's something like a just a personal service contract it just yeah um currently it'ss under 150 it doesn't right okay so then what is what is the difference here sure so 250 cap and 75 the 150 to 250 cap or raising for board approval is the board uh the board delegation of authority changes so that's the authority of the superintendant to sign contracts versus having to bring them to a board for approval the procurement threshold are a completely different matter and relate to how we compete goods and services page one walking through the first section uh we were onto section two those discretionary changes so we're really on page three yes okay of the staff member yes
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the staff thank uh next set of changes I call removal of administratively burdensome mandates that do not align with Contracting code or attorney general models um so the first is a removal of an amendment cap for personal services contracts we've had sort of a a strict cap on amending personal services contracts for quite a few years now um and we have found it burdensome and leading to some odd results where folks have to enter into all new contracts rather than amending to add you know $33,000 uh worth of additional services to a small contract um and we don't think that is a good result um what was the purpose of that I I think um uh director bermad WS if I remember because I think that came out in 2016 I think there was a concern at that time that um contracts were say going to the board getting approved and then being amended and amended and amended and see them without going back to the board we that is not our practice anymore um if if uh something goes um above what was approved by the board and it wasn't it wasn't one of those that the board to be amended for several years with a maximum amount if if if something goes to the board $200,000 and I get an amendment in hand for uh $60,000 I make that go back to the board and so that that is our practice so I think if I remember correctly that was a rule put in place to um satisfy the board that there wasn't sort of anim Amendment and additional years and years and years onto contracts uh that they had already produced of course in most cases that's not going to happen anyway because those contracts are subject to a public procurement process that limits uh the number of years contract can be amended so say let let's talk about the current thresholds in example so you're saying if you had a $100,000 contract and another 55 that wouldn't put it over the one the 150 then the board would approve if you had $100,000 personal service contract somebody brought me a $55,000 Amendment uh that wasn't anticipated in the original procurement that would violate the amendment camp and we couldn't go forward so it would go it would go it would get kicked back and the contract manager might want to just initiate a new $55,000 contract which if it's the same same scope with the same contractor arguably is not best practice but if you didn't have the amendment C I didn't have the amendment it would go to the board for approval because now you've hit over the board threshold so you're saying I mean we do sometimes get contracts that are that weren't originally over demount but then come because they go over yeah you're saying those wouldn't you're recommending those not come no they still whenever whenever amendments cause something to hit the thresh board approval threshold it'll go to the board but if it's a whole series of ones and they're still under the threshold who cares well you'll never see right no but you don't have to do you don't have to do hold contract okay so and I I think I wrote in here but where we find the amendment cap incredibly burdensome is so many of our small contracts out of schools or small PD contracts add a couple sessions you've you've hit that threshold and you can't go farther we tell people sorry you can't amend and so new contract um so that is the first uh Improvement I am suggesting um they're used to be Amendment caps for construction and uh architecture and engineering um Services as well uh and good and regular goods and services those were removed early on because they Pro really burdensome and potentially stopped uh work Midstream um essential work uh they were replaced with a reporting requirement and I'm suggesting moving removing that reporting requirement because we have not it has not um proved applicable I've reported I you know maybe two contracts under this in all these years [Music] um I'm suggesting moving that um and
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that reporting requirement was only for contracts under over 500,000 and that's why you're not seeing those those contracts procured at that level are very rarely going to go you know over 125% their original my question about those some board members too right when those were reported you ever found that to be useful because if it's information only obviously after the fact that it's already been decided that makes sense but then yeah any never found that useful to have that information is part of oversight or so like I said um probably I can remember twice early on uh keeping a report to the board and again it's after the fact after signed anyway and I don't recall any response from do you think any of this Emily just um building off of um Eddie's question does any of this matter to the um Bond accountability committee so the bond accountability committee is constantly um reviewing contracts and uh we and projects budget anyway so they're reviewing these aside from not through these lens not through the lens so that like nothing we're doing here would change how they do their work or their oversight no okay so on to the section four there are a couple of revised rules delegating Authority contract signing or other authority to the superintendent um and Liz I believe you suggested of these you want to talk briefly about those two sure so we we on occasion encounter a contract that the district is entered into but not with District funds so um it often comes into play in a field trip that's funded by fundraising or student fees um but the district ends up being the the contract signer so there's a the the concept behind this is the board is approving the expenditure of District dollars over a certain amount and District dollars are zero in these contracts regardless of the amount so it's a different animal and so the basis of the suggestion to delegate those to the superintendent they still go through other review processes but it's not a board action um the second is just to bring the offer of judges rule the other settlement thresholds that were raised for general liability claims or workers call claims 25,7 just approve we did it for board approval uh settlements but the offer of judgment is Jud we did not workers come up in general liability which were separate pieces I not offer of judgment I thought about it at the time we would have done it all together but I didn't to have that conversation I know yeah but uh and we we do a handful of these every year it's a very useful tool and these just streamline and make thresholds consistent and also uh adjust to 20 these will go in effect in 20124 so call it 2024 price so if we moved it to something below that and you made an oper judgment and actually we settled say it 60,000 and actually we settled at 60,000 where the board would see it is when we get the whatever that report the quarterly the quarterly report it would just be there yes it well there yes I think it would it appear the yes me just stop the details behind the scenes the answer is yes okay just but there there's a certain point we yes yes the final category is the newer revised direct negotiation on special class procurement rules those are rules that are unique to PPS although a lot of them are very similar to what other local agencies and have done in fact we've you know we borrow each other's language all the time the first is a a direct negotiation rule for medical
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services and borrowed that language wholesale from Metro um it allows us to procure medical services at any price level without competition um in reality we are already doing that but there is some direct negotiation paperwork that has to go along with that to fit it into a different rule um and so I am suggesting we just have an exemption from Medical Services way we do for legal again that's uh that that rule is taken completely from Metro although we took out some reference to animals and veterinarians um I'm sure Andrew's going to object and then finally minor revisions to a couple existing special class procurements that allow us to procure copyrighted materials creative Works uh software and Hardware maintenance lights subcriptions and upgrades that are available from a soul Source um I wanted to update to um reflect uh how uh curriculum and digital resources and software has changed over time uh with a lot of curriculum being um app based or digital resource based um a lot of our software being cloud-based so just it was update to the language to clarify the coverage of uh those kinds and that is it um and again the split right now is between sort of like textbooks paper materials versus um subscriptions for online materials it's it's very much grown on the side of uh subscriptions and online materials um few many fewer textbook orders we used to have textbooks by the way are fully Exempted in statute actually from from the operation of public procurement rules um but unfortunately they haven't updated the statute to recognize the uh modern reality that there's a lot fewer textbooks and a lot more use of online um curriculum type um anything else you want to highlight no I think I mean I'm excited about these changes I think it'll make um our processes um easier bring us in alignment with others I know my um my colleagues at the other public agencies my public procurement colleagues are all scrambling to to make similar updates in light of uh reent legislative changes um hopefully we can streamline our process and make purchasing and Contracting a little easier great thank you I like the the copy metro stuff spend years teaching kids about you not plagiarized you can't just copy something change a couple words but I guess now we each other do when you're an adult well now these are us chat so um speaking of Metro Metro's procurement is really interesting because you have the zoo and animal feed had somewhat separate question and I I don't know we do we have other Contracting policies I forget so we have a policy that governs delegation of authority from the superintendent down to me and other people for signing um contract Equitable Contracting and we have equity in on public purchasing and Contracting policy and three related uh administrative directives and actually I should I should say the delegation of authority is not a policy that's an administrative directive and real estate is outside of these yes yes so I had a question just because we've gotten more of these contracts recently and they're mainly in the space of um osm or the facilities and they're be up to a million dollars like we're going to procure electrical Works say or pick whatever the service is but they usually are in that space and it's and there may be three or four vendors this is up to a million dollar and they come to the board
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because I guess it says to million do do we actually track how much we spend off those contracts annually and the reason the reason I ask is those are often where we have um certified business contractors and I sometimes wonder it's like do we use $10 of service from this one up to a up to a million and or the other one we you know us a million dollars and so I'm curious about yeah we could pull data uh we definitely do track um though you've seen a lot lately of the flexible Services contractor pool contracts job order Contracting model so you get uh you procure by request for proposals and the proposer provides their qualifications to do the specific type of work um and um their uh labor rates and then we create a pool of contractors sort of on call to do that work get them on on under contract up front so they're ready to go whenever any work arises they're designed for contract fokes that are under a 100,000 so um you know if you have a an H will something breaks somewhere you can quickly uh uh reach out and get that work done and the way the FCPS uh work is that you rotate down the list you do a randomized list and rotate down the list go to contract contractor at the top of the list can you do this work for us now we need it Wednesday um if not go to the next one and then just keep uh randomizing the list and the pool bus for three years and then we would repr procure so you've seen a lot of those lately and the reason uh that up to a million dollars is sort of a you know the maximum amount we possibly could imagine spending in the 3 years on this contract but very unlikely to go to high and payments are all tied to contract yes just curious about the process but it sounds like you would get a fairly even SP you should I mean it depends on a particular contractor's availability given at a given time yeah that was my my question would have been how from a pool how contractors are selected um but if they're rotated then everybody gets an equal chance roughly to they don't to compete but they get equal chance to get the job right and the jobs are time and materials based and they've already um propos their labor um so the assignment for everybody committee members is if you have any additional questions to get them to me say by say the 20th which is gives you n days or so um so anybody any questions or I'd like more information about something um and then we'll see next time I think I'll talk to non-committee members and just see if they if anybody has any strong feelings that they want to weigh in um if they don't potentially move it next Mee again I'll check with other I appreciate it it makes perfect sense to me having worked you know in procurement um to raise those thresholds and reduce administrative burden uh the next agenda item is uh religious holay holidays and we have a draft in our packet and two years ago did we do last year so because of um over the last several decades we we uh periodically have um times in which school events get scheduled over um important religious or cultural observances so last year in the policy committee we um had a discussion about what the calendar might look like it came out of that the board has to approve the calendar and how do we designate um some of those days on a calendar and
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we went through a whole process by which we did it constitutionally um of how we overlay that the calendar vote it wasn't within the context of a policy we we have a policy did we we had a policy but it related to like staff being able to take a day off or something a very short policy but it was not a students it wasn't about students or um so just since last year we made the adjustment to our calendar which I think was an improvement to really try and avoid on having major school-based events on the same day as um as other um you know your religious cultural observances um and so this is the next step is which is just um a statement of our values um via a drop policy and youed maor so we uh this was uh drafted at the committee Gary has oops Gary hello how everybody doing today good aw I just have one quick question on some of the things that I've been see on and this is the LA the public Contracting rules piece on some of the stuff it goes from must my own definition of must and shall must is more of regulatory and regul like you have to do it requirement versus sh is kind of subjective as far as what it's almost like a you know if you want to and when you get to stuff like number four under Davis Beacon act no those things you we have to do we it's not an option for us to um like U required to pay wages and labor mechanics at a rate not less than the prevailing wage like we must do that like that's not an option so I just wanted to I just didn't know the the legal wording between must and shall so all of those changes are made to be um consistent with the model rules and uh shell is still obligatory um I don't know if either of our Council here want to speak to the precise differences in those two terms but they're for for our purposes it's still an obligation we consider them uh to be equivalent for our purposes here they are requirements there's no option okay I just when I when I read that and under the Davis Beacon act stuff you know I've never seen in any contract that said sh you know when doing contract work it always was you must do this but I just that just a that's a thought question thank you Gary I don't know when you joined the conversation but um what I was just saying is that um we're not we're not moving this this um meeting and that I was going to I asked committee members to come back with any questions by October 20th and I was going to go um have conversations with just to see if they uh felt strongly or wanted to sort of put their or in the water on this and so I'll Circle back with you on that as well so oh no you no you don't have I just wanted to get a clarification like okay I'm not really it's not really a big issue just some of my Contracting documents around Davis Beacon stuff is always was must it was never shall okay like the first question or gonna be the yeah another no no I'm done with the okay so this policy was drafted at the request of the committee coming out of the last meeting um it Endeavors to um cify what is some of the districts current practices to draw from discussion from the last committee meeting and to extract from some other sample policies those that uh areas that are consistent with the committee's direction and may round out some of the other parts of the policy you can imagine there is still some variation among these policies out there and um at all times the public school district has to walk the fine line of uh on the one hand allowing for individuals to freely exercise their religious practices and beliefs and on the other hand not getting entangled uh in those religious practices or showing preferences to any particular religious practice or belief so with that um overview um this uh the policy creates room for excused absences without penalties for classes and co-curricular and extracurricular activities uh for major religious holidays days as as director brim
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Edwards um identified last year the district did some work to identify major religious holidays and put them on the district calendar that is a a tool to make sure that as as never possible particularly for district controlled events um that raade level which is an expansion in this policy to last year's practice grade wide schoolwide or districtwide events and sched on those major holidays even if is not a state holiday district is open but these other events assemblies back to school nights or some of the typical examples this makes clear that students can uh are able to have excused absences for those events that they're not expected to show up the next day and make up the work because they may have been their religious practice maybe something that extends well into the evening they're not at home doing homework or preparing test for instance um it's uh some of the there again this puts into a policy some of the processes already happened that that and may continue to happen about how to identify those holidays and that the superintendent is charged with identifying them in a way that doesn't create the entanglement for the unconstitutional favoring of one religion over another um it also so uh includes language to uh encourage the advocacy for non-district controlled events uh that the district has an affirmative um role in advocating that OSAA National testing dates things that we can't move we help work with those organizations to get them to not put them on those identified ma holiday high level really like the part about makeup opportunities because I I personally know a lot of issues that that has caused students we took that from polies looked at a whole there's some that are really long involved level you have any questions no it's nice to see that like continuous movement it it's not it's not all that different from what we're already doing and what we talked about last time it just puts the concepts and the practices into policy language and again add some enhancements as we found parts of other policies that again rounded out the ideas the committee has expressed I me I think the other thing this does is the calendar is is like calendar with a bunch of icons on it and so this provides more context about our values and how weate [Music] students director Holland or director Scott do you have any comments uh nothing from me thank you no um I to give you guys this you this the same opportunity with this is the other one um we're not moving it out today but if there's something that comes up that you have a question about um October 20th so the next um item is um a draft ethics policy and in 2018 uh is that right I think I think it was 2018 are talking about the nepotism policy so the board started a series of work um I want to say based on some recommendations that we had um that we have in policy um and ethics policy and uh we did one piece of it which was the the nepotism a nepotism and then it was going to be a series of other um sort of nestled uh policies and things just never happened or there are a lot of intervening events and discussions that are probably not productive to yeah and one thing we did as a separately as a board um we actually agreed to start the practice of which is now now um moralize in number eight which is annual training
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board members and then each board member certifies in writing that they've completed the training um would you like to walk through the high level yes okay all right Mary says I get to do it um thanks Mary it was too long ago I forget that's okay I want to give Mary all the credit for doing the hard work on this and then we she was the one who really drafted it but I'm happy to walk through it so uh the the policy intends to set uh high levels of integrity and accountability for employees and board members of the district uh in the in the purpose I don't think anyone will be surprised by that uh and then adopt definitions um that were relevant are in line with the statutory definitions under OS 244 so chapter 244 applies to all District employees and board members and defines statutorily under the jurisdiction of The Ting government ethics commission what uh conflicts of interests are and are not and defines them with Precision so we did not want to have a separate set of rules that was different um and whether that's an actual conflict of interest or a potential conflict of interest um the how uh family members are described relatives sorry the term I think members of household those are all designed to be consistent with the statute um there's a a brief of by Design code of ethics to really go to the heart of what the the values and behaviors are that underline ethical behavior um in the district uh grounded in trust equity and accountability I think we could put together a group and come up with three different ones or 19 other ones that are all very important so there is some discretion there and room for lots of Rich conversation but the the purpose of that is to ground um uh our district family if you will in in in Concepts that res how we should do our work on behalf of children and um section four that's in section three section four talks about gifts and again this is very consistent with chapter 244 it's a tricky statute and so one of the reasons because we we often I'll back up a little bit see often we don't create policies that just mimic statutes because you just don't need that kind of redundancy but because this applies to every employee um of the district in particular and because it can it's uh we were talking about inflationary adjustments you know there's been no inflationary adjustment in the $50 gift limit in a long time and as presses are going up someone who happens to do business with a district in an area you work it might be your friend because this is a very small town and says I want to you know I'm going to buy you a concert ticket and just come with me I I have an extra one these are the kinds of pieces we want to make sure people don't have unintentional footfalls or more significant violations so this walks through um what gifts are and what they are not um and how those rules apply then it talks about uh um some conflicts of interest again there's a statutory definition what we intended to do in section five is give some examples um that may be a little over and above what the statute actually recites but helps people understand in the context of PPS in their work how some of these things may or may not um run into this this policy uh like lots of our policy it's really important to make sure that uh no one is ever retaliated against for having a good faith report of a concern about a conflict of interest and how to report a concern um if in two different contexts um one is that that if you have a a conflict of interest um in your work who do you tell what do you do about it how do you remove yourself from the decision-making chain there are different standards for board members and employees in terms of the reporting and context and that would be that's not surprising if you're an employee or an elected official um the the mechanics are different but the standards are very similar and then if there are complaints if someone has a concern that there's a conflict of interest that hasn't been addressed and mitigated um where to take those concerns and again those paths are a different from board members to employees as expect and then eight is doing a mention modifies the annual um ethics training for um for board members and uh including written certification any questions I don't have any questions about this not right now Gary or Andrew do you have any questions no not for me thank you no um actually one question um so the limit
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right now for gifts is $50 a year from a single person to a single $50 I heard half that yeah it's just on the onuses on the recipient to keep track okay same deadline 20th October 20th and again um potentially based on what we hear if there aren't a lot of questions or engagement then um we may action which means you could have a vote but doesn't mean you know for sure we move it out will you socialize that with the entire board yeah yeah I'll do the same um thank you for putting those policies together thanks to you guys for uh all your reading so the we have public comments and we have five IND well so five individuals for two minute slots and before that I wanted to talk about the Equitable private funding of school staff um and sort of how the committee is going to sort of work through the process the first thing we're going to do is um so I ask and I believe I got from one of you like any sort of data requests you have um but on October 17th the full board has a work session on the fund for PPS um and that should give us a baseline of the money that's raised I haven't seen the presentation yet but the money that's raised how it's spent um how the equity grants work um how the the timeline and the pieces with the the fans give us one piece of data and then the other piece of data we taled we talked about and that I'll ask for for the next meeting is last year we had a somewhat unusual um because we had offer money so we had the8 million extra dollars that um allowed us to um allow all schools to have some sort of discretionary um use of their dollars so one thing is some school some schools that even if they might have a high per pupil um allocation from the district they actually have don't have that much flexibility because a lot of it's mandated how they to spend how they spend the money and so last year we had um the opportunity for almost all schools to have some sort of discretionary um school-based spending and um thought we as part of um our sort of intake of information uh look at what that look like at at schools um and then in addition to the fund data and then um the so we'll have that so we'll be getting data and I'll give you another October 20th deadline that if there's some other data set that you feel like you you don't have or that you want um so know but we'll have those two important pieces data well excuse me will we also have um idea of what that school by school building by building will we have any report out about what they would be like an impact report would it be the you mean the impact or what they spend it on or both I mean what they spend it on yeah I mean because I think building it might be interesting to hear what they spend it on I'm sure we can get that data but the impact I think it's too soon in some cases to evaluate to evaluate the impact yes so like it was more about how it was used so I think we'll see that and there were um yeah I mean if somebody you know um hired a reading specialist it would be too early to tell reading stor would you know at least that they decide made decision to spend money right as a result of their data and I'd love to see that like disaggregated by socials and geography or is it so begin getting we can get to that granularity again so we'll have the full board discussion with the we'll get other sets of data and um
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it seems like the beginning step that we should have for the our process is what what are we looking for in terms of the outcome yeah I think that's a great place to start um instead of instead of Designing a process but like what what want as the as the outcome um because that allows us to design a process hopefully that um will have input um personally My outcome and I just want to on the table is like I really liked what we did last year because it seemed to give every school some discretionary funding um which right now mostly the schools that have the discretionary funding outside of the everybody gets a a um allocation based on the Staffing threshold and just you know there's a formula and it spits out like here's what you get um and when we've had um either Equity grants or other grants or um Foundation fundraising there's some discretion for school communities to um prioritize things that are important to their school it maybe we have a fourth grade that has large class sizes so we want EAS it could be um because we're Orin we think it's important to have another another adult in the classroom that um speaks the the language of the language program or we want our Li librarian to be full-time not 75 whatever thing is allowed every school to have some sort of discretionary funds to prioritize things so um what I would ask of you Eddie Michelle is to think about how you might think of like what would the idea like do not how not how we're going to do it or the mechanics but really like what what is it um and we've all we've all heard from lots of parents um on all sides of like what what is it that we are interested at the end of the day not not that the mechanics because the mechanics designed to hopefully to get an outcome but what that might look like so that would the future assignment that's like a very much example of design thinking where you start with a ball play and that ball clay has to come become something so you think about IDE like what does it need to become you're thinking up to the Future then you come back and the mechanical piece so I I like that we're thinking an envisioning so from the the two the two sides I would say is what sort of data and information do you need and then what might be the here's here's the desired or the aspiration outcome that yeah okay um all right where I apologize I'm going to leave in the middle of testimony because I'm going to go to a PTA meetings if was your PTA meeting we'd want me to be on time too Cara do you want to call the individuals and there's two minutes and Carol will set your okay and I have a spot here for to come up if you'd like but if it's okay with the committee I think you can say where you're at your um and we have Katherine who Hugh Sasaki actually can can you sit here just so you're closer sorry right there yeah just right here good afternoon board directors and committee members my name is Katherine Hugh and I'm the current principal at um at rile Elementary School in southwest Portland I would like to share my observations about District Staffing funding for schools and my personal experience last month the board heard from Principal Barry and assistant principal Martinez regarding sent Elementary's academic success when the board asked about factors that contributed to this success principal Barry responded quickly none of the systems would could run without the people power I wholeheartedly agree with principal Barry it's the teams and the people who create the success for our students before Bri mile I worked at a designated school like sit and they also had a reading specialist and instructional specialist funded um in their Staffing ratio rile is not allocated a reading specialist from the district or other like critical Staffing supports for students other Staffing supports include kindergarten
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education assistance I've worked in schools where every kindergarten classroom regardless of class size has an education assistant so I assumed that this was true for all kindergarten classes in the district it makes sense that we have this consistent support for some of the youngest and most vulnerable Learners in our community it was when I moved to bile that I learned this is not the case as far as I know there is no mechanism no District formula to provide us with education assistance for all our kindergarten classrooms last year we had three full kindergarten classrooms with 78 students and no education assistance because District Staffing and funding do not provide specific critical positions to all schools schools with foundations raise money to fund these positions the school Foundation funding is the only funding I have available to me for an additional staff position I am not saying that s or any other school should shouldn't have education Assistance or interventionists on the contrary I am saying that Bri mile students need these critical positions as well in the current model the only way for us to fund these positions is through the school Foundation if the board is considering a liting school foundations and replacing it with a district Foundation that I hopeful that the reasons for school Foundation to exist in the first place have been addressed and that the district and state fund all schools appropriately because all of our students deserve this thank you n g Chester this is the we brought the handwritten data for our school the board members my name is masul Chester and I'm a parent of second grader enrolled in in Kelly Elementary School Russian imersion program I'm here to talk about the class Sciences policy in emerging program we don't agree that superintendent should decide classroom size and staff allocation at Cali Elementary School the second grade Russian immersion class has 31 students but the traditional English-speaking instructional classroom have only 21 students people ps's racial educational policy states the district shall provide every student with equatable access to high quality and culturally relevant instructions even when this means differentiating resources to accomplish this goal however PPS is contraindicating its own policy in our program our 31 students come from diverse backgrounds about half of our students escaped war in Ukraine or newcomers these students educations were interrupted and their parents are trying to get established in their new country some of the students and neighbors who want to learn second language and immerse in a new culture some of us have been in America for an extended time but we are trying to preserve and pass our language and culture to the Next Generation we also have students whose families speak Spanish at home and students whose parents are Italian immigrants PP has done impressive work developing these language immersion programs however increasing classroom size is going to destroy all that effort that was developed uh to do this immersion programs diverse as our background are we share one common goal which is to learn and preserve the Russian language the Kelly immersion program is not only a place where we where our children receive education but also a place where we connect with our people share resources and where parents can learn English or how to search for it's a it's a place where newcomers and local parents communicate with and help each other we are also provided yeah sorry we also provided multiple testimonies that have our students have been rejected so we had more people wanting to enroll thank you thank you very much thank you and we hope that um uh our members uh board members will us and divide our classroom thank you thank you Catherine day
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my name is Katherine day and I'm grateful to share comments on PPS strategy for school foundations and the potential of PPS Innovation Studio my background includes 20 years in nonprofit fundraising I'm also the parent of a PPS third grader I offer that we leadership and constituents have wasted resources at board level and school foundations I've tried to follow many strings as we CL clarify assumptions data and functions of private support for public education I work in this field and I'm still confused I also offer there are still voices missing from this discussion there are community members professionals organizations working on equity in the philanthropy sphere they have practices and insights to share have they been invited to participate The Narrative around eliminating foundations is charged with inflammatory rhetoric and partial data those pushing to Sunset at local foundations have yet to provide evidence or demonstrate how removing These funds would improve outcomes at non-foundation schools as elected officials representing our whole school district we expect the board to lead beyond the cycling toxicity and bias narrative and to stop the politics at play with this topic I do not see that this can be effectively solved with one more meeting I do see a school board that led a bold Vision to create the fund for PPS and further inspired Equitable and just funding models in action that Vision also guided The Innovation Studio at PPS which is quote a central Hub to safely take managed risks and design Equity centered Solutions we do ourselves a disservice when we do not tap the wisdom around us and Beyond these walls we do our students and our teachers a disservice and we fixate on a solution without understanding its total consequen rather than revising process about private funding and public education again advance to The Innovation studio and hear their recommendations we owe it to our students to make informed decisions about the future of our schools so that they each receive the best possible [Music] education Ella Robinson backer virtually yes hello I'm here can you hear me yeah thank you uh my name is Ella Robinson backer I'm a teacher of over 20 years I'm also a PPS parent of two high schoolers and I'm a first grade teacher at Alama Elementary where I have been for the last 16 years uh Alam historically has had incredibly high class sizes I currently have 29 students in my first grade class with no help uh the kindergarten teachers in our school consistently see class sizes in the range of 26 to 28 students in each class our foundation funds three EAS to help teachers meet both the academic and emotional needs of our Learners and in recent years due to CO as you know kindergarten students have arrived with greater need than ever for support with loss of our foundation dollars the three EA positions at our school would be eliminated as well as our media specialist who would become part-time this would impact our emerging readers losing direct instruction during Library as well as our upper grade students losing valuable instruction around online media and safety the PPS Equity model does provide more support to schools who educate a higher number of underserved students and I think that the thinking around this model is appropriate however the only way to do that is to pull FTE from schools who don't have the same demographic although they too have underserved students and high needs until the state fully funds our schools we need Foundation dollars to prevent other PPS students from bearing the injury districtwide the total money raised by all foundations is a fraction of 1% of the PPS budget last year Alama raised almost $17,000 of which more than $35,000 was transferred to the districtwide fund and the remaining money paid for our EAS and our media specialist That's approximately $160 a student notably the reform proposal does not include a funding mechanism to ensure that there is backfilled money for any of these positions elimination of school foundations would be a tremendous and long-term loss to
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PPS students I urge you to refer this issue to the PPS Innovation Studio to develop an equitable and datadriven solution that works for all thank you thank you and thank you for your service to our students thank you I appreciate it um also virtually is Jason Stevens Jason Stevens SE and SE him I wish my thoughts on the proposed policy to eliminate School foundations I am the co-chair of the Buckman School foundation and not a day goes by where I don't Marvel at how absurd it is that I have to beg money from my community to fund the Staffing required for Buckman's student body but this is the real reality of living in Portland and I know that any dollar that comes into Buckman's coffers will make my child's education just that much better so my partner and I run the foundation and we put in the hard work because we love our children and we value the school but all the while I think to myself there has to be a better way if you vote for a policy that calls for the elimination of school foundations you must require an effective transition plan to replace the dollars that the policy change would remove the resources are there the district has has a passionate volunteer base Portland has local and District level foundations use those resources direct coordination established plan requirements give direction parents and caregivers of PPS students are afraid that the quality of their child's education will diminish with the loss of the money generated by the local foundations so I challenge you as city leaders to step up and assage that fear chart a roadmap establish criteria set Milestones present to the community revise as needed Implement and adjust accordingly I believe there's a way that we can keep the local Foundation dollars in the district it won't be easy or quick but it can be done and it all starts with the plan don't eliminate foundations until an effective transition plan is implemented thank you thank you very much um you thank you everybody for coming and commenting today and participating in the meeting and sharing your views um also you can email us if you have things that you if you if you were on the waiting list and have a chance to speak um we're more than happy to review that or you could submit also comments um to the committee and we just put them in the committee record as well thank you everybody in Journey

Sources

PPS Board of Education, BoardBook Public View, https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Organization/915 (accessed: 2024-04-27T22:47:08.866461Z)
PPS Board of Education, "PPS Board of Education - Committee Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk0IYRijyKDVmokTZiuGv_HR3Qv7kkmJU (accessed: 2023-10-14T00:59:52.903034Z)

2023-10-11 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

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Event 1: 2023-10-11 Board of Education's Policy Committee

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