001Okay, so we can get started. It's 4:33. Um this is a public meeting of the Board of Education's Policy Committee for May 18th, 2026 is called to order. Good afternoon and welcome. Uh thank you for being here. Um today's agenda includes a review of section two policies on district administration, the district performance auditing uh policy, screen time in schools, which is a discussion item. We will not be doing anything with it, but we'll be discussing it and kind of where it's at. And we're going to postpone the discussion on the revisions to the dis- district student council operating bylaws until we have students here that can speak to it. And Nora is um I believe involved in that decision-making, but not prepared to speak today on the bylaws. And so we'll we'll um put put
002this off, postpone the discussion until we can have um students in the room. So first we'll begin with introductions and um I'm Michelle DePass. I'm the policy chair and the school board vice chair. I'm Michelle Miller from Zone 4. I'm Nora Isles, a student at Grant High School. And our other policy committee member um Director Englesman is unable to make it tonight. Um Excuse me. Speaking about technology, my watch was just like talking. Okay, um so we're going to start off tonight with public comment and I see that we have um quite of a full roster and perhaps some people are online. Um Roseann, do you want to call up two or maybe three at a time if we have? Sure, let me call the people >> Or two at a time is good. Um
003we'll start with Holly Hofkamp and Amanda Yerlins. I just got a text from Amanda. She's stuck traffic. She'll be here in a second. Hi there, my name is Holly Hoffcamp. It's h o l l y h o f k a m p. I'm here today as both a PPS parent of three and a practicing family doctor urging district level change of Chromebook and EdTech use in our schools. Just in the past 2 weeks, I've deleted hundreds of gaming files from my sixth grader's PPS Chromebook and which were downloaded from a 34-page document circulating at his middle school that lets students bypass securely via Gmail and play anytime. His transition to middle school with a one-on-one device has been a nightmare that has led to problematic media use, which is a medical term for screen addiction,
004as well as anxiety, meltdowns, and family conflict. He tells me he wants to stop, but he doesn't know how. My fourth grader struggles to type because she's never been taught how, and yet she spends her day typing in Google Docs and EdApps such as CommonLit rather than using pencil and paper. 2 months ago, I had my first teen patient who was suicidal but refused to engage in mental health counseling because he only trusted the AI chatbot he was using for a counselor and a friend. Surveying our parents at our school as well as our teachers, I hear similar stories across the board. A kid watching an entire R-rated movie in 1 week in class while his substitute without securely accessed looked on unknowingly. Kids of all ages exposed to inappropriate content on buses. Teachers noting
005behavioral issues when transitioning from screens, and many parents either unaware of all the student data being collected or aware and highly concerned. Many national publications have been featuring stories on how Google and YouTube have taken over the classroom. One disturbing report noted that the company flagged a viewing gap in 2016 and argued that increasing usage in schools Monday through Friday could decrease this gap. Other articles cite one-to-one devices as one of the main reasons for the decline in national test scores over the last 10 years. I do want to clearly say that there are places where tech for students is helpful, particularly in kids with learning differences. As a mom of such kids, I'm acutely aware of how tech can help and hurt. Luckily, things are starting to change, though. A recent win in LA
006Unified shows that even large districts can do this. We need to take this opportunity to prevent an epidemic of loss of critical thinking skills. I urge you to do what you can to decrease device use in schools. Thank you for your testimony. Next we have Chris Schweizer. Hi Chris. Good afternoon, Chair DePass and Policy Committee members. My name is Chris Schweizer, s c h w e i z e r, he/him, and I teach math and science at Roosevelt. I'm here to respectfully ask that you begin work on an updated policy on a a i and ed tech in schools. While evidence of the negative effects of a i and screen time on cognitive development are piling up, district leadership is doubling down on a pro a i stance that runs counter to the needs of
007students and the demands of parents and teachers. On January 13th, I presented a petition to the board signed by over 100 employees and parents demanding an end to a i contracts. At the same time, a separate group of parents were organizing to add 150 signatures to an open letter of concern about screens and a i in schools, which was sent to the board on January 16th. Currently, a new community petition asking for an end to a i in PPS schools onchange.org has over 500 signatures. A recent study by MIT on using a i to help draft essays states that LLM undeniably reduced the friction involved in answering participants' questions compared to the search engine. However, this convenience came at a cognitive cost, diminishing users' inclination to critically evaluate the LLM's output or {quote} opinions. The
008reduction in critical thought that comes with using AI for school work is particularly concerning when the new PPS AI guidebook suggests that it is up to individual teacher discretion whether students use LLMs in brainstorming and drafting essays. Overall, the guidebook seems to treat AI use in schools as a positive development counter to the experience of educators, parents, and research. Is there some group of stakeholders who are demanding that AI be rolled out so quickly and uncritically? Because no educator or parent I've talked to has been as uncritical as the recently published AI guidebook. I hope that you can craft a policy that helps the district slow down and listen to stakeholders about their concerns. Thank you, Chris. Next, we have Jason Honol, who I'm bringing in right now. Hi. Uh my name is Jason Honol.
009I am uh a parent of a freshman uh varsity baseball player. I uh coached baseball as volunteer assistant coach from 2018 until 2 years ago, and I now started and run a middle school feeder program, long long time Uh PTSA member. Uh so, the reason I'm here is my understanding was that back in January uh the board made a promise to Jefferson uh that we would have robust programming including athletics on par with other uh comprehensive high schools during our transition to becoming a um comprehensive school. Our athletic director has not which we worked hard for many years to build up to varsity and now they are cutting it. Um I have three teams in our youth feeder program uh with many families that are very upset about not having varsity. Um the one other
010thing that I will say about it is uh Donnie Seal, our athletic director his reasoning behind cutting varsity is not necessarily wrong. It's good thought. However, what it leaves out is our current players that are there. We have four juniors who [clears throat] were very much looking forward to playing varsity as seniors and I've spoken with their families. They're talking about leaving Jefferson. Um these four baseball players are also key football players, which will devastate our football program as well. Um I just wanted to bring it to the board's attention, make sure this is known and um hopefully there's something we can do about it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Jason. You you did cut out a little bit there during your testimony, but we got the gist of what you are getting
011through to us. I really appreciate you advocating for Jefferson students. Thank you, Michelle. Amanda Erlings Yeah, you'll want to I'm just say your your full name, spell your last name, and then you have 3 minutes and right in the front of the dais there is a little you'll hear a beep about 30 seconds before you need to wrap up. Okay, when you hear the beep it'll be orange and then when it turns to red Okay, we want you to wrap wrap up your sentiments. Okay. >> [laughter] >> My name is Amanda and I'm a parent of a first grader and I have been a PPS math teacher with a masters in teaching from Lewis and Clark College. I'm hoping that the screen time conversation will be held again with a town hall and more communication
012leeway so that we're not scrambling to get the people who really really believe that screen time in class is harmful. Um We want what LA want throughout PPS and we're hoping that it's not going to be a huge effort on parents part and lawsuits to get that to happen. Um What is happening with technology in the classroom right now? I have proof that it is not safe, legal or effective. Um and I'm asking the district to prove that it is safe, legal and effective. Um my child as a 7-year-old has access to YouTube and it is um it is not that he's doing something behind a teacher's back. It has been given to him to do. He has watched um a man's arm be ripped off um and several students believed it was real. It
013was a horror movie that was part of a TumbleBooks app um video that was okayed by the district. Um and um I have talked to the principals. I talked to the teachers. I've talked to Emily Glasgow. I want to know who's going to be held accountable that for technology to be safe, legal, and effective in the classroom. Otherwise, we're all all of us parents are going to opt out of signing the consent form and we're going to opt out of one-to-one device use. Thank you. Do we have anyone else? Yes, our next speaker is Allison and I did not get Allison's last name. But I'm sure she has one, so maybe she can share. Hi Allison. Can you um spell your last name for us, please? Hello Allison, can you hear us? I see your
014hand up. Can you spell your last name, please? Hi. Yeah, we can't hear you. Give us just a moment. Can you hear me now? We can. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Um thank you for your time to listen to my comments. Um I am a mom um of a kindergartner in Southwest um Portland Public Schools. I'm also a child therapist um for 20 [clears throat] years now. Um can you still hear me? Yes, we can hear you um very well. Thank you for asking. >> Okay. Thanks so much. Um thanks for taking the time for this very valuable topic. Um I come to you today with deep concern for the future of children with use of screens in schools. Um I'll give you a snippet of one of my concerns concerning Chromebooks with my son.
015Um there's this thing called the Securely app. Um parents have access to it, of course, to see what's their child is viewing in I-Ready. Um not a lot of parents know about this, too. I've talked to many parents. They don't even know how it's connected. But anyways, I found out and I went on Securely um just a few months ago and saw that there was a tab called rules. You go to the rules tab and then you see a list and it's a block and allow list. Um this list um I looked at 2 weeks ago and it had the subcategories of sexual content um YouTube, games, um adult content. Um and I saw that and for the category of sexual content, it was allowed for my son. I reported that concern to my principal.
016Um next uh just um 2 days ago, I went back to look on that rules tab to see what was happening. There was a new list under that rules tab. The rules tab consisted of gambling, drugs, pornography, um adult content, um and and social media, YouTube as well. I also it didn't show if it was blocked or allowed. It had the little circle thing that you can move back and forth, but it didn't even indicate if it was allowed or blocked. This is highly concerning in the context that children are easily able to get onto the internet and off of these programs such as i-Ready. The other point I'd like to make is that i-Ready is under a class action lawsuit right now. Um, I have numerous websites and have done lots of research. So,
017if you go to edtechlaw uh, dot org, um, there's a lots of information there in regards to this. Um, and the idea is that uh, i-Ready is gathering data from the children and in the and it's off to third parties for people to use at their will. So, children don't have consent, of course, at these young ages to know what's the difference between um, getting on or not. So, it's a conflict of interest. Um, I have deep concerns about um, screen time in general is not an effective solution. >> Allison, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but your time is up and we don't have any way to um, notify you. I don't know what happened to that opera music that we used to hear, but um, we have to allow
018everyone the same time to speak. Please can you >> If you'd like to send in your comments, I've um, noted your um, your website and if you'd like to send the school board your comments, we would be glad to have them. Thank you. Okay. Can I please send the the different websites that are all about resources for for >> Yes, you can send whatever you want to send, even you know, notes of thanks or not are welcome, but any links that you'd like us to have access to, please put them in a document and send them to the school board. Okay, is it the same link that I sent um, for all my comments to be a part of this meeting? >> Yes, it is. Okay, thank you. Thank you, too. >> K through 5.
019>> Is that it? Okay, we're going to move forward now. Just we are having we're shortening our meeting by just a little bit. Um two of our board members actually one of them is not here. So it doesn't matter, but I'm trying to get to another PPS event across town. Um not too late. So I'll be there late, but if we end by let's say 5:40 5:45 that would be great. We're going to move on now to review of the section two policies on district administration. Emily Courtnage, can you please share the proposed revisions to these policies and the updates made made following last month's meeting? And I guess from the staff memo that table that shows the six policies that are being either revised and the one that's being rescinded would be helpful just
020high level. >> [snorts] >> There are Yes, it is. And and the board is very concerned as well. Tonight is just a discussion. We have nothing for you to do and we have nothing for us to do even. Um but we wanted we put it on the agenda to signal that we are concerned and we're interested and we I think the idea to have a town hall is is a is a good one. There's a lot of people. We also need to look at any unintended consequences, any equity considerations, you know, the reason that and the reasons that we went to a one-to-one device um organization. [clears throat] So thank you. There will be you'll have time to talk >> [laughter] >> and organize and we'll it'll be very broadly known. But we have to
021move on through our meeting. So do you mind going ahead Ms. Courtnage? Sure. So in section two we have 1 2 3 six policies were recommending one rescission. Um that's of student participation because that content is handled in several other um policies, which I've listed in the memo. Um the other five were recommending updates. Most of them are non-substantive and formatting updates, the same kind we've discussed with the other policies we brought forward. But we do have um a couple areas where we recommend alignment with OSBA policy. Um also in the public access to district records policy in alignment with Oregon public records law. Since we last addressed these briefly at the April April 27th Policy Committee meeting, um I incorporated two changes at the board's uh request. Um first in the racial education equity
022policy, which is 2.10010, um we added a final sentence to the policy to require that the superintendent's updates and reports to the board on student achievement include achievement data disaggregated by race and reflect measures to address racial disparities in student experience and outcomes. Um and this does reflect current practice, but helps ensure its continuity. Um and then secondly in student educational records, that's 2.50020, um we added some language around um students 18 years or older with disabilities and and also noted um compliance with both federal and state law. Thank you. Um Sorry, I'm kind of going back and forth here. Thank you for that. So, um most of the changes have been non-substantive except for um those last three that um Emily mentioned. Um and our practice already is to disaggregate um outcomes by race.
023That's been in practice since I've been here um and I think since 2011. Um, but it's nice to have it codified. Um, the next on our agenda is a discussion on the policy 1.60.040. It's the district performance auditing and where we are as a board reviewing any changes. Um, I have two copies of this policy. One six pages and one 15 pages. The 15 pages are red line um document that we're I'm going to put aside for now. And what we're going to be reviewing but not today in our meeting is because it's we're going to have a whole a whole board discussion because it's a section one policy. Um, and it looks like it may get a it may get a new number. Director Depass, um may I ask a clarifying question with regard
024to the section two policies we just introduced? Do you have are you are you moving those forward to the board or are you holding them till next committee? We would I would I would love to move them to the board uh to the full board especially considering that most of the uh changes are revisions are non-substantive. Um, and the ones that are sub-substantive we can refer back to the staff memo and hopefully people can ask you questions if there are any fine points um but yes, so maybe we should take a vote to move them forward. Um, do we need to [clears throat] do this with a motion? I don't think we need to be that formal here. Um, a thumbs up or thumbs down whether we should move section two to the full board.
025Could I just clarify real quick whether anything's being changed to the student participation in 2.40020? Uh can you answer that? Um it It looks no we're we're rescinding it. So, we're taking it, removing it completely from the policy manual. And we're removing it because um it's outdated. It's outdated and duplicated because we have um the same material um discussed in uh student dis- um in 1.20012, where committed board student participation in district student council board and board committees are addressed. We have student uh participation in site councils addressed in 7.10.010. Um and then we also have uh policy 4.40.010, uh student participation in school affairs. So, those are more recent policies, and so this one um there's nothing in there that isn't covered elsewhere, and it's just very old. Dates from 2001. I'm I'm happy
026to share my um you can keep that if you'd like. That's the staff memo that outlines each of those six policies, and the column on the far right um tells kind of if you'll see it in another space spot in the policy manual, or you know, you'll see that most of those are revised, except for this one that's being rescinded. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Thank you, too. Um Okay, so it sounds like we will be moving those section two policies to the full board. Yay. It's good to get some work moving kind of ahead this way. Um we'll now um start a discussion tonight on screen time in schools um with a discussion considering a policy for screen time in schools. Um many of us are watching the uh the discussion happening in
027other parts of the country and are very concerned about it. Most of us except for Nora have or had have had kids in schools and um and so we're not doing anything tonight except to sort of signal that this is this this discussion is coming. It will not it'll be out in public. We will probably seek input from a variety of parents and I believe that Director Chace Miller is also discussing in the teaching and learning. Would you like to speak? Um or or if not then this would be a this would be a place where the policy committee and teaching and learning could collaborate. Yeah, I think um and we had a presentation recently on screen time and tech and how it's used in our curriculum um but I think I think we can
028also use that as a space to continue the conversation. Um you know this already this was going to be sharing I was going to be sharing this with um Director Englesman she's not here but you and I are collaborating on a policy around screen time so right now that is with staff for review and we'll get staff input and community input but hopefully you know folks feel better knowing that this is something that we're working on and paying attention to um as Director DePass said >> [laughter] >> um we we we have our own kids uh in school and on the devices and see firsthand a lot of what the community is speaking to so I'm glad we're having this conversation and looking forward to moving it forward. Yes, so there's a draft. It's not
029open yet. We have a process um whereby we draft, we discuss, it has to go through a legal review. Um and no matter what we do, when it comes back to the policy committee, it will be open for a at least a 21-day um comment period in which and we can notify people that that's coming. So, um we just again wanted to put it on the agenda tonight, so um anybody that's interested will know that uh we are also interested and there is work in progress. And uh we we did look to Los Angeles for inspiration on that. Yes. Um so the next um next on the discussion as we started is the policy on district performance auditing. We're going to um it's in our Section 1 policy manual, which has to do with the
030board's role and um things that are uh you know, how we show up as a board. District performance auditing, uh the board has two employees. One is superintendent and the second one is the district performance auditor. And so we're going to start with uh what we have, which looks like it was um last amended in 2024 and going to perhaps update some of the language. Um again, we're not doing anything with that tonight. Um except to know that we would we'd like to schedule a full board discussion when we're discussing all of our Section 1 policies. We have a few policies that are in the public comment period. Um so I just want to remind people we have several revisions and rescissions that are in that 21-day window. A 21-day comment period and those are
031policies 1.70 .020P. That's policies and administrative directives. That's a revision. And policy 7. 00.00 P community policy policies. Those um involve re- revisions and recisions. So, if you would like to review, if you're curious about that, those are up on the PPS website under board policies, I believe. Um and there's still time to comment before the board takes a full vote. And that is what we have for tonight. Are there any um uh future topics that either of you would like to kind of get in the pipeline? Hearing none, um I will adjourn us. How about that? We're adjourned.