001I'd like to welcome you to uh May 6, 2021 regular board business meeting. I'm going to call us to order. Um for roll call, we have all uh board members in attendance with the exception of Director Okonnell and Director Paluso who are absent. Um briefly, we uh intended this meeting to be um offered as well in Spanish. We have a technology glitch with that. Um, and so I want to uh I I apologize for the delay. That's the source of it. But also wanted to have a moment here where uh Director Gomez could explain that uh for uh attendees who were anticipating hearing this in Spanish. Um, time has been set aside on the agenda for citizens requests of the board. Uh due to the uh hybrid nature of our meeting, um the meeting is
002being presented online even though we as a as a board directors are in person along with select district staff. Um for public comments, uh what we're asking in this present format is that uh comments are provided to uh if you want to make a public comment, you provide uh that public comment in email form to Sarah Avery. Um that's Avery 4 AV ry4gressham.k12.org. us uh by 5:00 pm the day of the meeting. Uh then uh Miss Avery will uh coordinate with you if you would like to submit those comments uh basically be promoted within the Zoom meeting in order to make those comments yourself. Uh and my understanding is we have five public comments that were received and three individuals who are interested in speaking tonight. Okay. So, um that will be later on in
003the agenda. Um for now, we do have a meeting agenda. I would move Chris How move approve the meeting agenda as presented. I second. Okay. It's been moved by Director Howitt, seconded by Director Gomez to approve the meeting agenda. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. First up is a consent agenda. Um so um all matters listed on the consent agenda are matters considered by the board to be routine and they'll be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the board or persons in the audience request specific items be removed from the consent agenda and placed on the regular agenda. Currently, we have eight items on the consent agenda. That's item B1, minutes from the board strategic planning work session, March 12th. Minutes from
004the regular work session, April 1st. Minutes from the regular business meeting, April 1st. Minutes from the regular work session, April 15th. Financial report as of March 31st, 2021. Personnel report of employee contracts. A policy update for policy FF, naming of new facilities. FFA for memorials and INDB flag displays and salutes. And then we have a Molton on the Clakamus Regional Educator Network um grant. Mr. Chair, I would like to request the um IMDb to be put as J7 on the agenda, please. Policy under policy number seven. Okay. So, uh, we'll pull policy in NDB from the consent agenda and discuss it under item J7 later on in the evening. Any other requests to pull? Okay, we have a consent agenda. Is there any action? So, I've moved to approve the consent agenda as modified. Second.
005Okay. It's been moved by Director Howitt, second by Director Rosco Beach to approve the consent agenda. Um, all those in favor? I Any opposed. Okay. Okay. Uh, first up is an excellence in teaching award. Um, and I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Hugh. Mr. Hugh. Thank you, Chair Peterson. So, tonight we are celebrating the many excellent educators that we have in the school district and tonight we're recognizing uh excellence in teaching awards. The award was created to honor teachers who are representative of all excellent teachers in the Gresham Baro School District. The most important qualification is that each nominee excels in inspiring a love of learning in students of all backgrounds and abilities. The award nominations were based on the following criteria. Having the respect and admiration of colleagues. Being an expert in
006the field who guides students of all backgrounds and abilities to achieve excellence. To collaborate with colleagues, students, families to create a school culture of respect and success. To deliberately connect the classroom and key stakeholders to foster a strong community at large. to demonstrate leadership and innovation inside and out the classroom that embodies lifelong learners and express themselves in an engaging and articulate and respectful way. Each nominee submitted a brief application that was blindly screened to identify finalists and ultimately they determined a winner. So we have the following representatives and finalists for the excellence in teaching award. from East Gresham Elementary School, Jenna Reynolds, who's the newcomer teacher from East Orian Elementary, Sharon Hoffford, fourth grade teacher. Hall Elementary, Jessica Mim, third grade teacher. Highland Elementary, Amanda Jensen, third grade teacher. Peter Nilson Gooden, PE and
007health from Hogan Cedars Elementary. Liliana Moss, special education teacher and resource methods teacher from Hollydale Elementary. Don Kemp, first grade teacher from Kelly Creek Elementary. Emily Reid, teacher on special assignment at North Gresham Elementary. Terry Haligan, fifth grade teacher, Pow Valley Elementary School. Cynthia Navaro, band teacher from Clear Creek Middle School. Chris Rose, second grade teacher from DCD, Kate 8. Matt Greybel, education resource teacher from Dexter McCarti Middle School. Raina Call, sixth grade teacher at Gordon Russell Middle School. Jenny Darby Lanker, sixth grade teacher from West Orient Middle School. Allison Brink, world language teacher from Gresham High School. Jenny Darbor Lanker, uh, sixth grade from West Orient Middle School. Uh, Paul Cork from Sam Barl High School. He's the high school success coach. And Aaron Ramsey, English teacher from Springwater Turrell High School. Please congratulate
008all of our finalists for the excellence in teaching awards. So on Monday afternoon, Dr. Pereira, myself, and Athena Vatnes had the opportunity to go to one of our schools to actually recognize the excellence in teaching award uh winner via Facebook live. So, if you had a chance to see it on there, we went over to uh Highland Elementary School where we announced live in front of her students this year's winner uh for that award. And this year's winner is Amanda Jensen, third grade teacher from Highland Elementary School. So uh she is uh finishing her national board certification and has been at Highland for the last seven years and is participating in the teacher clarity professional learning and has presented with other EL teacher colleagues or Selifas at this year's EL KOSA conference. Um, she's also
009worked with her grade level teams to incorporate English language arts standards in literature, comprehension, foundational skills, writing, speaking, listening, and language to integrate organs, English language proficiency standards, and the current social science standards with an emphasis on ethnic studies and representation to ensure our emerging bilingual and multilingual students continue to develop language and literacy. at grade level. Amanda is a collaborator, a deep thinker, a student advocate, and an educator who believes in the capacity of each of her students to achieve and create the conditions for them to do so. Amanda believes representation matters. In her words, "When students walk into our space, log on to our Google classroom, or enter our Google Meets, I want them to feel seen and like that they belong. Students who are active participants and contributors to our community." Her
010principal Beth Frey shared, "She empowers students to find their voice and provides them the tools to use it responsibly and empower empowerfully to inspire growth and change. So, please join me in congratulating again Highland Elementary School third grade teacher Amanda Jensen, who is this year's recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award." I think Amanda I think that uh she is uh here online before somebody wants to promote her. There she is. Congratulations, Amanda. You want to say a few words, Amanda? Say a few words. Wow. Um, of course. Um, I've had a little more time to process this recognition. what Facebook Live captured was very real. Um, a tired, shocked, and surprised hybrid teacher on a Monday afternoon in May. Um, I would like to say I'm deeply honored and appreciative of this award and
011all of the thoughtful words and messages. Um, I would like to say, um, to Dr. Pereira, it was great to hear from you specifically speaking to the teaching and learning happening in my classroom. It means a lot to me as an educator that you took interest in our students at Highland, visited the classroom, shared about leadership and influential people in your own life. Um, celebrated our third grade muralists and authors and agents of change. Um, I can say that students have felt very seen and heard by you as well as myself. Um, it's a privilege to serve in this community. I've learned significantly through opportunities specifically that Gresham Barlo has afforded to me. Um, I would like to name the equity certification through the center for equity and inclusion. I'm going to take this opportunity
012to say that I hope that is a partnership we continue to foster and build. also the professional development through the collaboration grant. Um I believe it supports teacher agency and developed teacher efficacy. I know it did um in myself. I would love to see that work centered. Both have been transformative and influenced my passions as a teacher. Um okay. Lastly, I'm fortunate to be surrounded by such strong leadership from Shondaanda Su for six years and Beth Freys beginning this year. Um, colleagues that want to collaborate and continue learning that inspire me to have a greater impact on our students, teaching partners equally eager to do things differently, and mentors that have provided really strong guidance. So, thank you Well, congratulations again, uh, Amanda. Thank you for serving our students and, uh, and, uh, I'm sure,
013um, all of the, uh, nominees, um, from each of the schools, um, just a remarkable, uh, service over the past year to our students and our families. Um, understanding how how difficult it's been. So, thank you for shining so brightly for our community, for your kids, and uh thanks for joining us especially. Um, appropriately, we're going to move into another recognition, and that's that uh this week marks teacher appreciation week, and this has Athena Vades's name on it. Yes. All year long and especially this week is about celebrating our fabulous teachers in Gresham Barlo. May 3rd through the 7th, 2021 has been designated as teacher appreciation week and it would be appropriate for the board to officially acknowledge the importance of a strong local school system and the critical contribution that teachers make to that
014system. A resolution of acknowledgement for that purpose has been prepared for the board's adoption. Thank you. Um before we do any motion, uh director, how would you consider reading in the resolution? Resolution acknowledging May 3rd through 7th, 2021 teacher appreciation week in the Gresian Barlo School District. Whereas teachers make public schools great. And whereas teachers work to open students minds to ideas, knowledge, and dreams. And whereas teachers keep American democracy alive by laying the foundation for good citizenship. And whereas teachers fill many roles as listeners, explorers, role models, motivators, and mentors. And whereas teachers continue to influence us long after our school days are only memories. Now therefore, we the members of the board of directors for the Gresian Barlo School District hereby declare our appreciation to our teaching staff and acknowledge May 3rd through
0157, 2021 to be teacher appreciation week. Be it further resolved that we had urge administrators, teachers, parents, students, and others from our community to join us in recognizing the dedication and hard work of these individuals by resolution of the board of directors this sixth day of May, 2021. So I would move to ratify the resolution recognizing May 3rd through 7th as teacher appreciation week in the Gres School District. All right. It's been moved by director Howitt, second by director Rosco Beach to ratify the resolution recognizing May 3rd through 7th, 2021 as teacher appreciation week in the Gresian Barlo School District. Any discussion? I was just uh pleased to see the teachers that in the previous one were uh recognized for excellence in teaching. Many of those those teachers my children have had. I know them
016from other arrangements and I think it's definitely very um uh timely to make sure that we say yes we see and we do appreciate what you do and um thinking about teachers that I had way back when and they I still think of them and so that is truly we don't forget them that they stay they stay with us. So any other discussion? All right. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Okay. Um, next we have um Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. So March 2021 has been designated as Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. It is appropriate that the board officially recognize the contributions that Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders have provided to the fields of education, business, the arts, economic development, science, and technology. The administration offers a proclamation signed by Governor Kate
017Brown that highlights the vibrant history and diverse cultures of Oregon's Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. We do have a proclamation here and um I wondered if director Rusco Beach would be inclined to read it. Whereas Asians and Pacific Islanders have lived and worked in Oregon for more than 200 years, contributing to the state's rich history, economy, and culture. And whereas Asian and Pacific Islander history in Oregon is marked by a struggle for freedom, equity, and justice prevailing over the adversity of exclusion, persecution, incarceration, and disparities. Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders have helped advance Oregon's prosperity through their contributions to all fields of education, business, the arts, economic development, science, and technology. And whereas Asian and Pacific Islander communities and the Oregon Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs are working to achieve full participation in the social,
018economic, and political decisions that affect their families, building stronger alliances across all communities in Oregon. And whereas during this unprecedented global pandemic in modern history, in which hate and bias incidents against Asian and Pacific Islanders have sharply increased, all Oregonians must stand together to denounce any form of xenophobia, discrimination, harmful rhetoric, and stigma against Asian and Pacific Islander communities and keep Asians and Pacific Islanders safe and protected. And whereas the vibrant history and diverse cultures of Oregon's Asian and Pacific Islanders are here to be honored and respected as a central part of our state story and shared with all Oregonians. This month of May is nationally recognized as a time to celebrate the contributions of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders to our society and collective history. Now, therefore, I don't know what to say to that.
019Um, we, the board of directors at Gresian Barlo, hereby proclaim May 2021 to be Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in all in Oregon and encourage all Oregonians to join in this observance. So, it's presented to us as as an acknowledgement of uh the governor's proclamation. Um I if there's any discussion from it except uh thank you for reading it in Dr. Ruskovich and also um of course thank you for the contributions of our Asian-American I would like to say something. I am so happy that we decided to put this on the agenda as a board. I have been very supportive and some of us have been very supportive of representing um all of our diverse cultures in in Gresham and I would just like to see more of this. I would like to thank
020uh Amanda for for reading it and Chris for putting it on the agenda and I hope that for future when we are acknowledging our diverse cultures that we are drafting our own proclamations and making it from the Gresham Barlo School District. Any other discussion? Right. Our next recognition is from San Barlo High School, Oregon State Thespian Conference. And this has Mr. Cook's name on it. Thank you, chair. In an effort to recognize students who compete at the state level in school activities and academic programs, tonight the board has asked to recognize students who participate in the virtual Oregon State thespian conference. The virtual Oregon State Thespian Conference took place during the weekend of April 9th and 10th. This event was produced in an online platform or on an online platform and included mainstage events, workshops,
021group activities, college presentations, virtual productions, and an acting tech competition. Julia Nicholas Jr. was a finalist to run for a leadership spot as a state thespian officer for Oregon thespians. While she didn't make it into the final selection, she represented the best of Sam Barlo High School and the school was incredibly proud of her work. Several students qualified to compete in the virtual act acting and tech design championship during the conference. The following students received top awards and honors for their work. Grace Sales Jr. received first place in stage management. Abigail Bethky Jr. and Marin Miller Jr. received showcase finalists in duo dramatic acting. Toby Nhorn Jr. and Andrew Schroeder Jr. received showcase finalist in duo comedic acting. The following students received a score of superior by judges and will receive a medal at Sam
022Barlo's Thespian Awards night. Abigail Bethky, solo acting. Toby Neihorn, solo music. Andrew Schroeder, solo acting. Audrey Thighs Thighs, pardon me, senior solo musical. And Mia Williams, solo musical. Um would you do you know what the competition looked like? Like how was it all virtual? It was all virtual chair. Uh and I didn't attend this year to see it. I could tell you what it looked like physically in the past, but here I'm assuming they did the breakout rooms. They had different group rooms and uh worked together that way. And then the judges did a video uh judging event of what kids submitted. Are there I'm red again. Um are there videos of this that you can share? And that's not just the Oregon State Conference, but also the uh speech and debate students and the
023bandon choir. Uh I do not know that, but I can ask the principal. Right. Thank you. Um, I just wanted, it seemed like a good point to just drop this in since it was the uh, state thespian conference, but tomorrow night Sam Barlo High School has the opening of their Adams Family musical. It's an online virtual. You can still get tickets through Sam Barlo High School. I was trying to look up what Gresham High School is doing and I'll have to get to that later on. But um please continue to support our students as they're being very creative in how they are doing their um their work. So thank you and Mr. Cook. Uh speech and debate students. Thank you again chair. Tonight the board is asked to recognize Alyssa Elwell, a graduating senior from
024San Barlo High School for their outstanding academic achievement. Alyssa Elwell is being recognized for a series of awards and accomplishments. Over the past four years, they have been a Barlo speech and debate competitor that has consistently pushed themselves toward excellence. Their hard work, dedication, and energy have paid off. They will finish their senior year as the most decorated student ever at Sam Barlo and one of the best ever in the state of Oregon. In high school, Alyssa has earned 2348 national speech and debate points, ranking them 70th in the nation. They were recently recognized by the National Speech and Debate Association as an academic all-American. To earn this honor, they had to perform in the top 1% of competitors nationally. That is the top 1% of 141,000 students. Alyssa was the first Barlo student to
025qualify for the tournament of champions. They qualified in original oratory. Persuasive and informative. They made it to the quarterfinals in information and octapinals and oratory while competing. This tournament is more prestigious than the national tournament held in June. Finally, Alyssa is the OSAA oratory state champion for 2021. We want to congratulate and recognize Alyssa Elwell for a successful 2021 season and four years of amazing work. Mr. Cook uh band and choir. Thank you again, chair. On March 13th, choir and band students from the Mount Hood Conference submitted solo performances for adjudication. This competition not only names Mount Hood Conference League champions, but also names qualified students for state competition. While there will not be a competitive state solo competition this year, the band and choir were still able to qualify several performers for state adjudication,
026feedback, and Mount Hood conference honors. Each performer submitted a pre-recorded piece of performance performed music for adjudication. On April 5th, the school was notified of the following results. MH Mount Hood Conference winners in choir choir district solo winners competing at state. Andrew Schroeder Junior, baritone first place. Elizabeth Biz Springer Junior, Mezo Soprano second place. MHC conference winners in band. Margaret Moffett, freshman, solo third place, second alternate bassoon. Andrew Schroeder, junior, solo, second place, first alternate French horn. Portio Teo Hernandez, sophomore, solo first place bass clarinet. Emma Harms, senior, solo first place French horn. Robbie Johnson, senior, solo first place tenor saxophone. Congratulations to all of them. And we have student art, Mr. Cook. Thank you again, chair. In March, students from the Mount Hood conference submitted works of art to be displayed and judged at
027Mount Hood Community College. This year, senior Alexa Ryder, Axen Rider, pardon me, was named as the second place finisher for her painting of Crater Lake. This piece was also submitted for the Western Governor's Association contest, Celebrate the West. Alexa is an accomplished artist who has done phenomenal work at Barlo. Her work will also serve as the cover for the 202021 yearbook for San Barlo High School. If you have an opportunity to look at that, and I know you guys do. It is a beautiful painting. It's in our board packet. Can it be put up on the uh It's in the board agenda. I'm sorry it's not there. Yeah. as an attachment. I don't know where the original is being kept. I'm assuming she has it, but that I have nothing to base that on. I
028just want to say that these are such great accomplishments and it would be great in the future to try to incorporate these students and the awards into our meetings, whether through invitation and they could be here in person or just through a video and let them uh present themselves. I would really like to see that. Just for a little clarification, we do invite them to the meetings and I believe the principles pass on the invite and in the past they do come physically. Uh we have because of the co piece we haven't invited people physically into the meetings this year. We will go back to that I'm assuming in the fall invited them through Zoom. Uh I believe that has happened. Yes. Through the principles. I can double check that. Well, congratulations to these students.
029Thank you for making your community so proud. Um, and yes, the highlight of every board meeting when we're back together again is student recognitions and student performance. Um, we've uh we've pursued many different avenues to make that a mainstay, but um I'm under no delusion that a board recognition is uh is worth more than what these students have already achieved. Uh but we're flattered that they would uh anytime that students show up here, we're um we're honored by it. Um and uh and just want to express gratitude from on behalf of the community. So um thank you for those recognitions, Mr. Um, now we have time for an update from the superintendent, Dr. Pereira. Thank you, Chair Peterson. Um, and as part of course uh for our business meetings, uh, usually uh, obviously throughout the
030last year, most of my time for the superintendent messaging, um, I've given that over to um, our team for updates. Um, and I think Mr. Cook, I think you're on for this evening for the update. Uh, I'll go through the normal. Thank you, Superintendent Pereira. I'll go through the normal updates on metrics. They are substantially different than the last time that we met. If you see in slide two, are we going to display that up there, Sarah? Okay, I'll wait. Thank you. You'll see some substantial differences in the metrics this time. Uh as you've seen in the news, uh cases are spreading, but I believe we've plateaued if you look at the last 5 days and even decreased a little bit Malt and Clakamus County. But as of when this was published, which was overnight
031on Monday, we were back in the yellow for our case counts. uh both counties uh still in the green for um positivity rates. Uh but like I said, if you look at daily rates from some of the websites, we are seeing uh an average rate of cases, not cases, not an increase anymore, and a trending downward, which I am hopeful will continue. You go on to slide three, Sarah. Uh this does put us uh back into a yellow zone, but it doesn't change the offerings that we're doing. I'll get into that in just a little bit. Uh but when you look at Multma, the last time I reported to you guys, Multma County, it was 139.8 cases per 100,000. We're up to 258. Clackamus was 170 and we are up to 283 with the increased
032positivity rates as well. And you can see that on there. If we go on to the governor's order, the governor did give an order which changed as of today. So this is not reflective of her changes uh overnight. This was as of last week, but I'll review that for you. 15 counties including Molten and Clakamus were moved to extreme risk and that was based on the increase in cases. Uh they they have now moved back. Things are opening back up again as of tomorrow I believe. Uh if they hadn't been changed uh and we were still increasing the governor was going to give it three weeks before other measures would be put in place. uh if and really what you need to pay attention to if you want to watch whether we're going to be
033moved out of risk categories. There's a number of hospital beds available because that is what she is basing her decisions on and it's a wise choice to make. The primary causes I don't want to get past that one either are the new variant which is more contagious but not necessarily more infe or causes higher level of disease uh and that we are opening things up in human behavior. We'll move on to athletics. Uh we are uh finishing up season 3 and getting ready. Did I go too far? What did I skip? Am I on the right place? Thank goodness. Uh season 3 and the governor's orders. The governor's orders do not change or do not impact our athletics. We are in the middle of season 3. Uh that's baseball, softball, water polo, track field, golf,
034and tennis. Um it does change the number of participants. You can have 100 spectators and you can have 100 athletes on the field. So when do you get to your bigger programs that it gets kind of crowded in a co time. Season 4 triyouts start May 10th at swimming, wrestling, and basketball. And right now these events are scheduled to run at 25% occupy of our occupancy of our facilities or 50 people max. because of the change last night, I haven't gone back to refer to the sector guidance to see if that's increased or not. So, it's likely that those numbers are inaccurate. I just haven't had time to reference that. And BHS and GHS have both opted in because you have to file to do that for indoor competition. So, kids can be indoors and
035spectators can be there as well. But we will continue to follow the sector guidance on the number of people that can be inside. Is is that 20% occupancy of of participants or of of viewers? Uh when it's indoors, it's 25% occupancy of the total if if it's a gym, 25% occupancy of the gym and that counts athletes, counts coaches, and it counts ref. So, are we doing like stagger for those or we're just having smaller teams? No, the teams we won't we won't reduce their size. We won't reduce the coaching support. We won't reduce the uh referees. We will reduce the number of spectators. But John, do you also have uh virtual access so the people uh and I was going to get to that with the graduation, but I'll go ahead right now, Chris,
036now that you brought that up. This year, and this is part of OSAA, it is not COVID related. We installed what's called Pixelot cameras. Uh we're given free access to all of our families so they can view events from our stadium and from our games. Not all events. It's not on all the soccer fields and baseball fields, but it is there. Uh we got a broad district subscription at the behest of the superintendent to make sure that we could give access in a co environment. In the future, that's designed as a fundraiser. People can get subscriptions and join in. Uh but it's also in the future we'll have open spectators too. People can come and watch it live. Pixelot cameras are good for if you have relatives across the country that can log in, watch
037the events from a distance in normal times. We are going to use those in a bit when I talk to you about graduation. We're going to use those to broadcast our graduations this year as well. Just this week and toward the end of April, uh student or excuse me, principles finished their engagement with their constituency. Uh students have been involved since April about what what do you what can you give us for input? What would you like to do best for graduation? And we've been given that disclaimer that the sector guidance is going to determine finally what our choices are going to be. That that decision rests with us. But we did want their input. At uh Springwater Trail this week, they had about 50% of their senior parents join online to give input. Uh
038the meeting was positive. At San Barlo High School, they were I think the 180 family participant or adult participant and a positive meeting as well. GHS was at about 110, which these are large amounts of participants. uh giving their input and all of the meetings were positive. In the end, you now see the dates and times. We're going to be rotating through our stadiums uh at Barllo and at Gresham with Springwater Trail doing theirs at Barlo. Uh for the bigger high schools, they're going to rotate right now. They believe in three different groups. So, the families, some families can come in, some family members rotate the groups, do a quick ceremony, bring in the next group so that we can follow the guidance. uh based on the trend that we're seeing, we believe we're going
039to be able to bring in larger groups than we would have last year. Uh so there's your decision on what we're doing. And the dates did change for Gresham High School uh because we didn't we couldn't staff from a district level help them and have you guys be able to participate in two events on the same night that could go four or five hours long. So we did change those to make those three nights. Any follow up on graduation before I move forward? Oh, I just have a question. So, it's going to be in the football field. It's going to look like just like almost like a traditional type graduation. They will have a stage for everybody to be on, chairs out there and room up in the stands for spectators and families to watch.
040It won't look like what you've seen in the past with 400 kids sitting out there at the same time. It'll be fewer students and it'll be fewer family members, but yes, similar. That's our vision right now. We've never done a graduation like that before. So, what I'm telling you right now, I've given you, you know, that disclaimer of we've got one month to go and we may be surprised on. Awesome. Yeah. Some people in the community will ask me about that like, "Oh, I don't know." But no, it's good to hear. Thank you. Parents were overall um Director Beach very happy with the plans. They were very complimentary and understood why we weren't wanting the coliseum. Um Mr. Cook, uh question there. Um what is the information route now? So met with parents and student
041leadership groups. Is that just hey here's what the plan is or is there a feedback loop there to inform the ceremonies? We talked about at principal meeting today the principles are going to communicate their final plans going back to the community so that they can get feedback directly. Um we're stepping out of that process. Principles should be managing. Uh we're still giving it with that disclaimer that if numbers go up and we're restricted or numbers go down and we loosen up that things will change in real time as we move toward graduation dates. And the next slide is not mine. It's Miss Clingers who is or Dr. Klinger who is in her office and uh I'll turn it over to her. Good evening everybody. I am here to just provide a quick update on some
042of the work that our instructional leadership team has been doing, much of which has been related to the student success act and the student investment account. So, just as kind of a reminder of some of the background, um in 2019, the legislative session passed the student success act. The the that act is a commitment to improving access and opportunities for students who have been historically underserved in the education system. and that divided um some funding into three different accounts. One is the student investment account. You've heard us talk about SIA uh the early learning account and the statewide education initiatives account. So last year Gresham Barlo submitted an application to access the student investment account or the SIA. Next slide, please. Just as a brief overview of the funding. Um originally when the planning was
043being done for this um for the SIA it was with a plan of $9.3 million with COVID uh and and all the delays and things that have happened in the last year. There were some delays in that funding and some changes that took place. So the actual funding that we received this year is $2.9 million. And as we're looking at planning ahead for next year, we are anticipating about $7.5 million to utilize um for a variety of projects. So I'll share an overview in just a minute. There are status reports that are provided to the Oregon Department of Education each quarter. So we just submitted one at the end of April. And we did request a summer extension so that we can have additional time to complete some of the spending from this year's allocation
044which gets us through the end of September and gives us some additional time to do that year-end reporting. And right now there's a window open for us to make some adjustments to the SIA plan um through the end of June. So, some of the highlights of the work that we're really targeting um the real foundational kind of um key piece of work is around creating a multi-tered systems of support for all of our schools. So, working on some district-wide systems and an implementation plan, really working to build some common understanding and capacity across our schools and how we can support our students. We are able to um utilize this funding to have music and PE at our elementary schools return to full-time, which has been a big highlight for some of our elementary um staff,
045as well as some additional allocations to middle school as well. There's some focus on stream innovation and some coaching supports connected to that. We've been able to add additional counselors and psychologists. And then we're looking at how to expand support for staff in a variety of key areas, including universal design for learning, which really works to make content standards accessible to all of our students, early literacy, and then scaffolding supports for our English language learners. So, those are some of the big picture highlights uh around some of our plans for the student investment account. Could I ask a follow-up question, Mr. Script, without interrupting too much? Dr. Clinger, could you uh help explain or just a little bit more detail about what what is scaffolding support for English language learners? What does that look like?
046Yeah, when we think about scaffolding support, we still want um all of our students to have access to core content. And some of our students that are still learning English need additional support to do that. So that might be through the use of visuals, that might be through the use of um sentence frames or different language structures that support discourse for those students. So there's a variety of strategies that can be used to scaffold support for for students. And that's that's still we still have some work to do in that area to make sure that we're we're able to really help and support all of our students in accessing that core content. So, and if you said it, Tracy, I was listening to so much stuff and looking at it, but the summer extension, what
047does that look like? Is that part of what's in here, or is that something separate? The summer extension is just simply we've delayed Well, we've extended the time that we can spend that current funding um from this year, the 2.9 million. We have not expended all of those funds yet. So, it gives us a little more time to do that spending. And what it extends is the reporting time for when that year-end report is due to the state to the end of November. So there will be a period of time where we have some overlap between this year's funding for SIA and next year's funding for SIA. And the other thing that um I think should have been in about 20 point font all cap. How many years has it been since we've had full-time
048music and PE at all of our elementary schools? I was trying to remember if that was the 2008 shutdown. 2008. So, I remember when we had to make that decision and it was not it was not a good one, but it was the one we had to do to prevent further cuts in other areas. And I am so thrilled that we are bringing back fulltime music and PE at all of our elementary schools. That is huge. So I am very grateful for the money that's allowing us to do this and that that's where we target it to be. Agreed. At the same time, uh, Director Howitt, we had to reduce our counseling supports at our elementary schools as well. And so all of our schools, all of our elementary schools will have full-time counseling as
049well. So there is a lot to celebrate as a part of this funding. And what does the additional counselors and psychologists look like? what is that increase? So, some of that is returning. So, we just talked about some of those reductions that were made in 0809. Some of our elementary schools have not had full-time counselors. And so, we've been able to restore kind of to full-time counselors in our all of our elementary schools. And some of our elementary schools will actually have 1.5 um counselors assigned to support them. I'm wondering um early literacy will that be uh offered bilingually to for kids to um to enroll in our dual language programs? There is some support through this for our dual language program in terms of some curriculum and some um classroom sets of Spanish books
050so that we have um books available and we're we're planning ahead uh for our our grades to kind of continue up through our elementary school so so that we have proactively purchased some of those uh resources to support our dual language students. So yes. Yeah. Um, the curriculum being purchased, is that translated curriculum or is it culturally responsive curriculum written in Spanish for Spanish speaking learners? There's a difference. There is a difference and uh we have had our teachers involved in that and the focus has really been on um not having books that are just translated to Spanish. Great. Thank you. Mhm. And uh just one other comment um that when this was passed back in the 2019 legislature um that was one of the signature items that the Oregon School Boards Association got behind.
051Uh schoolboard members lobbied extensively for this. So this was something that was all across the the state that people were working on and OSBA along with uh Kosa the cons they've changed their name consortium of school administrators um and uh and just everyone that got involved to make this happen. And so with enough voices we can make it happen. And again I'm so pleased at what we're able to do with the money. Yes. Um, thank you, Chair Peterson. I also wanted to add that um we are also speaking of DLI. Um, really have been evaluating uh the the classroom that does not have the DI DLI and looking at opportunities to offer more support andor expand u because we're noticing those classes are getting a little bit more crowded. I think you and I talked
052earlier about that when we uh just last comment, universal design for learning also has the anti-racist uh version of it as well. So just wondering if you're aware something that our uh teachers going through the equity certification might want to look into. They should have access to it. Dr. Per, any any other part of the report? Yes, sir. Just wanted to make sure I I had that information regarding the extra supports at the uh lower level grades. Excellent. Well, thank you for the update. Um we're going to move into uh presentations. We have instructional highlights from Hollydale Highland Gresham Arthur Academy Public Charter School and Lewis and Clark Monastery Charter School. um coming up instructional highlights from our two uh elementary schools and then uh annual reports from the charter schools. So with that um
053I will turn over to um for instructional highlights. Uh Dr. Per, do you have somebody queued up for that one? Tracy was gonna read. Good evening, Chair Peterson. Uh schools and district have been asked to share information about their school improvement plans and share highlights of ongoing instruction happening at their building. Time has been set aside this evening agenda for Hollydale Elementary School to provide their instruction highlight. And I would like to introduce our first year principal Jessica Ramirez to the podium. Gresham Barlo School Board of Directors and Dr. Pereira. I'm Jessica Ramirez, the principal of Hollyell Elementary and this evening I am going to share the Hollyell Elementary School improvement plan. Hollale Elementary is a Title One school with 493 students. 46% of our students identify as white. 54% of our students identify as
054students of color. 25% of our students are language learners and 14% of our students receive special education services. We are 100% free and reduced lunch. Hollale is a diverse learning community that is continuing to grow and evolve. This year we were excited to be able to welcome staff and student families into the Hollale community following the closure of West Gresham Elementary last spring. Hollale is a unique place to be. We are in year three of AVID implementation and while we haven't followed a traditional implementation trajectory due to the pandemic, we are continuing to build on professional learning and looking for ways to continue to move forward towards becoming an Avid site school. Hollyell has an incredibly robust Sun program and a phenomenal site staff that have served over 200 families this year through client assistance
055and activity kit distribution. At Hollale, there are 14 different spoken languages that are represented by our students and their families. Holly Hollale is celebrating a lot of different things this year, but first and foremost, we are celebrating having students back in the building. It is wonderful to hear students in the hallways, in the classrooms, and out at recess. We are also celebrating being able to offer our kindergarten students a way to access the new dual language program at North Gresham Elementary. This is a great opportunity for our community of learners to be able to honor their heritage and their identity while building their language skills in both Spanish and English. Hollyell has worked with the center for equity and inclusion as well as with members of OD for a number of years and we currently
056have about onethird of our licensed staff who have completed the equity cohort. This professional learning is something that we plan to bring into the following years as we have numerous classified and licensed staff who would like to move this work forward and continue to learn how to better support the community. Hollyell is a wonderful community that focuses on making sure that everyone is a part of the family. Attendance has been a focus at Hollale this year as well as in past years. Currently, 74.5% of our school population attends school 90% or more. In the fall, we focused on attendance and making sure that students had access to their distance learning. This included making sure that students had Chromebooks, were able to log into their learning platforms, and if they were experiencing connectivity issues, received a
057hot spot. In November, we expanded this focus to include student engagement and have since implemented numerous interventions to increase student engagement. One of our schoolwide interventions called the I Ready Olympics was aimed at increasing the number of minutes that students engaged with their independent learning path on I Ready. Students earned virtual field trips and spirit days as rewards for meeting classroom minute goals. Individual interventions were also implemented. Students were selected for motivation kits and received individualized support from our counselor and support staff around making and achieving goals during distance learning. These graphs highlight behavior trends at Holl from a historical context. The graph on the left shows the incident referral data from 2016 to 2020. For the first three years, you can see our discipline referrals remained somewhat steady. In the 2019 to 2020 school
058year, incident referrals increased significantly. In the graph on the right, you can see the breakdown of incidents between our bipok students and our white students. Our bipok students are indicated by the red color and our white students are indicated by the blue color. Over the years, Hollale has incorporated restorative justice practices schoolwide social emotional learning. And this year, we began training our classified staff with the ruler framework. Ruler stands for recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions. Data shows that using this framework can help us to better respond to student behavior needs, which will support us to keep students safe in the classroom learning with their peers. This is a look at our I Ready data for reading and math from 2018 until now. Reading data is on the left and math data is on
059the right. The graph on the left shows that our reading has grown steadily over the years. At the fifth grade level in both reading and math, we can see a widening in the gap between Hollale students and Gresham Barlo School District students as a whole. We are working with our grade level teams to respond to this data and you will hear more about the ways that we will be responding in the next few slides specifically around school improvement goals one and two. This chart takes a little deeper look at the data from the previous slide and shows the results from the winter IR diagnostic in reading. And this data is broken down by student demographic highlighting our bipok students, our white students and our language learners. This chart similar to the previous chart is highlighting
060the data from the math I already diagnostic and again data is broken down by student student demographic. Moving into our school improvement goals. Our first school improvement goal is to establish and maintain an MTSS structure. MTSS stands for multi-tered systems of support. Prior to the pandemic, Hollale had begun establishing this MTSS structure and this goal is focused on continuing that work to ensure that our students and families are supported and academic outcomes improve for all of our students. This includes reducing both the achievement and the opportunity gaps. Our second school improvement goal is to ensure that each Hollale student is provided accessible instruction. In reviewing academic data across our student groups, we see a need to increase the use of strategies that support all students being able to access the learning opportunities. This will include
061the continued implementation of AVID schoolwide explicit language development across the content areas as well as strategies that reinforce students as independent learners. Our third school improvement goal is to increase our family engagement. Historically, Hollale has had strong parent and family engagement. We want to continue to build on that strength and focus on increasing that engagement to ensure that it reflects the demographic makeup of our students. Intentionally seeking out our bipok and linguistically diverse families to work with them to ensure that they feel welcome, safe, and represented in the Hollale community. Hollyell is truly an amazing place to be and I want to take this opportunity to thank the Gresham Barlo School Board, district office staff, Hollale students and their families as well as Hollale staff for all of their support and all of the work
062that has gone into ensuring that Hollale students have a successful year that is full of learning and growth. Thank you. questions board. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Yeah, I am curious to know um what what does it look like at the elementary level? That is something I'm learning as well. Um like I shared in the video, we are in year three of implementation. However, that has looked very different than a traditional implementation. And so with um all of the differences this year, we have really focused on supporting students to be able to access their distance learning this year. As we look at next year and what AVID will look like, we're going to be focusing on writing strategies um as a school. And so we have an AVID team that is working on kind
063of identifying how that implementation will roll out. Anybody else? Yeah. I I also just want to thank um the Sun team. I love the kids and I enjoy doing the science projects and the art projects. Um and your staff. I mean, everyone is so welcoming. I I don't even feel like I need to walk her because there are enough adults up there watching the kids at arrival and dismissal and everyone's following safety guidelines. Thank you. Thank you. I will pass that on. They are an amazing staff and I feel really fortunate to be able to experience my first year as a principal at Holly and I know that they will appreciate hearing that feedback. So, thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Um I have more comments towards the board. We have received you know
064several presentation quite a few presentations from schools about their highlights and we don't have a consistent template for teachers to use. So thank you for doing the work you did. Some things I would like to uh make more consistent is the way that we are tracking um our our bipok students that we don't loop them all uh loop them all together into one group that we really are paying attention to how our individual student identities are doing. so that we can set clear targets as a board. So, thank you for the work that you're doing and this is something as a board that I hope that we pay more attention to. Thank you for that feedback. We're glad you're on board. Thank you for jumping in and I I I I see your improvement plan
065and I know the work that's going into it and I'm excited for your students and families to get back and and experience all that you have to offer in Hollale. Um your engagement data have you um what is your engagement data look like compared to your attendance data? Do you do you know? Off the top of my head I do not. I know that uh we start like I shared we started the year really looking at attendance and then realized that um this year the the attendance isn't doesn't necessarily correlate to engagement in the way that it did in the past. And so we've started using the I Ready platform to track engagement. And so off the top of my head I don't have that information. I I I think there's and to to director
066Sers's point, I think Dr. Perah, I think that's a that's a persistent note at this point. So when we start to see instructional highlights um disagregating a broad bipok community um to make sure when it's uh when it's appropriate to do so uh understanding sometimes the data you have to aggregate it um legally. So, um I guess that was obviously a a key flag, um is the way that our our English language learners and our students of color are are being affected. Um, I would just this broadly would of course never expect you to know off the top of your head, but if you ever identify or your staff identifies board level policies or directives that stand in the way of meeting the needs of those students and families, I would hope that that'd be
067an urgent um urgent notice to district leadership um because uh because we want to be we want to be supporting uh those efforts of your team on the ground uh to meet the needs of these students families. Absolutely. I believe Hollale as a staff is is really truly passionate about equity work and has and dedicated to moving that work forward. And so I believe that as they see um any of those things come up that they would share those. We will look forward to that. Thank you. Um I did want to share that we we do and have given our principles a template utilize they do add some personal flare as they go through um and actually as they have seen previous presentations as well questions and they try to highlight those things throughout. So
068we do give them a template um at the end of the year to utilize that's somewhat aligned with their um their school improvement plan and so there are consistencies um they do add some extras in there as well. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Mr. took uh believe Highland Elementary. Good evening board, Chair Peterson and Dr. Pereira. I am Beth Fries, principal at Highland Elementary, and I'm here to share Highland school improvement plan. Here at Highland, our student demographics have remained fairly consistent over the last several years. As you can see, our largest population is our Hispanic and Latino students, comprising of approximately 40% 47% of our student population. In addition to our racial diversity, we also have a linguistically diverse population where at least nine additional languages are spoken here at Highlands. We continue
069to work to diversify our staff to better represent the racial and linguistic diversity of our community. Through recruiting and intentional hiring, we've been able to hire and retain staff that more closely represent the student population here at Highland. Currently, 25% of staff at Highland identify as BIPO, which is up from just 13% two years ago. Another celebration is that 25% of staff are bilingual. I began my career as a kindergarten teacher in a Spanish dual language program 19 years ago. Today I have the honor of leading Highland as a Spanish dual language school. Dual language programs value and affirm the linguistic and racial diversity of our community while promoting bilingualism and biliteracy and high academic achievement in both English and Spanish. Here at Highland, we intentionally create learning environments where all students are seen, heard,
070and valued. Our annual red carpet welcome is one way we celebrate our students return to the building each year. The sun program is one of our community partnerships which which supports our students through enrichment and academics both after school and through summer programming. Additionally, Highland works with the P3 program which allows families to gain support from prenatal to third grade. The goal is to bridge the gap from home to school through parent support groups. P3 also connects parents to other resources in the community and promotes kindergarten readiness. Community is at the core of everything we do at Highland. We center the lives and language of our community daily. Through a language program, we elevate the Spanish language and culture and strive to build a compassionate community. All year, we engage and empower students through literacy,
071arts, civics, language, and social sciences that honor the cultures and multiple perspectives in our community. Staff participate in ongoing equity and culturally respons development, professional development to enhance our curriculums through representation and own voice literature which create windows and mirrors to ensure our students feel seen, heard, and valued as well as are prepared to participate as global citizens. Our first goal is to have at least 95% of students um at Highland identified as regular attendees. Our second goal is that students will learn to identify and manage their thinking, emotions, and behavior. And our third is that student achievement will increase as a result of implementing inclusive instructional practices. At Highland, attendance continues to be to be a priority. This chart shows the percentage of regular attendees over the last 5 years. Over the last four
072years, we've seen this number grow steadily each year. Last year, only 2% of students at Highland were chronically absent. However, we have seen that number rise to 12% this year. Our attendance team has shifted from supporting attendance to prioritizing students and families and ensuring their needs are met. Some of this includes delivering hotspots, meals, doing home visits, providing virtual tutoring support for students, as well as tech support for families. Despite all of the challenges our community has faced in this pandemic, we have seen our community and family connections flourish as we continue to center relationships at Highland. This slide shows our math diagnostic assessment results. Students at Highland moved from 51% at core to 59% at core from the fall to winter benchmark. Despite this growth, 41% of our students are still below grade level
073in math. This indicates the need for math instruction focused on accelerating learning through strong core instruction. This will be a priority for us the rest of the spring and into the fall. This graph represents our Dibbles reading diagnostic for the year. Fortunately, we are seeing significant growth in reading despite reading groups being held virtually this year. In distance learning, we have had the opportunity to increase our small group reading instruction, providing even more students the opportunity to access targeted reading instruction. Prioritizing small groupoup instruction fostered positive relationships with adults and allows for more time for students to practice and develop their reading skills. Highland serves the highest percentage of emerging bilingual stu students in our district. According to ELPA scores, our emerging bilingual students have been performing at higher rates year after year. Last year,
07476% of our emerging bilingual who took alpha were on track to proficiency. This is a great accomplishment and we need to continue to focus our effort on the development of language for all our emerging bilingual students. At Highland, we intentionally center and elevate the Spanish language in our community. I would like to end this presentation by modeling this and providing my closing for the community in Spanish. Highland. questions from board. Yeah, I'm curious um about the P3 program. Is that program also offered bilingually and what is the involvement of the Highland staff in the program or is it just some staff running it? Uh yes, the P3 program and is bilingually. Um so one of the benefits we have um in our sun program is we're identified as a cultural site meaning all the sun
075staff are bilingual that support Highland um and so um yes they um the P3 program teachers are bilingual and they um provide pushing support in classrooms um as well as bilingual support to our families um in in Spanish. They are sun staff that work that partner with our high teachers. Yeah, they participate and in our in our um in our staff meetings and our professional learning teams. Um Maida was going to ask the question that I was going to ask. So, I'll just go on to my second question. That mural that you guys have, how do we take that mural and put it up there? Yeah, that that mural um was designed by our third grade students and Amanda Jensen, our teacher of the year. Um her and her team um designed that. They um
076the students actually brought it there and they painted it. Um we have a beautiful time lapse video of our students from start to finish um working with the artist and res residents and um first the drawing and then the painting. It was just a beautiful coming together of our community um that really represents the heart of the artist and one of our main hallways in the building. Yeah, I've been there. I've seen it personally and I just I love it. It's a wonderful piece of art. Yes. Thank you. One more. So you mentioned you have 25% of your who are bilingual or bipolaries are Latino or Spanish speaking. How are are you able to provide the supports for families? What challenges have you faced or what supports do you need to be able I mean
077to support 47% of your families with only 25% bilingual staff? What what are some of the challenges and what supports are you able to provide? Well, um so we are a growing dual language program as you know. So we have um our staff bilingually um teachers. Two of two of our three teacher at kindergarten and um first grade are currently bilingual and then I'll be hiring two more um second grade um bilingual teachers and then each year I'll be hiring two more. So um we will be um in the within the next four years up to um 65 to 70% will be bilingual. Um, as far as um challenges, you know, I think um you know, recruiting bilingual teachers, you know, we know that dual language programs um are are growing and we know that
078the asset they are to our community and our communities um around the greater Portland area and so there's a limited number of of those teachers and um we are all in there um you know trying to get the best teachers into our classrooms and so um you know as much as recruitment that we can do as a district um it's really try to be really intentional about um about the great work that Gresham is doing with dual language and the amazing tool we have at Highland and that drawn so many teachers in. They want to be a part of this great community because we do center our students and our community. Yeah. And it looks like you create a beautiful culturally reaffirming space that looks like a beautiful school to go to. Again, same comments
079from the last like make sure that we are supporting all of our staff. Absolutely. Any other questions? Thanks for joining us. Next up is uh is a presentation of Gresham Arthur Academy Public Charter School's annual report. Mr. Cook, can you introduce this? Certainly, Chair. In compliance with OS 338.0951, 0951 Arthur Academy must submit a report to the district and state board of education each year on the performance of the school and its students in the preceding fiscal school year. This report must include, among other things, information regarding the goals and assessments relating to student performance and a look forward at the school year ahead. Representatives from Congressional Mar are here and it's my bad on names at this point. So, I'll let you introduce yourselves. Okay. just briefly could I have you just trigger that
080mic and I don't know what the so that we can there we go. Thank you and thank you for having us. All right, so we're here to do our annual report. It looks a little bit different this year. we were given about the same template as your other schools, which will be nice because you're used to that. So, I am excited to say that we at least racially are starting to um over the last five years, we're starting to look more like the district as a whole. That's the community we serve. And um the two that are not do not have percentages up there is 2% Asian and 3% black African-Ame. Um so, our over the last years we've gone from 80% white to 68% white with a big jump in our Hispanic Latino population
081up to 20% coming from 90% 5 years ago. So we've made great gains and we hope to represent all students and our community. Do you have the do I have a little thing? Oh, there we go. Perfect. So what makes us unique is our model of instruction. That's why we have a charter with Gresian Arthur or with Gresian Barlo because we're offering direct instruction which is a lot of coral response and teacher directed learning but very high levels of student engagement because they're constantly responding to us all the whole lesson. And then the instructional pacing is based on mastery and that means we're doing a lot of mastery analysis. So teachers are submitting um analysis of independent work of mastery tasks within our learning um both formal and informally how many students are responding with
082the correct answer listening for those incorrect answers and correcting immediately in the moment. Um and then depending on how we do that day we either remedy or provide interventions for students who need help and so that we're reaching every kid as much as we can. Our community um is special because it's small and so we get to know all of our students and our families very well which um I think leads very well into attendance data which we'll see in just a moment. But this year um we're we're Yeah, you're good. That's perfect. Thank you. Um we're celebrating perseverance and just our community. It has been you all know it has been quite a year. Um, and our students, our staff have just shown great perseverance. Our parents, uh, huge shout out to parents. Um,
083this past week, we've been celebrating teacher appreciation and parent appreciation because it it's been a joint effort this year for sure. Um, so we're also learning to new ways to use technology and hopefully that will help incorporate new strategies in the future and uh, our school to home connection has been teachers are knowing families better than they've ever known and the partnership there has been wonderful. So our attendance trends, we typically have um a very high percentage of regular attenders. This is data over the last four years, 93 94 typically where we're about in 97% the last two years. Um, as the principal mentioned before, there's kind of relaxed attendance standards. So, uh, it went up even more. For the most part, I would say, um, we probably have, I don't have an exact number,
084but I was thinking about when you asked about the engagement versus just attendance, and I would say we probably have 93%ish fully engaged consistently. So that's been very helpful. All right. So behavior trends, we implemented frenzy at the beginning of the last school year and it was a schoolwide language across grades for self-regulation and friendship goals. And um it developed the core competencies of self-management, self-awareness, responsible decision making, social awareness, relationship skills. And we are really hoping to see um our how our data expected on those minor referrals um before and after, but we didn't get a whole spring of that. So, we didn't have a great measurement yet. Um so, I don't have great data to show you. I we were on track. We definitely had gone down. Yeah, I don't have data. And
085then, um as far as like more actual incidents, that's there's too few kids that be appropriate. share that much, but if you email me, I can give you more specifics. All right. Um, but I kind of passed that, but we have up to 180 kids. If you don't know about our academy, we are allowed to have 30 students per grade. So, that's how that works. So, percentages look different um with 180 kids than 400 kids. Um, so typically for academics, we would be sharing our state same trends with you and that's reporting that we do. That being said, we obviously did not have those this last year and however we were able to test our ELA students um our ELLL students before the shutdown we had done for everybody and we were super excited because
086we had really focused efforts um that the year before on our ELLL students and providing support and 36% of them were determined proficient which we're super proud of. Um, again that being said, that's out of 13 students or so for the 180 that we have. I mentioned our daily, weekly, quarterly analysis. This is our quarterly analysis from this year. Typically, we like to see classes at 90% mastery or above, which that is 90. What percentage of tests were scored 90% or higher? We consider mastery 90%. So it's a little bit lower than we're used to seeing. So of course that is focus for this next year and the rest of the field. All right. For our three goals, increasing mastery in math as identified earlier. While our school as a whole had over 80% mastery
087in um in math, all three quarters, individual classes did not. And we want to make sure that that's happening. So trying to balance the moving forward and progress with that mastery and making sure we're not building any goals, making any goals. And then our goal number two is continuing to focus on those EL students and providing those support with um the goal of a quarter of our students who take the alpha, not this year, but next year when we get them full-time, uh will be proficient um which is a lofty goal because doesn't happen in the year. So, we're going to work really hard with that focus effort. And then go three, increase enrollment applications for historically underserved student population um to promote greater um equity and access. We want to increase our enrollment applications
088so that we continue to work towards closing that gap of how our community looks different than the community of Russian asum. Currently we definitely see the need for that again because our current applications normally at this time we have about 300 we have 168 168 which is down significantly for us and I'm sure pandemic has a lot to do with that um and only 29% of them were racially diverse student population. So there's work to be done there and yeah and then closing thoughts we're working super hard just like just like you all are and we're super proud of our student staff and families and what they've been accomplishing. There's still a lot to do. What does your family engagement look like? Family engagement, parent involvement. What does that look like? Um we have a
089parent organization uh that um we have anywhere from eight people attending the monthly meetings for that to I think our most ever was our first Zoom one where more people could attend and I think we had 24. Um but I would say our the parent engagement just with school in general is pretty high. And I think a lot of that has to do with our small community and us reaching out. We're constantly talking about if their student needs help with intervention. Our intervention specialist is reaching out to that parent and saying, especially right now, hey, can you get on Zoom every every day at 2:30? I have 15 minutes that I want to work with them on things like that. And they're very responsive. I I admit I don't have a totally robust understanding what
090direct instruction is, but what I do understand, I would think you'd be incredibly disproportionately affected by virtual learning environment. So, um yeah, what what did that possibly look like? So, we had a lot of um discussions on mute or unmute with coral response because as as I mentioned like right in that moment we're listening for those incorrect answers that we can quick correct it right on the spot. Um and so it has been our teachers uh kind of figuring that out and really like looking at mouth moving and teaching kids to read like that was is tricky. Um Now we have I believe it's it's we're just about at 80% students on campus. So we're really excited for that. But it has been um it's been tricky but we've been working through and and to
091your point those were all live lessons for those it was all live in the moment but still it was kids like you know they're normally poorly responding we hear 30 little voices or 15 if they're in small groups and we just hear one so a lot of individual turns and a lot of watching of mouths which we do normally but back in person, so we can't watch mouths. We just have to really listen because we want to see how kindergarters are saying their sounds and sounding out words and how first graders are doing the same thing, right? And so both both are tricky in person and over the computer. And I would also add that um it has greatly affected progress within our programs, right? So it's it's really um skilled teachers who are taking
092out okay, what do we think they already skip that part and keep moving forward. So there's a lot of um not just analyzing student student ability but analyzing programs and how can you keep moving forward when we're about mastery. We don't want to move on until students learn skills. So and some of that's really hard because um either uh just seeing their work takes time. You know you have to upload it. We don't have a computerized program. They're sitting at home writing paper and pencil and parents are taking photos and putting them up in Google Classroom. So, we don't have a computerized program help us. Like she said, it was a lot of direct instruction over live. We have a um I would say a threeyear plan uh to get two to threeear plan to
093get those kids up with obviously that fifth graders, right? because they'll be they'll be gone by then. But they're strong. Our graders came into the year as very strong readers, very capable mathians. So, we're not as concerned about them as we are as our K1. And we have really good we've already thought about how do we get through some of these programs quicker without um but still at max. And a great thing that so many of our teachers were willing to loop up with their kids and they their kids and you the families and that was just huge. What do you know what middle schools your kids end up going to? All different middle schools. Your guys middle schools. Um we have a few I think that end up going to MLA and then most
094of them transfer into our middle school. I just want to say that I think it's great that you took this opportunity to get to know the students better and their families and you showed that as a what you are celebrating during this hard time. So congratulations and again the same comments for the the other presentations more focused on disagregating that information on our Good evening. Hi. I remember you guys first started. Um, so it is is quite an achievement to be here. Um, so a couple of questions that I have and and may not be able to answer them tonight, but um, where are you focusing your recruitment at? Is that pretty much within the Gresian Barlo attendance area or outside of the district? Um, dual language instructors, if you said it, I didn't hear
095it, but are there dual language instructors? Not yet. Um, retention. are are you uh especially in the BIPO community um I know that has been a question for years the school did look very different several years ago um are students that are coming in that have historically not been there are they staying are their families staying and then likewise and I I respect what Director Sour says but because this group is so small we almost need to see a bipot group and a white group to see are where is attendance because when I see 97 % attendance. I want to know who's not coming. Um when I look at some of the the math, the 70%. I kind of want to know who's not making it. So without again when it's a small uh percentage,
096you can't reveal too much because then you can identify a student and that that isn't what we want. And then um I was glad to see that you were uh as a strategy for increasing enrollment um translating the written material That has been a request for years to do that. So I would hope that you also are doing it in a way that's not just using Google Translate but actually having someone who knows what they're doing. I think in originally they were using auto translate programs which did not translate well. So yeah I would like to know you know retention attendance um and recruitment you know how how how are the kids doing when they're there? Are they staying and are they welcome when they're there? So I can answer a few of those. um
097for recruitment. We're going to be I'm going to be talking with our actual GAA board on that specifically where uh we had already started translating our materials before the pandemic and so um so I know some of that is already done so that's fantastic. Um as far as other recruitment it's we would only recruit in this area. We rarely have to typically the students that are out of the Gresian Brother School District started in the Gresian Barley School District and moved. Um it's it's very rare that we take somebody off the wait list because they're under the IND there's in district enrollment lottery and then out of district and so we we pretty much stay in the in district. Um there's been a couple of exceptions my last five years um in the upper grades
098here or there when it's a midyear. Oh, we have a spot now. Parents don't want to move their kids. So, we we go down the wait list a little bit. Um, but typically it's all fresh and burrow students. Um, and then you had mentioned retention. We probably lose um three or four students a year. Students stay for the most part. um if they come mid year um yeah I don't have specifics but like just thinking through my actual students um they pretty much stay on sorry on that point with recruitment um I know that like This campus is like by Cle like on Cleveland, right? So you're neighboring um Highland and Hall, like our most diverse schools in our district. Um are you uh going to those schools to recruit more students? I think that'd
099be an excellent pool. It's close. And we've never gone to schools to recruit recruit students. I don't know how that's or is there any interest from any of those students or families in those schools or I mean we definitely get people applying from those schools yet like when they apply they tell us which school they're coming from. So yes, I would say um we get a lot of students applying at least. All righty. And then um your bipok students are they in that neighborhood? Like where do they generally tend to live? All over the district. All over. Yeah, we're a districtwide um school and so and like I said, we're lottery so it's not there's no preference to where in the district. All righty. And then I just have one more question. Um so I
100noticed that you guys do um like quarterly testing and analysis. Um what is that like? So it's our inrogram mastery test. So like every 10 or 20 lessons in some of the younger grades, we're giving an assessment based on what we think they should know at this point. Um all the skills that they should know over the last 10 10 lessons as well as from the rest of the year. We say in the skills never die. Like nothing goes away. This is a spiral curriculum. We do 12 different tasks, but we only do four problems of each one like for math. So we constantly review everything. So there it's in program mastery test. We also typically do and state testing but we don't have to test and so it could be five to seven. So
101we look We look at them daily. We look at them weekly. We accumulate. Yeah. Uh, no, I was just um a little worried because I just see that, you know, your number one goal is to increase mastery in math and then you talk about like consistent testing and stuff. So, I'm just kind of worried that it's like are we just constantly trying to like meet these numbers and just like pass all these tests all the time? It's specific to what they're learning. It's just an assessment tool. How are we getting them to master right now? All righty. I think those are all the questions I have. Thank you. That's a good point though. It does. It almost sounds like that, but that's how it is. And it's um we informally assess kids all the entire
102lesson as well. And so what we hear and what we see on the paper, what we hear them saying, we may repeat that lesson, repeat parts of that lesson for certain kids. Um So, we're just assessing kids all the time to make sure that they've learned. So, we do have a in a typical year, we have a PE teacher that comes part time to our school and parttime. And so, they have PE two or three times a week and they have music two or three times a week each student. Um, within direct instruction, is there an accredited like agency that that gives you kind of that direct instructional title? Good question. So, we um, no, but there is the National Institute for Direct instruction and um, we've all been administrators have all been trained there
103and we actually try to take new teachers to the conference every year just to get that and then we're trained as instructional teachers. themselves. Um, that kind of brings up I was going back to um your one of your slides about what makes you unique and as you're moving back in from um distance learning back into on-site with the way that your model is um are you anticipating or or how are you going to look at students that have not been closely sitting next to fellow classmates? They have been at home and quite as um in line with what's going on in the classroom. So, what's the plan for sort of reestablishing the behavior and the rules as it were? A lot of repetition and kindness. Um I I think students who have art who
104have been there for many years, it's going to be easy even coming into um I don't say easy lightly actually. No, it's never easy. Student behavior is never an easy thing. But they the ones that are already on campus right now in hybrid model, they have just they it's they're so excited to walk in the building like they're not they're willing to follow like the rules right now. I mean that will I'm sure will change come fall. Um but we'll teach them the same way. We always teach them lots of repetition. Um and then examples examples praising all the great Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for your support. because we have one more update. We'll hold recess until our scheduled break. Um, and we have guest presenter for the Lewis
105Park Monastery Charter School annual report, Mr. Can you introduce us? Thank you. Is uh Courtney Mc Williams representing Louiswis and Clark. Am I correct on that? Courtney, I will turn it over to you. Hi. Uh good evening uh Chair Peterson and members of the board and superintendent Pereira. Uh my name is Courtney McW Williams and I am currently serving in my third year as the executive director of Louiswis and Clark Monastery. Um also joining me this uh for this evening's presentation is our board chair Brian Pasco. And for those of you who may not be familiar with Louiswis and Clark Monastery, we offer an alternative educational opportunity for the Gresian Barlo School District by providing a K8 um learning model. Uh as you can see from the first slide, um Lewis and Clark has continued
106to grow over the past five years. Um we pull students from over 14 different school districts and uh during the 201516 school year our enrollment was at 285 students and last year's enrollment uh for the 201920 school year we were very near the cap of our charter at 370 students. Um most years our lottery drawings continue to create waiting list upwards of 400 plus applicants. Um though many times we're we're just um unable to clear but about 40 of those. Uh our retention rate um stays pretty high at around 93%. So it's, you know, it's safe to say that most of the students who begin in the program typically remain with us uh through the eighth grade. Um the majority of these students start as kindergarteners or even younger by attending um uh a type
107of monastery primary program which begins at age two and a half. Uh on the next slide, what makes Louiswis and Clark uh monastery unique? Uh for starters, in a traditional learning model, the uh the focus is typically an adult- centered environment, but in a monastery class, the focus is centered on the child. Uh this is most commonly known as the whole child approach. Um by using this type of methodology it really allows children to reach their full potential not only with intellect and academics but uh also with the development of independence and self-confidence um gives a greater sense of community and basically a lifelong love of learning. Um and uh what uh are we celebrating? We are successfully uh relocated to the Damascus campus in the fall of 2019 and uh although we did have
108to close our doors not too long after we got there due to the pandemic. Um but despite the dis uh disruption, I I really have to give uh great kudos to our staff for um how successfully they transition to online school while uh really still providing a sense of community and connection to their students. Um we continue to operate our free food pantry um and have uh since uh the pandemic started served over 14,000 individuals that have come through the food p free food pantry. Um we continue to have a positive financial standing and uh we did just recently learn that uh another cohort of our alumni had a 100% graduation rate with um uh no GPA below a 4.0. This is our second group like that. So it's it's pretty good stuff to celebrate.
109Um as for attendance uh you know prior to the transition transition to online learning in March uh we we typically maintain an average of 94% attendance. Um during the online training uh it still remained pretty high in the 90s. um you know, but we uh we did we have a lot of families and who have multiple kids and so we developed uh kind of put a person in place for a community outreach and helped some of our parents with larger families that tend to to struggle a little bit more um and trying to help them connect stay connected. As for uh behavior trends, um I am grateful to say that we have not had any formal disciplinary actions uh that resulted in any type of suspension or expulsion. Um I'd al also like to take
110this uh opportunity to send uh an open invitation for uh members of the board or the community to please come and visit our school and see in person. what a unique environment a monastery school is. Um as you can see from the academic trends we are definitely moving in a positive direction uh from the initial benchmarks in the fall uh to the winter midpoint. Um but unfortunately we were um unable to do the pandemic could not conduct our spring assessments. As for our school improvement plan, um the goal number one is uh you know at a a very needed time um as we kind of work to enhance uh student engagement by providing a greater social, emotional, and behavioral support for all our students. Um, we're really excited to hire our first school counselor, a
111full-time counselor for the upcoming 21-22 school year. Um, as we move toward a more integrated curriculum, our staff is collaborating on implementing a more proactive behavioral approach, including art therapy um, for a mu for a more culturally responsive environment. Um we also have a dedicated staff member to integrate physical education and wellness into our curriculum. For our uh second goal, we are um increased academic excellent through our state testing. Um at the beginning of the 1920 school year, we had developed and were in the process of implementing a new curricula around academic excellence by a greater alignment of of monatory standards with the state testing standards. And um and our third goal is a uh working to update our current strategic plan. Our board of directors, uh staff, community members have uh taken some of
112this time that we've had to really uh work on creating an updated strategic plan that includes a new mission and vision um which encompass the value of monastery education. while still striving to make our actions consistent with our values including culture, environment, pedagogy, and uh sustainability. And um in closing thoughts, uh Lewis and Clark Monastery continues to be grateful for the sponsorship um that the Aggression Barlo uh provides us in allowing us to provide this alternative education model. We're continuing with a trajectory of consistent, positive, and sustainable financial standing. And we are always striving to apply an equitable lens as we support our students and families. Questions from the board? Well, I keep looking for you out in the thing and you're in here on a little screen. Sorry about that. So, could you could
113you explain to me a little bit more on your um academic trends? the two charts that show there the reading assessment and the math assessment what those numbers are actually showing um because I'm not quite sure and it looks different I know because Monastery is a different setup but what what is this exactly telling me in here? Okay. Uh yeah, basically what we're looking at here um in in in terms of the reading, we use a uh a testing program known as ECCBM and it does a grouping of sort of a reading assessment which um measures student um reading comprehension of written text at ving varying levels of complexity. um passage reading fluency uh which measures like the fluency of words read in context. Um vocabulary measures uh the uh proficiency for a student's grade
114level where they're at with with their vocabulary. Um for the math component um it is it's basically the general math benchmark that measures uh um the items covering the the three different uh national council for the teachers mathematics the focal points um at where they should be for a specific grade level. you know, where at grade one where you should be uh learning and uh and kind of it it sort of goes up from there at the levels with which they're testing. So, um again, I'm I'm just trying to kind of understand, but am I looking at it then that on the math assessment that approximately 20% to 30% are passing? I don't understand what I'm looking at. What does that represent? What is it telling me? Are kids actually what are they learning in
115terms of being tested? Yeah, it's the the ranges on these range like the top being at 50. It it's sort of a a it's not really a percentage the way that it's um broken down. You can uh range a a score a range between 0 to 50. And um uh the different uh they're kind of like with the grade uh two for instance they're scoring at um around 33 34% out of the 50 or not percent 34 is the is the kind of the mark between uh which is goes up to 50%. Does that kind of make explain a little bit better? I'm just going to move on off of that one. Um, so um what is the it doesn't have here anywhere what your diversity looks like? You mentioned that you are doing culturally
116responsive um training, but what is your uh school demographics look like? We have um I'm trying to think what our latest our results that came back on the report card. Um, I think we have right about 2% uh Asian um, black and African-American at 1% um, Hispanic uh, Latino at 13% I believe it was uh, multi-racial around 6% and white was around 87 or 88%. How many students attend your school? Um, we have uh currently we're at for the we ended the 1920 school year with 370 students. Our our charter cap is at 375. All right. Thank you. Any other questions from board? I just want to commend you for designating resource coordinator during this time and making sure everyone had sheltering mental social emotional support. I think that's really important. Yeah, that was you
117know we it's hard Monasuri is a very tactile learning environment. So, um, you know, true to the the whole child and that includes the family and the community. So, that was sort of top on our list. I appreciate that. I will extend those uh kudos there. Any other comments? So, one last comment. How was it? Because again, Monasuri you just said is a fairly tactile. They're used to doing How was the uh transition into doing virtual um for the students? Um they're not used to doing that. That's not the way things are done at Monosuri. So, how did that how did that work to say now you need to use a computer? Yeah, that interestingly enough, we had to get over the hurdle of this is a computer. um you know most of our students
118I will say although we don't use them a lot in the school um and in the classroom particularly you know this is the 21st century kids know what technology is and and they have tablets and um you know but rather than most kids which were getting on with a laptop you know initially we had you know kids coming on with their parents' cell phones and tablets and um it was it was quite a transition position, but it amazingly enough, it's such a um like well-rounded program that, you know, I mean, it was it was like, okay, we're going to do, for example, with some of the younger kids, it's like, okay, we're going to work on some math. And so, everybody go outside your house and see if you can find three rocks and bring
119them back in. And, you know, and it was just sort of like integrating what they could possibly find around their house. And that kind of became the tactile items and and you know, some of our teachers tried to really think about things that that might be in their home. Um, we sent different supplies to them that would allow them to actually build some of the um their own kind of materials that are similar to the ones they use in the classroom. So, it it it really, you know, children are resilient, but um I'm still amazed at at just how well they transitioned and um you know, and that our community as a whole just really grew. We we grew closer to our students and to our families and um you know, being back here part-time
120now uh is just it it's they just walk around with smiles on their face all the time. So, it it really is a wonderful Well, thank you for joining us and thanks for the report. Thank you. Okay, I have 900 p.m. Going to recess us until 9:10 p.m. and then we'll rejoin reconvene and and get going with our agenda. Thank you. All right, we're going to reconvene and start. Uh we have a couple of reports, policy review committee minutes from February 25th and from April 1st, 2021. Uh those are in the board packet and available for public review. I don't think we'll have any discussion about them. and I'm not seeing any board members looking for discussion on them. So then we'll move to association reports. Um first is Gresian Barlo Education Association and we
121have Michelle Folure joining us today. Michelle, are you able to? Yeah. Hey. Hi. I'm uh I'm filling in for Rhett tonight. So um thank you for allowing me to speak. Um and I'm just going to get get going. It's almost past my bedtime. Um, today's pre-ereading question was taken from a novel we're reading, Prisoner B 3087. The character, a young Jewish boy who survived the Holocaust, reflected on his life before the war. If I knew then what I know knew now, what would he have done differently? Students reflected on their life before COVID. One student said, I would have bought stock in Zoom. Another said, I wouldn't have skipped school so much. For me, the question was like many teachers that have endured this pandemic. If I knew last spring what we know now, what
122would we have done differently? Maybe we would have hugged our students one last time or at least gave them a proper goodbye and good luck as we sent them off to spring break. If we knew then what we know now, maybe we appreciate how much a smile, small note, or drawing from a child fills our heart. Especially when we're feeling defeated, we would soak up the before school, lunchtime, and after school laughs with our colleagues, or the laughter and noise of a crowded hall, or the one-on-one chats with students, even when we need to run to a meeting, but their eyes tell us we need to listen and let them know we hear them. Maybe we too would have invested in Zoom or at least hand sanitizer. Definitely Google. Although this past year has been
123extremely challenging, it has also taught us many things. Gresham and Barlo teachers are resilient. We have returned from distance learning stronger and maybe more exhausted. Definitely more exhausted. Our teachers have come together as a community to learn and grow, teaching each other, sharing our new tricks of the trade, and adding to our teacher toolbox. The GBEA would like to thank our teachers for digging in and staying strong for our students and community during this incredibly difficult year. We are a proud community of educators. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all of our GBA teaching community. We are grateful for you. Thank you, Michelle. Happy Teachers Appreciation Week. Thank you. Next Oregon School Employees Association, Tia Ross. Welcome, Tia. Thank you, Chair Peterson, fellow members of the board, and Superintendent Dr. Praira. We would like to say
124happy teacher appreciation week to all teachers. This has certainly been a very interesting year with a lot of challenges, and we believe that you've all risen to the challenge and have really kept our kids engaged. We say thank you to teachers. On a side note, I have to say it's been wonderful seeing the kids back in the buildings. It kind of gives us a a small sense of normaly and it's wonderful seeing them get off the bus and walk through the halls excited to be there and waving at us and you know hugs from a distance because you know you don't want to get too close but it's sure nice to have them back. So that's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you Tia. Now it's time for citizens request of the board. Uh we
125received um five comments emailed to Sarah Avery uh prior to 5:00 pm today. Uh those are from Theresa Scott discussing adequate air filtration um in our buildings. Uh from Jenny Richard um talking about allowing teachers with documented medical need for accommodations the opportunity to continue full-time employment working remotely. from Luke and Aubrey Nelson uh regarding uh the uh Black Lives Matter flag proposal. Uh Eric Moffett um on the subject of requesting data to inform policy decisions and from Dana Strad um in support of the uh flag policy. Uh of those individuals who emailed uh three are able to um make comments here or or were willing or available to make comments. And so I'm going to uh start with uh Dana Strad. So Sarah will promote panelists. Um you don't need to turn on your
126camera unless you would like to, but um please introduce yourself, your relationship to the district, and then we're looking for about three minutes uh or less. Thank you, Dana. Thank you, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I am a queer mother of two in the Gresian Barlo School District. My house is a couple blocks um south of Holly. Um when I first saw the flag proposal that Robin Sters um presented, the the change in language, it really struck me. Um going through the school system, a public school system myself, identifying my own sexuality wasn't a very easy thing for me. And when I saw that the diversity flag as well as the Black Lives Matter flag would be potentially in every single classroom, it made my heart gleeful. Also, I have a kiddo who
127has talked a number of times about potentially transitioning in their lifetime. And I feel like it's really important to create safe spaces for folks that do identify as queer. Also, as we all know from the past year, all white people benefit from aged structures built by mostly white people, including most public schools. That's what's been highlighted here. I feel like this board has an obligation to acknowledge the land that we reside on, an obligation to actively promote anti-racism in our schools, and we have an obligation to create safe places from all non-dominant genders, diversities, able-bodied folks, and all sexualities. So, please make our schools at least symbolically aware of the work that we're all trying to do to make safe spaces within our district. Thank you, Dina, for joining us. Um, next, um, Eric Moffett.
128And again, just please introduce yourself, your relationship to the district, and then keep your comments to three minutes or less. Hi there. Just got switched over. So, Miss Folure, I agree with you. It's past my bedtime. So, I applaud all of you who are able to stay up past 9:00 and have your wits about you. Uh, thank you for inviting me to speak this evening. Um hello GBSD schoolboard members. U 31.25%. That is the percentage of their high school careers that our current sophomores, juniors, and seniors will have spent living the non-traditional high school experience. 15 months. That is the amount of time that students and families have had to choose whether or not they will engage in school or opt out of school. This issue regarding a perceived choice to opt out of education
129is at the heart of where conversations about equity need to be grounded. The conversations that have been taking place regarding equity and voice are important ones that must continue for our district to strive towards equitable outcomes for all students. However, it is apparent that recent conversations observed at board work sessions are not grounded in real-time data regarding student attendance and achievement. This lack of data informed dialogue results in sending an unintended message by from the board. It's okay for students and families to opt out of their education. This is not the fault of our students or their families. The onus of responsibility falls on district leadership to ask our secondary schools about their attendance rates, their freshman on track rates, and their rates of credit completion more than once a year, and then to take
130the time to ask our schools what would they do differently if they were given the opportunity. Not having consequences for opting out of online educational experiences this year tells our families that their education is optional. I assume this is not the intent of the board. However, it is the impact that the current model and policy is having on our families. In fact, I would speculate that if the attendance and achievement data were disagregated by subopuls, the board would discover that our students who are the most vulnerable and have the smallest voice, the ones that the district claims to champion for are the very ones that are left behind. This is the essence of an inequitable system. Now, in my opinion, it's much easier to talk about flags or no flags or lots of flags or
131how many flags or what kind of flags. And while this conversation should happen at some point, it is ludicrous to talk about giving students representation in place of belonging when the policy sends the message that education is optional, that it's no big deal to skip out of our education. Our students need real in-person contact with adults in the educational setting every school day if there's to be any hope of overcoming the myriad of barriers they face on a daily basis. So please take the time to have a real conversation, a difficult conversation as a collective group. Ask what message you intend to send and what are the unintest unintentional messages that your policies are sending to the very families you pledged to serve. Because in the end, it does not matter how many flags, banners,
132and welcome posters a house has inside if the doors to the house are locked. Respectfully, Eric Moffett. Thank you. Um, thank you, Eric. Last, um, and just to clarify there, all of these public comments are available, um, in the agenda. Uh, you can navigate there through the district website, clicking on the board dogs link, navigate to our, um, to the meeting that we're in, the May 6th. And under item I uh, you can see the attachments of all the letters that we've received um that are included for public comment. Last, we have Luke Nelson. Luke, are you there? Again, just please introduce yourself, your relationship to the district, and uh and keep your comments to three minutes. Are you there? Yes, we've got you, Luke. All right. Sorry about that. I get got booted off
133for a second there. Uh, thank you for your time. Um, I'm Luke Nelson. Um, we recently heard uh that this board would be voting on a policy to raise the BLM flag at schools across the Gresen Barlo School District. And I suppose it should be said that we as a family and as a community agree um wholeheartedly that black lives matter and advocate for making changes to combat racism in schools as well as anywhere else that racism exists. Uh we support many of the causes of black of the black lives matter organization. However, we don't believe that we should be raising flag in our schools for an organization that also works for political changes outside of combating racism. Uh, a quick look at BLM's website today shows the following material in support of unions and
134Medicare for all, both political in nature. One link on their page reveals campaigns like amnesty for protesters and defund the police. With this comes a five-year plan. And with that five-year plan comes five pillars. The fifth of which is called electoral strategy where it states, "We will engage in strategy that captures clear electoral victories with an eye toward preventing the rise of white nationalists and authoritarian rule." Again, political in nature and political in practice. On page 14 of the 2020 BLM impact report, it covers the work of that BLM did in attempting to block the confirmation of a conservative Supreme Court justice. That same report documented BLM's work to defund the police um and renew student resource officers that are there to protect our kids on school campuses against things like mass shootings. Also on
135the website is BLM's seven demands. The first of which is convict and ban Trump from future political office. Two, expel Republican members of Congress who attempted to overturn the election and incited a white supremacist attack. Three, launch a full investigation into ties between white supremacy and the Capitol police, law enforcement, and the military. Four, permanently ban Trump from all digital media platforms. Five, defund the police. Six, don't let the coup be used in as an excuse to crack down on our movement. And seven, pass the breathe act. I would encourage each of you to research these for yourself and the many other instances of political motivation within the BLM organization. Uh that said, we are not here today to express our opinion about political movements. Uh we are here simply to state the obvious that
136these are in fact the political ideologies of a political movement and that this board is considering the dangerous precedents with the implementation of these political ideologies into our children's classrooms and educational experiences, further increasing the risk to our kids when we allow them to attend your schools. Here's the simple question I'd like to ask. If you decide to fly the BLM flag, how do you plan to protect the life and safety of our students if there's an armed protest or riot like the one we we saw at Gresham City Hall when they flew this very same flag? Safety should be our number one priority for our schools. And we should not be considering anything as policy that puts our students lives and safety at risk. The simple truth, this is a political matter and one
137that has the potential to stoke even more division than we already have in our public schools where we represent families of vastly diverse political backgrounds. If individual families or communities want to take political stands for their personal beliefs, we believe that they should and we will support them all the way through it. But implementing a policy to support any political organization is reckless and not the purpose of our public schools. And so we're here simply to urge you to stand for reason, to stand for the safety of our kids, to be educators, to foster the good that's in your students, to create unity in your student bodies, and please don't recklessly support this political proposal that puts our children at greater risk of violence and division. Thank you for your time and thank you for
138the work you do in our community. Okay. Um, thank you everyone who submitted public comment uh for engaging with the board. As a reminder, if you'd like to provide public comment, uh you can email uh any of us on the board or all of us. Uh but if you particularly want to provide citizens uh requests to the board during a board meeting, please uh also send those comments to Sarah Avery at Avery4gresham.k12.org. us by 5:00 p.m. of the uh of the business meeting. Um okay. Uh we have uh some action items. Um and the first one we'd just like to avoid alto together, but it's on the agenda, so we're going to tackle it. Um on uh on March 31st, 2021, uh Dr. Uh Pereira announced that she will be leaving the school district at
139the end of the school year to take a superintendency with the Lancaster Independent School District in Texas. Uh Dr. Prair has served as the district superintendent since 2017. In order to begin a process to select a new superintendent to fill the vacancy, the board needs to formally accept the superintendent's letter of resignation. For this reason, Dr. Praer's letter of resignation has been included on the board meeting agenda. I will not um read the letter, but it is available for public review. Um the the immediate need from the board uh is uh that it it's really a formality. There's nothing that we can do to hold up this process. Um but we we do need to by contract accept uh except the resignation. So there's a recommended action and then we can have some discussion. I
140uh reluctantly move to approve Superintendent A. Katrice Pereira's letter of resignation dated March 23rd, 2021 with an effective date of June 30th, 2021. Likewise, I reluctantly second that motion. Okay. So, it has been reluctantly moved to accept Superintendent A. Catrice Pereira's letter of resignation dated March 23rd, 2021 with an effective date of June 30th, 2021. Uh moved by Director Rusco Beach, seconded by Director Howitt is reluctantly. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? I Any opposed? Um we will have Dr. Praer with us for another meeting in which we will do our very best to properly send her off with the gratitude that we have universally. Uh we just got through the superintendent's evaluation process and uh it turns out that we're not the only ones who uh think so highly of her and
141uh and Dr. has been very forthcoming that um this is a career move that was accelerated by a pandemic that nobody envisioned and so um we're sorry to lose her um but um excited for her her opportunity to be close to home and to lead a district of students that will be better for her leadership. So, um I'll save the rest of my personal remarks um for a tearfilled June meeting, but we have business to tend to and I want to make sure that the community understands what's ahead of us and the board understands what's ahead of us. So, there there are formalities in this process which you just saw the first one and that's us accepting the letter. Um by policy, uh the board has a couple of things ahead of it. uh if
142the public wants to review policy CDB informs how we move forward with a superintendent recruitment. Um and that has identifies four key steps that we have to do. Three are identified in policy. A fourth will be just a conversation the board needs to have. Um first uh we'll need to determine if we're going to be seeking an interim or a permanent replacement uh superintendent. Um we will need to as a board identify qualifications and standards. um that we will evaluate all candidates for the position. Uh we will um need to determine the scope of the recruitment whether it will be an internal recruitment um a state level or a national level recruitment. And um and lastly, the internal conversation the board will need to to have is how we facilitate that process, whether we take
143that on ourselves or if we employ one of a number of consultants who are capable of doing the work as well. Um our policy also insists that we will have public comments that help inform this process and we will abide by our policy. So um what we know is that Dr. Prair is with us through June 30th. in her absence uh authority um superintendent responsibilities are delegated to James Hugh and that is how we will be operating until the board institutes changes that or the the process that we need to by by policy. So that's our way forward. Um with that board I I'll entertain discussion. I um my inclination is that we'll need to have some of this put together by uh by our June business meeting with with these clarified standards um at
144minimum. So we'll be working through committee to do that. Any any discussion? So um So, we do need we do have a a work session prior to um on May 27th. Um do you want us to be to have now that these have been laid outs ready for that meeting? Um I wasn't necessarily thinking that we were going to do it now if that was the expectation. Um those questions you need to answer like you said how we facilitate it, how we get the community engagement, uh how we determine the characteristics uh that we're looking for and whether or not we're going to do a local search uh regional search or national search and who would facilitate help do that. So those um we can pull out some of our information that we used before
145to figure out some of the costs associated with that and some of the potentially available um uh companies and that's something that um perhaps Mr. E can assist us with a request for information and or proposal so that we have something to there's there's search firms that do this. It's not like there's nobody out there that helps find them but having who's available, who's I know there's a lot of superintendents that are being looked for right now. Some of those search firms may be busy. So, that's my Oh, it's it's well taken. I think maybe the productive conversation we could have is whether this board intends to move forward uh is inclined toward a a uh employing a firm, a search firm to to make sure we're meeting our criteria for uh either an interim
146or a permanent replacement, but helping us to to navigate that process. Um I think if that's if that's a discussion we're prepared to have right now, then we should have it get a general consensus so that district leadership can help help provide some um some left and right boundaries for us. Any thoughts on employing a search firm to help this process? I I would like to personally wait to have a discussion with staff to see if there are any internal candidates because uh search firms can be very expensive, $50,000 to find a candidate. And we haven't even spoke about the leadership in the district. We haven't even spoke about what our options are. So it would be my preference to wait for a work session to to have that discussion. We'll take my other thoughts.
147I'm I'm satisfied with that. Director Sers, Director Howlet. Um so would it still be potential because it is it is more expensive, but I don't know how much cost there is in at least doing a request for information to know who's out there in case we say, you know what, we do need to do an outside look or It's not the outside look doing the community engagement part assistance with that. So I don't know what if there's if there's RFP light and there's RFP complex and you want to answer that. Um uh there's there's not formally any like RFP light. It's just that uh for a procurement of this size we don't need to be formal. So, I wouldn't issue a request for proposals. Uh, really it's just a market research component. Um, there are
148the point that you made a minute ago, director Howitt, there's um there's more than 20 superintendent vacancies just in Oregon right now. And so, I I think there certainly is a cost involved with a superintendent search. I think also though there's a time component. Um, it may be that we just need to reach out and find out who's available. Um, and So who would be available to provide that service is I think going to be the bigger challenge that we would face and and so again to the to what director Howitt has said um we would probably want to start that process as soon as possible if the board's intent is to utilize a search firm for an outside uh recruitment process. Um I hearing the multiple perspectives uh but also um feeling some alignment
149with uh with Director Sour's thoughts. Um I I think it's not so much a search firm as as assistance in guiding the process and the public engagement. I think that's more of the piece that I'm u you know helping set that calendar so that we're we're doing in a sat satisfactory way. Um, but I do think that's probably a conversation we can have at at an upcoming work session. Um, and I'm I'm satisfied with that. I'm wondering if if there's other thoughts from the board. Um, is there there is like a one-year timeline until we have to find someone, right? Okay. So, we don't have to immediately find someone. We can hang out with James for a minute. James. Yeah, good. I'm glad you brought that out. Yes, we um I believe I we we
150have a year from resignation to to find it and we're not in the optimal search window, right? Um so, uh let's let's broach this subject on uh at our May 27th work session. And further, um, I'd, uh, I'd kind of put the superintendent evaluation committee on a little bit of notice that, uh, I think you might be repurposed or reconvened as a different committee, uh, to help kind of the board be more nimble as we approach this process. But, um, appreciate your thoughts and, uh, you know, we've, we've said before, but Dr. PRA leaves um a strong stable of leaders in our district um at the administrative level all the way to the classroom level and we saw some of that earlier. Um so again I got to stop rambling because I'll save whatever comments
151I have left for June but I have a lot of comments stuck at first so you should be prepared. Um we're super grateful for your service to our community and so it is universally reluctant that we accept your resignation. Okay. Any other thoughts? Okay. Um, our next action item will be school year calendars 21 through 24. Uh, Mr. Hugh, this has your name on it. Thank you, Chair Peterson. Annually, the board adopts a three-year school calendar. This year, the calendar adoption extends to 2023 24 school year. The primary purpose of the three-year adoption of a calendar is to support long range planning goals for the district and provide calendar information to our community and families that will hopefully assist their planning needs. As the board is aware, modifications to the calendar can be can occur
152annually if necessary. In your packet, you have the 21202 school year calendar, 22 23ear school calendar, and 23 24 school year calendar. And uh the administration recommends the board review the attached calendars as presented for first reading. No action is required at this time for the 21 22 22 23 and 23 24 school year calendars as presented for first reading. I'll entertain any questions. How? So just for clarification then in previous meetings because it is a three-year rolling um the 2122 and the 2223 would have already been approved and so what we're looking at then is the continuation that third year of the 2324 and these are holiday related break time so that parents and and staff know when to schedule time away from school. Correct. That would be correct. Director, is anything likely to
153change between this presentation now and it's become a standard um way of doing it, but is there anything that we anticipate that would change going into the 23 24 that we haven't already been able to anticipate with this year obviously. So, okay. I just want to say how disappointed I am that we were not able to look at the academic calendar and our holidays. We had on our working um agenda items uh to review our calendar to be more inclusive and that we didn't get around to it this year is uh disappointing. Uh this is a great opportunity to that we can work on to be more inclusive of our diverse communities, be more inclusive of our holidays and um to have a really good discussion with our community. So I look forward to continuing
154this conversation um at later dates with the recognition that it's probably a little too late for next year. Thanks for that feedback. Other uh comments or questions, Mr. U. Um so this is a first reading item. So we will uh we'll look forward to a future meeting. Thank you. Next up is transportation contract um approval and this has Jordan El's name on it. Thank you, Chair Peterson. Um First one is uh I have four contracts for the board's consideration tonight. The first one is First Student, Inc. Uh First Student has provided pupil transportation services to Gresian Barlo School District since 2004. Exercising the option allowed for in the current contract, staff are requesting to amend the current contract to add two more years of service with pricing based on the attached rate sheet. The proposed
155rates for 2021-22 represent an 8.25% increase over the current year. This increase reflects the capital expenditures per student has and continues to incur as it modernizes the district's fleet. By the end of 2021-22, all route buses, 95 of them, will have been replaced with new buses. The rent for the busy yard on Hogan has also increased by $77,000 for the upcoming year. Mobile manager and driver hub, which I have more information I can provide to the board if you're interested. I was trying to keep these brief. Are two noteworthy innovations that have been introduced by First Student to improve efficiency in the current year. Staff is requesting authorization to amend the district's existing contract with First Student to add two additional fiscal years beginning July 1, 2021 with pricing based on the attached rate sheet.
156Um, and I will say part of the reason that we are asking for this extension is because um, we would like to um, my brain just went dead. I'm sorry. Um, we intend to issue an RFP um, sometime during the next fiscal year um, no later than the fall of the fiscal year after that. uh for transportation services. It has been several years since a an RFP has been done for transportation services. Um but we did not feel with everything else going on this year, I did not feel that I could run an effective procurement um to Fidelity this year. And so I am asking the board to just continue the contract that we have in place. Um I have a question. Um it says that it's being increased by $77,000 a year. How much
157are we paying already? Oh, for the for the um the busy yard, I actually don't know. Uh I don't get a line item on that from first student. I was just informed by them that they had to increase it by 77,000 to retain the property. Oh, wow. So, I don't know what the current amount is, but I can I can get that for you. Yeah, it's not a very big lot either. That's really weird. Is there like a gold mine or something under there? Uh we have um the so I have not ever communicated with the property owner directly because they have a contract with first student. Um I asked that same question. Why is such a huge increase happening right now? Um, first student's perception was that uh this landowner has been very generous
158over the years in holding rates pretty low, but commercial real estate values have just gotten so big that um or or have increased by so much that the property owner felt like it was appropriate and necessary to increase uh to get more in line with um similar properties in the area. uh first student feels that they are still getting a better deal than what the market currently would allow for. Just uh piggyback on that question. So, first student then is leasing that land. Yes. But all the facilities on it are there improvements, I'm guessing. Or do you I don't know. Okay. Sorry. I would just so this is a conversation that uh we had a long time ago and um probably don't want to drum it up right now but maybe get back to reviewing
159what land options we have to make that competitive a more competitive process. Uh I didn't realize the first student is leasing that land. I feel like there's maybe some opportunities for us to control those costs down the road uh with with more coverage in our in our request for proposal. So, um, yeah, not a not a conversation. I I'll say on record though, we've been thrilled. I I've been impressed with First Students, um, agility to deliver, um, services to our students in very unique ways over this pandemic. So, um, and so I realize too that this has been an unusual year, but has first student been able to maintain uh, an adequate number of drivers for the buses and into September that they will be fully staffed and ready to go. Um, and then I
160agree with uh, Director Peterson. Um, we've done land inventories a couple of times and that is the big expensive part. There isn't a big plot of land that someone will let us put a bus barn next to their house. So, that is um, but we need to keep looking at that. Um, are we still at 75 cents uh, reimbursement from the state? What's what's our reimbursement from the state us? Uh 70 cents is our reimbursement rate. Um to answer your first question, yes. Uh First Student has maintained its entire fleet and all of its drivers throughout this year. Um we've employed them for the purpose of meal deliveries until um uh hybrid started and now they are actually transporting students uh four days a week and then on Wednesday still delivering meals. So we have
161kept people busy. Uh I do think it's worth the board's noting that um this year First Student did not have a contractual obligation to give us any price breaks or discounts. Um but recognizing the situation, they voluntarily did that. Uh they collaborated with me uh to develop a schedule and a plan that allowed them to retain all of their drivers but without um charging us full freight, if you will. Um, and that's what's resulted in um, the $700,000 correction that I've told you about for next year. That is because we've saved a million dollars against budget on the current year's contract with First Student, which again was a voluntary uh, negotiation that they entered into with us. Um, and so obviously there are business interests for them to do that. I'm not naive about that,
162but I do want the board to know that they did um negotiate in good faith with the district this year a plan that allowed them to retain all of their staff, keep their operation going, but did um take what I have to assume was a hit to profit um to help the district this year. Okay. Um there's a recommended motion there. So, I would move to amend the district's existing contract with First Student, Inc. to add two additional fiscal years beginning July 1, 2021 with pricing based on the attached rate sheet. I'll second. So, it's been moved by Director Howitt, seconded by me uh to amend the district's existing contract with First Student, Inc. to add two additional fiscal years beginning July 1st, 2021 with pricing based on the attached rate sheet. Um, any discussion?
163All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Have a Highland Elementary School roofing contract approval. I'm going to guess. Yep. Jordan, thank you. As part of the planned scope of bond work, Cornerstone Management Group solicited bids from pre-qualified roofing contractors for the roof restoration at Highland Elementary School. Cornerstone received five bids and four were deemed responsible. The lowest bidder failed to include the materials in their bid. The lowest responsible bidder was deemed to be Umpqua roofing after review with the project architect and roofing consultant. All biders have been notified of the district's intent to award this work to Umpqua roofing and staff have not received any protests. Staff are requesting authorization to execute a contract with Umpqua Roofing in the amount of 487 710 for the roof restoration project at Highland Elementary School. The bid
164result summary is attached to this agenda item. The opportunity to inspect all bid documents is available to any community member on request. So you said that the one company didn't include the the um material. Was there anything that the other three were pretty comparable and um was so much lower? Is there something that stood out with that? Um when the roofing consultant uh met with Umqua Roofing to validate the bid um they didn't really discuss why their bid was so much lower or the others were so much higher. Um there is a dynamic occurring according to Cornerstone in the market right now where contractors who do not have capacity are just throwing out really high bids and and if they get it then they'll build up capacity and do the job but if they don't
165then they're willing to let it go. Um And so the roofing consultant felt that that was uh an acceptable response, reviewed the bid, made sure it was responsible with UMqua um and and then ultimately advised the the school district that uh roofing bid was responsible. Um are any of these women are minority contractors and have you done the work to for diverse recruitment? Um, I do not do procurements for the bond. Um, I do know that that is a priority of the district. I do not know what uh process was gone through. Uh, these contractors were pre-qualified at the beginning of bond work. Um, and so, uh, these and several others. I think we have 10 pre-qualified roofing contractors, but there was a pre-qualification process then at the beginning of the bond work. I was
166not with the district at that time, so I don't know what the criteria were for that. Um, where is Umpqua? Are they local to Multma County at least or I do not know where is based out of. I would assume southern Oregon. Um, there are several businesses from the Rosewood area with the Umpa name. Um, that's what I'm familiar with, but very I don't know for sure. I know one of the things with the bond is we did talk about using local labor. So, even if it's um if the company itself is based in Umpa, then would they also supplement with labor that's here as well? That is the intent that we ask. Uh, I did just Google it really fast. Umpqua is actually in Beaverton. So, um, that is what was unexpected to me,
167but, um, it is a Beaverton. That's still by our definition not local. Um, but we do ask contractors, we do not bind them under contract, uh, to get subs locally, but we do ask contractors to prioritize or give preference to local subcontractors on the work. just to then maybe nail the final question. Is um a roofing company of the size that we needed to do Highland based here in the local county area? Um a couple of these on this list are actually in Multma Clackmus County area. I believe Carlson and Anderson both are. Um so it it would I mean we could award the contract to uh to a local company. Uh, I would want to verify where those companies are. I believe that they're in Mumbus County, but I'm not positive. Um, so we
168could award the contract. It would just come at a significant cost in this case. And like you said earlier, perhaps they bid so much higher because they have enough work. We have to do additional resources. So, and is an Oregon based in Beaverton. So, I have move to approve award of contract in the amount of $487,710 to Umpa roofing for the roof restoration project at Highland Elementary School. I second. Okay. It's been moved by director Howitt, second by director Gomez to approve the award of contract in the amount of $487,710 to Umpqua roofing for the roof restoration project at Highland Elementary School. Any discussion? Yes. Moving forward, I would like to see when approving contracts and matrix so we we know if they're local, we know if they're women minority owned, so we can have
169a decision in in that process. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I oppose. Okay. Okay. Next is canvas contract approval. Um before we get into these uh we have two more canvas and enome. Are these times sensitive approvals? Yes. Uh we are asking for contract authority on both of these to uh implement or continue implementation of systems that uh are used for delivering instruction in the uh distance learning environment. Okay, then I'll turn it over to you for Canvas. All right. As the district continues to implement its continuous improvement plan, staff have identified tools that aid in the efforts. One example is Canvas, which is the learning management system that will be utilized to provide staff with a more comprehensive system for providing online online learning opportunities for students. It is currently being used
170to provide professional development opportunities to staff as well. This contract would continue the implementation work that has been started this year. Staff are requesting authorization from the board to enter into a contract with Instructure, the developer of Canvas, in the amount of $150,457. Instruure was awarded contract 5756 by the state of Oregon to provide learning management system services to school districts. Staff intend to utilize state contract 5756 for this purchase which satisfies the competition requirements of Oregon revised statute 279B.060. Um Esser funds will be used for this purchase. Okay. Any questions? I would move to approve a contract in the amount of $150,457 to instructure for a one-year extension to the district's canvas service. Second. Okay. Uh moved by Director Howitt, second by Director Sters to approve a contract in the amount of $150,457 to
171Instructure for a one-year extension to the district's Canvas service. Um any discussion? My only point of discussion is uh this is a low priority agenda item, but I'd be interested to see an implementation plan for canvas because I know it's it's been hectic and rocky um and just to understand how this will support it. That's the only comment I have. Any other discussion? Okay. All those in favor? I any opposed? Okay. Next is Enome. Thank you. Uh gold book has been used by special education teachers to facilitate the writing of appropriate student focused individual education plans. In addition, Goldbook provides leveled access to most core instructional content to allow students to access standards at their ability level. This contract expands the use of gold book to all teachers at all grade levels so they can
172properly align grade level content to each student's ability level. Staff are requesting authorization from the board to enter into a contract with ENOME in the amount of $200,600 to extend and expand the district's gold book subscription. Soul source procurement will be used because enome is the only provider of gold book and the district's efficient utilization of the existing service requires acquiring compatible services in accordance with organized statute 279B.075 subsection 2AR funds will also be used for this purchase. Any questions? So if this is an expansion, it would have been really useful to hear from people who are using it and the success of the program and the reasons why they feel like it would be useful in other settings. Executive Director John Cook can speak to that. Uh we were trying to keep items brief
173tonight for uh the purpose of um the lengthy board agenda, but can speak to how the system has been utilized. Yeah, Mr. K, we purchased the first version of Go Book three years ago now, four years ago now. So, we've been using it for a while. There's two sides to Gold Book. There's the special ed side where you can align goals with content standards, which give us the ability to better write goals for students to achieve at higher levels or to mitigate skills. It also helps us write what's called present levels of performance. that are very accurate for where a student is performing it. Uh this software was designed by a former Oracle uh worker who went into special ed who saw the chaos of managing the amount of data that teachers have to manage
174and he came up with a much better way of doing that. So that's the special ed side of it. And then there's the adaptability side for content. Uh we take a for instance if you are studying the Tinker case out of the Supreme Court uh which juniors often do uh it's a free speech case from years and ago. That's difficult uh level reading content for students to access and those with disabilities that's a struggle. So you can find a reading level with the same content with a click of a button to be able to give access to that content without denying them time in class to be able to listen like other students. You can do that with almost all content standards now. The program has expanded. It makes adapting work for students much more
175efficient. And again, it gets out that equity and access piece that we've always wanted, particularly with students with disabilities. All right. So, I have moved to approve a contract in the amount of $200,600 to email for a one-year extension and expansion to the district's gold book subscription. I second. A moved by Director Howitt, second by Director Gomez to approve a contract in the amount of $200,600 to ENOME for a one-year extension and expansion to the district's gold book subscription. Any discussion? So, I do Thank you. So, I do um appreciate the information, Mr. Cook, and I think this would be something um I would like to hear more about as we move forward about how it's been able to help and that leveled ability to be able to put in appropriate targets for kids and
176then move those targets uh as they're available. I think this is a a good program, but I'd like to hear more about it as well. And I would just like to add that we are subscribed to a lot of programs like this. It would be nice just to have a list of all the programs that we sub are subscribed to and maybe get an assessment at some point on uh how effective they are or how teachers are using them. Yeah. Can I add something to to that? Um I want the public and everyone here to know that we do real well. We vet our programs that we utilize. We have a proper vetting process that we look at data and make decisions based on operational needs uh for the district. I have no problem sharing
177that information with you all, but it is an operational piece that we utilize on a regular basis to assess what we're using and not blindly uh awarding contracts. Any other discussion? Okay. Um, all those in favor? I opposed. Okay. Um, so we're going to bring on J7 which was the um item pulled from consent agenda that is policy in NDB which is its title is flag displays and salutes. Um, Dr. Howitt, this was pulled. You requested to pull this. Do you want to introduce? Yeah. Just some notes that I had about wanting to have additional information on it. One of the things that I realized was we were adding significantly to the policy. Usually when we do that, we bring that back to uh Oregon School Boards Association to make sure that we're not adding
178or subtracting something that um has some uh legal or procedural benefit. Um and um so it did not go back to OSBA for review. Um there's some additional information. We've heard some of it tonight. Um some classrooms are already doing some of this um displays and presentations. So it would be nice if it went back to the committee and we got more information about where is this already happening. It hasn't been forbidden to be able to be used in the classrooms. And um there are some other ways that uh we already know about um with the Oregon Department of Education Ethnic Studies that's adding more about the indigenous and Native American work and um some of the other things in here that it's just the policy itself was was not finalized as it should have
179been in the review uh from Oregon School Board Association. Uh the final thing is I wanted to make sure when we implemented this, one of the things we talked about is that um do we have our staff prepared? Have they gone through their equity support? And that's part of that. How are we doing things currently? and um what are we going to be able to do to support the teachers instead of just dropping a symbol in their classroom and expecting them to be able to discuss it. So that was why I pulled it and I would I would like to request that we refer back to committee so that we can take it back to OSBA for that legal notation and just clean it up. We have some some things in here that are repetitive
180language. I am very disappointed to hear this. We worked extensively in our policy committee and had some in-depth conversations and Every time it was required for us to take something back to OSBA, we have done it. This was not recommended for us to take back to OSBA. And now that it's up for vote, all of a sudden there's a stalling tactic to make sure that that we bring it back to OSBA. Uh staff preparedness, equity supports, we have had many, many, many presentations from um from our schools which all highlighted that people are working on equity. all highlighted the work that they have done in equity and inclusion and diversity and it is our role as as the board to really set the values of the district. We are setting the values that our LGBTQI
181AI communities are very important with the progressive flag. We are setting uh the value that black lives matter and that these things are not for discussion. They're not for debate. that this is our value. We said we were anti-racist. We said that we would do anti-racist work and this is what it looks like. Other things that we have included in this, we have included a land acknowledgement which we have been talking about for a long time. The these are new things that we're wanting to uh add. But this is talking about the real inclusive nature of the American identity. If we want to add more flags, if we want to add more identities, this is not a stagnant process. These are things that we should continue to do. Adding the black national anthem, lift every
182voice and things and say these should not be controversial if we're really looking at a true anti-racist agenda and we're really supporting and promoting these values. And I'm very disappointed that it was taken off and we've had comments about uh political movements we're not ready so forth. All of that it's it's a choice. Are we anti-racist or are we not? I'm okay with waiting for SBA to review it, Chris. Um, I think you have more experience than I do, so I'm gonna take your advice and guidance on this one. I would say I would say that, Robin, that um uh normally it would have gone to OSBA. There was a gap in um some of the assignment of where that should have gone. It did not go back to them. Our policies when we had
183them they do go back for review to OSBA and when we significantly change a policy um which this one has then it should go back there are two um legal references that should be in here so it's for the protection of staff as well as for the protection of uh students in terms of first amendment as well as some other case law that should be referenced in here and they're not this this is things that we already discussed Chris and for you to say this and do this to show your personal value. No, we did not discuss um having to make sure that we had the correct um legal notations on it and the available. We did discuss quite at length at the last meeting the opportunity of how we were going to make sure
184that staff. My concern is I don't want to put anything into a classroom where a teacher does not feel that they are as prepared as they could be and have it backfire when a student walks in. And instead of getting that support or recognition regardless of what flag or poster or um symbol it is that we don't have a staff member who feels comfortable um ready to to talk to it and could do more harm than good. We couldn't even take out victim blaming language from our harassment policy without extensive review and discussion in our policy meetings. These are things that we talk about. This is public record. You can go, you can watch the meeting. If there was any concern, it would have been brought to us at that time. And at that time,
185we didn't bring nobody brought up any major concerns. and it was placed on the agenda and we had the first reading and all of a sudden now that we're about to approve it, people are gunshot. At the first meeting that it was brought forward, we were low on uh board members that were in attendance. We had a quorum. That is correct. Director Beach. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, I'm just curious who at OSBA um looks at these and reviews this. We pay for a policy subscription and so they have attorneys as well as policy professionals who look at them. Uh so there's a a team there. It's a separate department of the Oregon School Board Association that reviews policy to make sure that we stay in compliance with legal requirements as well as best practice. And
186then they also look at what else is going on uh be consistent among school districts. school districts are are having similar language related things, but mostly it's attorneys. So, um are are you mostly concerned with having um how do I put this? Uh language for or maybe even training in language for teachers to prepare themselves. Do you want that included in the policy? I would not include that in the policy because that's operations. Um giving if if the board says we'd like to include this then the operational statement to the superintendent would be make sure that staff has adequate equity training. Um some of the things that are in here we are not required to have a flag or a national week of of families pal Mia flag in the classroom. So there was some
187cleanup that should have done. We were adding a bunch of things in those are not required to be in the classroom. um whether or not we have a flag or a poster or insignia. Um ethnic studies, whether or not that's part of the land acknowledgement, um about learning about it, um it repeats itself, that they do learn about the flag, the current United States flag. So, it's um I'm just asking for it to be referred back so that we can have OSBA. I'm sorry that we didn't have that conversation at the last board meeting. thought that it would go back to Yeah. Um I just think it's really important that we have these flags. I feel like there are a lot of people in this country that don't feel represented with the American flag or
188the Oregonian flag and I don't think anyone in our district would really identify with the Palia flag. So um I just think that representation matters. Um, it's really important that we make a stance saying that black lives do matter. And I think the progressive pride flag is also a really great way of letting our LGBTQ, transgender, and black and brown students know that, you know, the district has their back and they are seen. If if the board does want to go back to have OSDA approve it, I would move to approve the resol, the the policy contingent upon when if we get back a recommendation and they say nothing that we just approve it. I don't understand the stall tactic. I don't understand this process. Dr. prayer. Out of curiosity, can you clarify uh our
189progressive pride flags and Black Lives Matter flags, are they currently flown in any classrooms in the district? Um not by requirement, Chair Peterson, but there I have um identified flags throughout our district uh in classrooms of teachers choice. Um I have, but it's nothing that the school district has purchased for that classroom. teachers themselves have taken upon themselves uh to purchase those and to display those in their classroom. Um I saw BLM black today one of the schools I so again they are part of our uh classrooms and I would imagine that the the staff in that in that classroom has prepared themselves answer any questions that they may have from parents who are visiting um or students in their classrooms. I have also seen the safe zone um pride triangle as well as banners
190and so yeah I I've witnessed that as as well because I have visited several schools and classrooms in our district. So typic typical policy review we have so we pay for the OBA subscription service that's one layer of legal review. Um in addition we have retained legal counsel internally. Um did the committee put forward this policy to either to internal or whenever we go over any polic was always recommended to us on who it needs to be reviewed by and it was not at this time recommended to go to any further committee. And so that is why this is so disappointing. This seems like a complete roadblock. This is unfair. I it like I said it took three months to take out victim language blaming from our harassment anti-harassment policy. It took a long time.
191And so if there was any major concern, it definitely would have taken a lot longer to get to this point. I I was just reviewing. So the minutes this the policy review committee reviewed it on April 1st and it came to the board for first reading April 15th at the work session. Um am am I has did the policy review committee discuss before April 1? Okay. The the specific policy IND. Yeah. Right. The reason it came up was because um we had the United States flag and the Oregon flag and there was Oregon statute that was put in that said that we were required to have the Palmia flag at our buildings on the flag pole. It was not required to be in the classrooms, but it had to be flown at all government government
192uh facilities that include schools as well as other government um locations. and that was put into state statute and that's the new one that was put on here 186.1 um was just Dr. Purr were you um it's board policy but by operating agreement we go to this to the district leadership to look impacts do you do you feel like you've had and I'm not expressing you to articulate impacts now but do you feel like you've had an opportunity to assess and um kind of review the impacts this policy were we to adopt it um Peterson I I have not um if we're going back to OSBA some point I would also ask what impacts it would have for other groups who may want equal opportunity access to our class Um and so I would ask
193that um along if you're sending this back to OSBA for legal um commentary on this policy that has as you have proposed it, I would ask that you also inquire about the impact of other groups. Um and I'm just speaking from experience being in Virginia flags in my classrooms. But I also just want to point out that we have many administrators that have looked at this and it has not caused a red flag for anybody. Director St. which administrators are you speaking of on our staff? On on our staff, people have seen the agendas. They set the agendas. We have not received up until this point a recommendation from a board member to take it back to OCDA. And so if there was any major concern, everyone in front of me has seen this. Everyone
194knows about this. This was never a topic of conversation. And it's only one person that now after so so much opportunity to have these conversations that it is now directed back to OA. There are concerns from our principles regarding uh ensuring that they have adequate support of their staff. Um and I know maybe John can speak to that more. So um but I I do know that our some of our principles have address some concerns. I haven't brought that forward to the board um because that's been since our April 15th session, but I I have uh received some concerns from my staff. Thank you. And a concern is not a legal issue. A concern does not say that this is is legally um inappropriate. And as a district, as a board, we're the ones who
195set the values. We're the ones who make it safe for teachers do this. We're the ones who make it safe for staff to do this. We're the ones who are helping reaffirm our students identity. This is our decision. These are our values as a district. You are correct, Director Sters. And yeah, I don't I don't mean to go back and forth and bantering, but I think we have commit uh adopted three values of the district that the board has and that is community, integrity, and stewardship. Those are the three values that I'm aware of. If there are others, please for me because those are the three I know that we adopted with our mission and vision. Um if that's something the board wants to tweak, change or whatever. I am happy to uh make sure
196that that is part of our uh our mission and vision statements as well as who we are as a district. But those are the three values that I'm aware of. And you're correct. The concern is not a legal u situation, but there are implications for it if we don't properly vet it. And again, I'm not saying tell the board what to do. I'm just sharing with you the concerns that have been expressed to me um as superior. Did you say the the three concerns again or the three values? There's community, integrity, and stewardship. Those are the three values that the board those are the three values that the board has adopted. um two 30 years ago I believe when I was when I first started 10 months ago we had you know put out an
197anti-racist statement. They're working on an anti-racist resolution. These are things that the board says that they value and that was much more in proximity closer than three years ago. So this does have legal ramifications and being able for the boards to say yes, this is what is going to be permitted or required in the classroom. There is a difference in it and so the language needs to reflect that along with the legal references and that is something that OSBA does for us but that's what they do. In addition, what we need to do as a committee is figure out flag versus poster versus representation because once it's in the policy, if someone says, "I don't want a flag up. I want a poster up." Then they'd be in violation of policy. And we don't want
198people to be in violation of policy. Um, so again, it did not go back to OSBA for review. Um, I had thought that it would. It did not when I looked into that. it did not go back to them for review to make sure that those legal notations were on there. I think the OSBA review is is one element. I think also just opportunity for public comment is another um on on every side of this equation. I mean we we do set and and um exemplify the values of the organization. We're also representative of very broad community. who probably see a Black Lives Matter fight differently. Um, and I think being attentive to that does not make us in insincere anti-racists. Um, and so I'm in favor of it going back to SBA for review.
199I'm also in favor of of um of public engagement to understand what it what our staff feels about it, what our um building administrators feel about it, what our families feel about it, and most importantly, what our affected students feel about it. And I feel like we're on the cusp of some very positive work when we talk about an equity audit and culture surveys within our schools to understand how students are experiencing school in our district. And I think there's a cart before the horse element to this policy. Um I I understand your concerns, director Sers, this feels delayed, but this is as fast as we've moved a policy forward. You do not understand my concern at all. We had said as a board that we are anti-racist. We said as a board that we
200support Black Lives Matter. We said as a board that we support LGBTQ communities. And when it comes to action, what are we doing for action? If we're moving forward with community engagement, is this going to be like our botched SRO engagement? Are we just going to include the communities that we like? Or are we going to center our most vulnerable communities? Are we going to speak to them? And are we going to make sure that their voices are the ones that we are that we are censoring and the answer that we have done in the past is no. We didn't do that. You say we're going to do that moving forward. We have an opportunity us to do it now. What you are doing, you're not being more inclusive and engaging our community. What you
201are doing is you're creating a roadblock and a racist system that does not reaffirm our students diverse identities. Black Lives Matter, our progressive pride flag, these are our students identities. They don't need a community of people to validate them and say you matter. They don't need a a group of parents that say that makes us uncomfortable. They don't need that. They need us to support them. They need us to support their identities and we need to be the leaders that that our students deserve. And um Robin, I I agree with everything you just said. And we're not saying we're turning this down. We're not saying we're voting against it. All we're saying, at least all that I've heard is we're just sending it to OSBA for review. That's what I'm hearing. I'm not hearing no,
202we don't want this. I'm not hearing no, we're opposed to it. I'm hearing let's have OSBA review it because it wasn't sent for review like it was supposed to. That's what I'm hearing. There's many things that are being said that our teachers aren't ready, that it goes back out to the community, that we are creating this, oh, there's a legal component, which a legal component isn't even an issue. that is said by our administration right now. So we are in a sense making this difficult to pass and we are in a sense trying to create different loopholes and making it diff difficult when we could just right now be reaffirming our student identities and being inclusive in our American identity. That's it. A flag salute. It's simple. We have the United States flag as you're
203if you're black, you're American. If you are LGBTQ, you're American. you know, the indigenous uh land acknowledgement. You're American. These are inclusive of our American culture. And so, the fact that we are creating roadblocks to to progress, that's an indication of the culture of the board. That's our decision. And we don't have to have that. We can just say this is great. And we can be more inclusive and say what else? What what are we missing? What other identities do we need? And that's those are the conversations that I would like to have. Okay. Just not right now at 10:30. I'm ready for bed. So, can we move forward to stop saying that so that we can move forward? But because we have been here for two hours mostly hearing presentations because we have had
204such ineffective meetings, such ineffective meetings and every time when it gets down to a decision point, when it gets down to our discussion, all of a sudden we are tired and we don't want to do it. Maybe move our decision points to the beginning and then we can like listen to all the presentations maybe on our own. I agree with a lot of that and um hearing a lot of push back like what if like the community disagrees with all this. It's it's really traumatic to uh the communities that are affected by the decisions that we're making right now. So I just think period we just need to say we see you, we stand up for you and we support you. I don't want to hear like any arguments or anything because that's just ugly.
205I think when we have an opportunity to explain why we're doing this instead of just were doing it. Um, I'm not saying that I'm expecting us to weigh the people who are uncomfortable with this, but those that need need help. Um, we have talked about making sure that participation in school district policy making is more transparent and engages community and families. We have heard from some folks. We've heard from one side mostly. We've not as much from the people who uh you're saying would be directly impacted by this. And likewise, um if we're saying that all it takes is to put the flag in, then I'm not sure that that's supporting as well without the support from staff. We didn't lead with community work when we got our SRO's when we signed that contract. We
206didn't lead with community interest when you are so gung-ho about putting the P flag like into that policy. It's not It's not gung-ho. It unfortunately if you don't like the law then change the law. The law is white supremist. I'm sorry. The law does not represent every culture. The law does not represent every culture. And that is our job. Our job is not to create roadblocks. Our job is not to create and uphold white supremacist values. Our job is to be inclusive and support our diverse community and our students. I think we're getting to an impass. So, I'm I'm entertaining a motion and then we can flesh out the remainder of the conversation, but put our voices to a vote if that's what we need to. So, I've heard two two proposals. One came from
207Director Sters, uh one from Director Howard. Does anybody want to put that to a motion? for back to committee for final review. I second. We have is our next policy meeting um when is our next policy meeting? May 13th. So OSBA can look at it between now and then and be able because when they're asked that's part of the subscription they have to do it. They weren't asked to do it. There was a there was a gap there. And then our next work session is May 27th and we could we could look at it then in its final arrangement. Sorry. Okay. It's been moved by Director Howitt, second by Director Gomez to refer this policy INDB back to Oregon School Boards Association for legal review. Um, effectively referring it back to policy uh review committee
208for the 13th. All those in favor? I opposed. I Dr. Beach. I just wanted to clarify where you I said I just want to get your arguments over with and then if we can just move on on the 13th that's great. So great. So we'll be back to policy review committee on the 13th. Um um Dr. Pereira I would ask your team to ensure that this policy gets to OSBA this week. Thank you. Time for board reports and requests. I just ask for some brevity, but um understand it's your it's your opportunity to share. So um we'll start with Director Ruscoich. Um all righty. I'll just keep it short. Um well uh working in Representative Ricky Ruiz's office uh we have managed to secure $1.5 million for uh a student-based health center using the uh
209ARPA fund money. So we're going to be having a student based health center soon. So I'm really excited to share that with you all. Thank you. Director Sters reflected in the board communication today. We still have many teachers that are very concerned with their health and they're very concerned with not being able to uh to be able to continue with appropriate work accommodations. We received a letter today from the lawyer asking us us to stop negotiating with uh with with teachers. The honest truth is nobody is negotiating. I have not negotiated with teachers. We have received intense communication from our comm from our teachers as a board publicly asking for for us to step up and make sure that there are appropriate safe accommodations made for our medically fragile uh educators. There was a public
210meeting that took place not too long ago with representative Ruiz and Gorsuch where our teachers our teachers are there with the same concerns and today we also have another concern. So I have been looking at ways of how we as a board can support our teachers, our vulnerable teachers and I would propose passing a resolution that does talk about and if this is not a contract negotiation, this is not a a legal uh contract, but to ensure to to to ensure that we as a board are supportive of our medically fragile teachers and that we are providing opportunities for these teachers to continue to be engaged. Director Howitt, so we all received an email from uh John Darson who is our account representative from Rogers and company regarding our uh school district audit. There is
211an audit questionnaire that board members are to fill out and submit to them as part of its oversight duty. The questions are fairly brief and if you are unsure or don't know what the answer is and that that is what you put on it as well. So the response time for that uh will close soon but he would like to hear from everyone. A couple of bills that are being um uh worked on right now that are looking like they're moving through Senate Bill 334 which require mandatory board training as well as training for superintendent and other key um district leaders. That looks like that is going to be moving forward. Um uh House Bill 200120001, a very good bill to be supporting. Um it talks about teacher retention, especially in areas where we've tried
212so hard to have a diverse workforce, which tends to be then our uh least senior employees. and when we have any kind of a layoff or reduction in force, they tend to be the first ones who go. So, this would help support being able to keep the teachers that we are trying to bring into our school district. The final thing is Senate Bill 227, which is giving support to staff for ethnic studies professional development and providing additional money for that. Um, there was talk today, I think, I don't know who said, but looks like we're going to be at 9.3 billion. 9.1 was the governor's original. 9.6 would be current service level. 9.3 we can live with without uh cuts and without having to go backwards. Dr. Gomez. Um so on the 14th on the
21322nd actually I had the opportunity to volunteer at the migrant family vaccination clinic hosted at East uh Gresham Elementary. Uh so thank you to Karina for organizing that and collaborating with MESD Migrate and OA. Um we vaccinated over 150 migrant families. So that was great. Um and then on the 14th I did hold a listening session with our Latino families in the district just to share information with them about how hybrid is going and listen to their questions and concerns. Um they all said they're really happy to have their kids back in school. They're happy with the way hybrid is going. They did ask about the fall. Um they want their kids to come back to school in the fall. They asked about um summer programs. So uh Dr. Pereira was there uh using her
214Google Translate app to listen to them and try to answer their questions. Um so I do plan to continue listening to them and making sure that their voices incorporated um into my uh my decision- making. I also attended the student advisory group that is uh composed of a very diverse group of our students. Um same thing, they're glad to be back. They're glad to be with their teachers in person. Um so I did have the opportunity to listen to them and hear um how how glad they are of how things are going and also I've asked them to contact me with questions or concerns that they may have. Um I shared my email address with them so that they they can do that. Um and I want to thank our bilingual para educators. is our
215PAR educators have been working really hard um during this pandemic and our bilingual par educators have organized these listening sessions for me u Marita Loa Camry uh Sastes Vasquez Lucy Areola Janis Santiago um and Karina and Dr. Pereira and Araseli Faras for for helping me with this um and and to our teachers thank you for supporting our students for being so resilient and flexible um for creating critical thinkers and uh continuing to inspire and empower our students even during this time. So, thank you. Thank you. Um uh and I'm done. Um I have uh I have nothing to uh to report except that we're grateful for our teachers and our staff and the the school environments they've created for our kids. Um and uh certainly grateful for this administrative team. Want to thank every in
216attendance for for enduring through this. Um and uh grateful for your engagement and uh and yep, that's my report. We uh we have a financial update as of March 31st. That's anformational item. Encourage the board to review. We uh we have a budget committee meeting um on May 20th. That's two Thursdays uh from now. That's where the budget document will be reviewed. I believe that budget document is now publicly available. It will be published to the business services website tomorrow. Okay. So, uh the the fiscal year 22 budget will be published to the business services portion of the district website tomorrow and you can look for it there. Um 27th board work session. Um tenatively we'll be in here. June 3rd, we'll have a board work session followed by a budget hearing followed by the
217regular board business meeting at 7 p.m. Uh, there being no other business before the board, we're journed.