001Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. If there is room next to you, if you don't mind Just press it. If you don't mind pressing some room together, maybe scooting closely as you see folks walk down the steps, do that friendly thing we would teach our babies to do, which is "Ooh, you can sit by me." We should do that, right? All right. My name is Nicole Watson. I am senior director of family and community engagement here at Portland Public Schools. I am glad to welcome you tonight to our Board of Education public engagement session around our right-sizing conversation. If you have been to one of our engagements in this series, raise your hand so we can see who has been familiar with what we're going to experience tonight. I see some friendly
002faces. I see some Village Table love in the house tonight. I just want to welcome you all here. I'm going to give some space for the jewel of this house, uh Principal Katie Parmenter, to come up and to welcome you. That's right. You can shout it out for KD. Who had a personal day today but does what all principal leaders do, they put that cape on the back and they show up anyway, walkie-talkie in hand as if they've had it all day today. After you hear from Principal Parmenter, you'll then hear from our uh senior chief, uh Dr. John Franko, who will then our illustrious Board of Education whom is here to listen to us tonight to hear your insights, your questions, your concerns, what might be ideating for you, how you and community are
003grappling with what's coming up in these discussions for you. Um I should have a piece of paper. If I don't mind asking my Chavez team if I can borrow some of your homework. When you came in tonight, um our FACE team, thank so much, FACE team, for supporting the on uh going engagements and signing in process. You should have gotten or received a QR code. This QR code is really how you are communicating to our board tonight to ensure that the ways you feel about some of the uh right-sizing conversations around our factors that are being considered about who's in the space tonight. We want to make sure that your voice is heard. In order to do so, this QR code is powerful and allows you to do that from any space in the session
004tonight. You also uh got a Did we have our AP? Yes. Listen, can we give it up for our babies in uh advanced placement, our AP babies? That's right. We have more students signed up for our AP classes than ever before, and we are in need of proctors. Meaning, if you've got some time, we've got some places where we'd love for you to plug in and to connect and make sure that our babies have a safe and secure environment in which to take their tests, and we need all hands-on deck. There's a QR code on the bottom of this form, as well, that helps us sign you up uh for pro- for test proctoring. You also additionally, I'm just passing out homework here. You additionally received this piece of paper with the engagement timeline. If
005you are curious about this engagement series, what we've been through, where we've been, what communities we've been engaging, this is the document for you. It tells you where we've been, what location we've been at, what stakeholders we've engaged, and in what communities we've been kind of tapping to better understand the moment. On the back of that piece of paper, if you've been to any engagement hosted by the Office of Family and Community Engagement, we are going to always provide an opportunity for you to ground yourselves. And so, I really want you to pay attention to this document here, which gives you some framing for tonight, what you can expect, how we can show up, how we can take care of not only ourselves, but our but each other. And how we hold up multiple realities
006and multiple truths in this space, um this of document will help. And then last but finally not least, as you hear from our assistant superintendent Margaret Calvert, and she leads us through this opportunity to help our board make some decisions tonight, you also received this piece of paper. These are the current factors that our board is considering and what MC, as we affectionately know her at the central office and in community, is MC will guide you through some conversations around some tradeoffs. If not this, then what? But her and her enrollment team will walk you through that. With that, I cannot wait to give the mic over to our principal of this house, we're in the north tonight. Please give a round of applause for principal Katie Parman. Hi y'all. Welcome to Roosevelt. My name's
007Katie Parman. I'm the proud principal of Roosevelt High School. Something that's unique about the Roosevelt community is we don't think about ourselves as a high school, we think of ourselves as a K-12 system. So we think about our elementary school partners, our middle school partners, and us as the hub of the community as all working together to be Roosevelt. So I like my elementary and middle school colleagues to stand up and wave cuz they're here tonight as well. Okay. I have the important job of telling you where the bathrooms are. So, the easiest way to get to the restrooms, there's gendered and single stall bathrooms. If you go back towards the entrance and to the right, take your first right. If you need water, go to the left. There's the one drinking fountain in the
008whole building that you don't need a receptacle for, which is right over there. So, thank you for being here. Really happy to be a part of this engagement with you all, and I look forward to learning alongside you today. I'd like to turn it over to John Franco. Thank you. The jewel of Roseville, I love that. That was great. Um good afternoon or good evening everybody. Uh it is an absolute pleasure to be in space with all of you. My name is John Franco, and I have the privilege of serving as the senior chief of operations here. And so, really just wanted to just level set a little bit before we kind of get into uh what we're going to get into today. And first, I just want to acknowledge that whenever we enter into
009any district, enters into any level of conversation about right-sizing, school closures, school consolidations, boundaries, those types of things, you are bringing into the space a level of obviously inquiry, uh a level of clarification, a level of concern. Because understandably, right, is that our school communities are so vested in our schools, and we love that. We love that piece. This is actually that this is my 26th year in education. I've been through this type of process in various districts. It's my third time, and it's never easy. Right? It's never easy, and it's never going to be perfect. Um and so, I just want to acknowledge that piece before we kind of get moving, um and know that this is a safe space, and we absolutely want to hear what are those questions, what are those concerns,
010what do we really need to think about as we uh continue this conversation moving forward. Um I also just want to say this piece is a kind of uh a level setting in terms of the purpose of this phase of engagements. So, there's going to be a lot of engagement throughout, okay? But, this first we've had this is our fifth one and it truly is about hearing from you in terms of what do you want in particular the school board to consider as guiding principles for us as we move the work forward. That is it. That is really and then we want to ground in some context for you in terms of, you know, where is our current state? What is our current state? What do we project, you know, in a few years from
011now in regards to enrollment, in regards to utilization? But, truly the the the purpose is to get feedback from you on what you would like us and more importantly the school board to consider as they move this work forward and they're going to take all this feedback and form some guiding principles that will help us moving forward. And so, that really is the purpose of today. And then the the the other piece is, cuz I get this question all the time and I just want to make sure that I address it out front. Questions around why, right? Why why are we starting this process? Why are we doing this? Well, it it really is a a confluence of factors in terms of where we are at. Uh, in terms of we have been as as
012nationally we're we're no different than the nation, but if you think about also the state, we right now are in a trend of declining enrollment and that's just a reality since COVID. If you think about the state average since COVID, it's about a 7% reduction or decline in students. We are actually unfortunately beating that trend and we're actually around 12%. And when we are funded via the state school fund in terms of the number of students, obviously that leads to a budget deficit, which unfortunately we are facing uh moving forward. It's actually, and I'm sure you've heard this, uh it's upwards of $50 million, right? So So all that being said, okay? Yes, we have to think about and rethink about how we're doing things. And to that point, the main reason we are here
013is, and you're going to hear this throughout the presentation, this notion of being a well-resourced school. So a few uh 4 years ago, we This is just an example. 4 years ago, we implemented K-12 math and ELA curriculum. Why is that? Cuz we wanted every student to have consistency of experience. That's just the reality. And so when we're talking about well-resourced school, we want all of our kids to have consistency of resource. And so we're going to And our schools team is going to be here, they're going to talk about those types of things. We don't yet know in terms of what what that actually means. This is why we get some feedback from you. Um but we shouldn't have to be fighting. Schools shouldn't have to be fighting for resources over and over again.
014That's not what we want. And so that to me is the main reason in terms of why we're here. So um Oh, and I do have to mention this, Dr. Armstrong, our superintendent, she unfortunately could not be here. Um but she sends her best. She unfortunately she had an engagement, but she is obviously very vested in this process and been with us um for the for the long haul throughout this whole thing. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to vice ch- I don't know, who wants to go first? Oh, okay. So I guess Are you okay with that? Okay. So I'm going to turn And And so what they're going to do What the school board is going to do is they're going to talk to you what they hope uh to
015get from uh obviously introductions, and they're going to talk about what they hope to to get from this session. So thank you. Thank you so much for being here, and I'll turn it over to our student director, Ian Retorto, who is a Roosevelt uh student at this point in time. Thank you so much. Um I'm going to I'm going to turn this way so I'm the the mic isn't pointed towards the uh towards that speaker there. Um so that you're not going to nasty screech, but uh I'm really happy to be here at, you know, at Roosevelt High School. My poor mom has been driving me all across the city to go to these engagements um in, you know, in South and all over the place, but today I get to go right near home.
016Um so uh it's really wonderful to be here. It's good that we've got um that we've got good turnout. I know that there were some issues with people finding out about the event, but I'm glad that you guys all um found out about it and decided to come here today because your input is really meaningful. Um and I'm really excited to hear what you have to say. Thanks, Ian. Student Director Retorto, my name's Kristi Split. I uh just so everyone knows, our job as school board members is to represent the entire district, but we have to live in certain parts of town. I happen to live in Southwest Portland. And I actually spent a decade living in North um and a little bit in Northeast Portland. So, this is also old stomping ground for me,
017and I always feel very at home here. So, it's nice to be back. Um I mostly just want to start out by saying that I really appreciate the district's commitment to starting engagement from the beginning. And sometimes it feels a little less organized when you do that, um but I think it's genuine. And so, I just kind of wanted to make sure that folks know exactly what you heard from John um is that we're we want to hear now, you know, what is the North Star that we as caregivers, teachers, educators, uh school administrators, etc. want to see as sort of the North Star for each school. And also, what guiding principles should we use as we figure out how to make those North Star schools happen. Um so, I don't I really don't have
018much to add. I really want to listen to all of you. Um I can stay a little bit afterwards, too. So, after the conversation, feel free to come find me. I'm happy to have one-on-one conversations with people who don't love to raise their hand in the crowd. And just really grateful to see so many folks here. Um and just a reminder, too, like we know that each of you likely love the school where your kids attend. If you're here as a parent, and we do want to hear about but also just a reminder that um where we are right now is not making decisions on a school-by-school basis, but setting that North Star and those guiding principles. If that helps you to frame your comments tonight at all, I think that's just helpful to know
019that's where we're at. Thanks, everybody. Um my name's Virginia Laforest. I live in zone five, which is Northeast Portland, with the uh McDaniel and Grant clusters. But I am actually a former resident of the Roosevelt cluster. I brought my babies home to my home in Kenton, I guess 16 and 20 years ago. So, um I love this neighborhood, and it's always fun to to get up here. And um gosh, let's see. Today, I'm really hoping to hear about the when you're going into a process like this, we're not even going into it, we're in it. Um what are the things that keep you up at night? What is important to you? Um like Chris, you said, like we're here tonight to hear to to establish what our guiding principles are versus school-by-school basis. Like what,
020at the end of this, do are the most important things for us to take into account? Um we are listening, um very interested, and like I said, everything you have to say. So, less me, more you. Hi, my name's Stephanie Inglesman. I live in Southeast. I have three kids in PPS. I also everybody does. Uh two in middle school, newly in middle school, and one in elementary school. This has been a really iterative process for I think everybody, including me, and I wanted to just highlight two comments that were really resonated with me at the very small Benson listening session on Saturday, which was one parent saying, "It feels weird to have you asking us what we want in a school, and then us giving you a list, and then you potentially closing our school."
021But, to the comments made already about what we're trying to achieve in the long run, where we want to shoot for the moon. Um, the other comment that really resonated was, "Why that first comment was important is the goal is to end up with great schools, not less of what we have now." And what we have now is too big of a classroom sizes. We have librarians who are going to different schools. We have music some places and not others. And so, the the the parent that said that said, "Don't close schools and then leave us with the same as what we have now, which is not shooting for the moon." Um, so I would ask you to tell us what we should be shooting for if we do this, cuz it's why not? So,
022thank you. Um, Pat Oh, this is loud. I'm Patty Sullivan. Um, I live in Northwest. Um, and as this has been said, we represent everybody though. Um, I raised children in PPS. I have grandchildren who went through PPS, and I even have a great-grandchild in PPS, and I taught in PPS. So, I got more than all of you, more people. And um, I really can't say much more than has been said. We're here to listen. We want We're here because we want to make PPS great. I As I said, I've been here with a lot of kids in PPS. I've taught in PPS. I think it's pretty great already, but I know we need a lot of lot more, and that's what we're trying to do with this. I'm going to hand it over Michelle.
023Thank you, Patty Director Sullivan. I'm Michelle DePass. I live in the King neighborhood. I'm a PPS mom of two graduates, also a PPS alum. And Miss Patty taught at my alma mater, but we didn't know each other then. I'm really here to listen and learn, and I think what would be really helpful is to hear what your values are because we're not at the decision point yet. And I I have an ask and a hope. And the ask would be that we are able to articulate a future state. You know, really use your design thinking cap to imagine which is hard to do when you have a kids in a particular school, but imagine for the entire community what serves this community best. Use that sustainability, that seventh generation thinking, that design thinking to know
024where we're at currently and use those skills to think about what you'd like to see in the future. It's really helpful to lead with your values sometimes with difficult conversations because you can't go wrong with your values and things that you value. And my last wish would be my last name means peace, and this is a difficult conversation for people, and we can do hard things, and I would hope that at the end of this we are able to have peace with one another across the district. Because we need more peace. Thank you. Hi everybody. My name is Rochelle Chase Miller. I am the representative from zone four, and I'm going to I'm going to separate myself from my colleagues a little bit in that while of course we all represent the whole city and
025are elected by the whole city, I represent North Portland. Zone 4 is the zone that I grew up in. It's where my kids go to school. It's home for me. And, uh, we're we're a little bit different in the north. We've been through some things, um, and I'm I'm not surprised to see such a great turnout here tonight because I know that you are all deeply vested in this process and what it means for our North Portland schools and community and kids. And, um, the commitment to ensuring that our kids don't, um, are not are not further marginalized by what happens through this process is important to me and I know that it's important to all of you, as well. Uh, we're in a really challenging moment, but I think that challenges bring opportunities, and
026this process is one of them. Our kids deserve everything an education can offer. They deserve art and music and librarians that are open every day. So, um, while we are balancing the uncertainty and the worry about what might happen to our schools, I hope that we can also hold, uh, the opportunity and possibility that is in store through this process, and, uh, you know, hold multiple and competing truths at the same time, and to Michelle's point, really work as a community so that we can come through this as a stronger PPS. So, happy to be here tonight. Happy to see all of you. Let's give our board a round of applause. With that, I want to walk you through what you can expect for tonight. For tonight, you have had your welcome and your grounding.
027The next piece that I'm excited to introduce are our subject matter experts. What we want you to know is who's at the the planning table internal to our district and how our different roles using the lens of right-sizing. And so tonight we've got a lot of subject matter experts in the space. You're going to hear from our academic team and that's going to be a facilitated by Dr. Emily Glasgow. And then you're going to hear from enrollment and data. We're going to combine those two and you're going to hear from our assistant superintendent Margaret Calvert and our senior director of accountability and research Richard Smith. I do believe we also have Dr. Jefferson in the house. So if you have any questions around title one funding or title two professional learning, Dr. Jefferson is in
028the back waving her hand. She wanted to be on site to be able to answer any questions that might arise. Likewise, we've got a ton of central office support so that if you have any questions or you need some direct support or you want to hear your voice in this space, which is okay, you should have a posted note somewhere near your proximity. That posted note is another way for you to get your voice in the space. So write down any comments, any questions, any insights and write that on your posted note. Anytime during the night you can hold that up and any one of our subject matter experts or any of our staff will walk around and collect that posted note so that we can ensure that our board gets to see and hear
029all of what you have to say tonight and going forward. With that, I would like to introduce Dr. Emily Glasgow, our senior director of PK-5 academics. You can clap for her as she comes. Thank you, Nicole. I'm not sure who's control There we go. Let's go one more. There we go. Good evening, everybody. My name is Emily Glasgow. I am a PPS graduate. I'm also a PPS parent. I was a former PPS principal and my job now, as Nicole said, is to oversee our pre-K through fifth grade academics. And in that position, I've been tasked with co-chairing our academics and activities work group in service of this right-sizing conversation. So, that is a group of subject matter experts. Their areas are listed on this slide that is coming together on a weekly basis right now
030to inform the process and right now really to like take in the data we're getting about the process. I want to talk about who's on that team and then you guys have done a ton of listening, so we're going to get going on an activity in just a second. So, on that team we have representatives from the early learners team, humanities, math and science, college and career readiness, enrichment, that's things like arts and music and library, special education, multilingual learners, RESJ partnerships, racial equity and social justice, funded programs, and also we left off student services. So, it's a team of a lot of experts with a lot of knowledge, and there is no way for us to know everything, and there's no way for us to know what is most important to you unless we
031ask you. So, that's what I'm about to do. Um our first task as a team is to try to define the concept that Dr. Franco talked about, this concept of what is a well-rounded school. And we're trying to define what is a well-rounded elementary school, middle school, high school. There are some things that need to be true across all those levels, and then there are some things that are distinct at those different levels. Another way to ask the question we're trying to answer is what daily learning experiences and opportunities should every student have at each of those levels I just named. So, what I'm going to ask you all to do now is to take a little bit of think time and to actually do an activity where you jot down some ideas for us.
032If you are in person, you should have sticky notes or note cards somewhere near your table or near your seat. If you don't, we'll make sure you get some. If you're online, you can put your ideas in the chat. And we just want you to jot things down when you think of what is the most important programming, could be material things, could be structural things, what needs to be true in a well-rounded school. And if it's distinct to a certain grade band, just kind of jot that in the corner. So, I'm going to have you write down your ideas. Then we're going to do a little bit of sharing. Then we'll hear some ideas out loud, and then we'll collect all of your ideas, and our team will be using this as data to help
033inform our definition. Any questions? Okay, so I'm going to give a couple quiet minutes for everybody to start start jotting. If you need something to write on, raise your hand and we'll get it for you. Online people, just drop your ideas in the chat. >> I see some of you doing this already. Feel free to put your heads together with the people next to you if you want to generate ideas together for a few minutes and then we'll hear some out loud as well. >> Okay, the room is starting to buzz, which is great. Uh I'd love for us to hear a couple of ideas out loud. You can feel free to keep jotting, keep writing things down. Again, we'll collect all of these at the end. This is all data for us. But are
034there a couple people in the room that would like to share what they felt was most important? Great. We've got a few mics running around. All right. Uh nice to see the healthy turnout this evening. Uh Um I you know, this is kind of centric to my kiddo. She's uh seven at Chief Joseph, and the most impactful thing I've seen, you know, she's uh on the spectrum, she's speech delayed, and small group reading intervention for reading and math, I think are some of the most powerful tools we have. Like this thing is doing overtime. It's speech therapy, it's reading, it's letters, um and she's shown just remarkable increases in her verbalization, and her expressive language, and her receptive language, and her reading ability, um and the desire to write words, to be excited about words.
035So small intervention reading and math programs is one of those things that we we just need it. We need it like I almost need it more than I need her classroom time, you know, like it's so impactful. So that's my that's my two cents. Thank you. Awesome. Glad to hear it's working. Hi, I'm Rachel. I'm from Southeast Portland. My daughter goes to Woodmere. And it's far from here. Um I I wanted to agree with the gentleman that spoke before me. My daughter's also in a small group for uh reading and math, and it's it's been incredible. It's changed more for her than even she's not even in that big of a class, and this small group has been hugely impactful for her reading and for her math. Um on my list I had student socioemotional
036support. We go to a school that has a ton of so of emotional and and um you know, that support. And it's so good for the students. There's always somebody there to take them out when they need a break, bring them back, and um to not feel like they are a problem, to just feel like they need an extra hand. And there's always someone there to that can come and and just take them on a walk, and it's amazing. It's so good for the students. Terrific. Thank you so much for sharing that. Let's do a couple more in the room, and then we can also try to hear from online. Hi. I um would say for well, myself when I was a child, but also my children today that a lot of the things that
037are most impactful about school are not what we necessarily picture with a bunch of people sitting in rows, um arts and movement and library and play and outdoor spaces that are available to the entire neighborhood. Great, thank you. Yes, we're looking for well-rounded, the whole thing, right? Did you have one right behind? Yeah. Thanks. Um something that we've that I've seen over the years um is uh challenging retaining families in the school. Just seeing the class sizes drop and drop and drop going from kindergarten to first, second, third, fourth, fifth when we had a K-8 school, seeing that further and further decline. So, the class sizes are getting smaller and smaller and consolidated into fewer rooms. There was clear There's clearly a problem with There's the as the kids get older, there are fewer of
038them in the schools. And we know from the neighborhood that at least some of that is being able to retain families. So, one of the challenges that you have with with, you know, the situation is that you can't If you drive families away, it only makes things worse, right? On the flip side, being able to keep families going through as a cohort with the same students, I know that I think some of the best people that I'm still friends with are, you know, fellow classmates from PPS, right? So, being able to keep kids together, keep families in the system, I think is really critical. Great. Thank you so much. And I appreciate the spirit of that echoing some of what we heard from our board members that our goal really is to be dreaming and
039future stating and thinking about what are the schools we want to create that families want to come to and stay at. Right? Um Nicole is going to give us a couple questions from our online guests, and then we could do a few more ideas from the room if we have time. Don't worry and we will collect everything. Everything you've written down will come to us as well. To ensure that we are hearing from both the folks that are in the space tonight, and then also the folks that are virtual tonight, we're going to read one of the comments and questions that are coming up in the chat. Director Williams. Good evening, families. Uh this is from Jaime Cow. Every student should have an opportunity to learn math, reading, writing, and arts, and movement, with a
040focus on making sure it's relevant for all students. Meaning marginalized students can see themselves in their staff, lessons, and curriculum. Terrific. Thank you so much. Nicole, you're going to tell me when we are at time, yes? Keep going or Few more. Okay, are there a few more people that want to share out loud? Yep. Actually, I'm going to have you use the microphone. I know we all feel loud, but it helps people. Thanks. All right. Whoa. I'd like to see the schools modeling values. I think both of our kids in the schools that they've been in and they've been in a couple of different schools. That's been really impactful for them, seeing the ethos of the school and how it influences them and that all the teachers and the administration of the school are on
041board with it. Um we've also had the inverse experience where it wasn't very strong and that has a big impact negatively. Um teaching to all types of learners. I think that that's already been mentioned in one way or another, but um some kids are more kinesthetic. Some kids need a long-term project. Um some kids do better in smaller groups. Some kids need a timeout corner to take a breather. Just having those opportunities. Um an opportunity to think critically, not just teaching to the test or um meeting the benchmarks, but actually being able to use their critical skills and particularly in the context of longer-term projects because we all know attention span is at a very minimum right now. So having things that encourage that and teach that and model that are important. Okay, that's all
042I have to say. Great. Thank you. Hi, I just want to talk about my experience. I'm a new parent of a first grader, James John. New to PPS, not new parent of a first grader. Just to clarify. Um my kid struggles with reading. She's recently moved into small group reading and it's helped her tremendously, but for the first few months at school when she came home she didn't want to talk about anything that she was doing at school. The days that she wanted to talk about what she was doing at school were the days when she had art, music, and time in the library. So, in addition to those small school the small group reading conversations, I just want to surface how important art is, not only in our child's ability to to learn and
043to process what they're learning at school, but to also bring home some joy and something exciting that they did as they were creating. Thank you. Great. Thank you for sharing that. Dr. Glasgow. >> Yes. I've got a student that has their hand up. I'm right here, baby. >> find you. Terrific. We'd love to hear from a student. All right. Here you go, my love. You got to stand up there. Um I go to Winterhaven and I only have one sentence, but um I like going to a K-3 8 school because uh I feel like it helps me build a lot more confidence since I'm speaking to much older kids than me. That's right. You did terrific. Thank you so much for sharing that. Takes a lot of courage to stand up in a group this
044big. I'm going to give you the final word. I think that was a great place for us to wrap this conversation for now. Please leave what you wrote on your tables or on your bleachers or again in the chat if you're online cuz we are going to collect all that and use it as data to inform our team. Thank you guys so much for being here tonight and engaging. Thank you so much, Dr. Glasgow. Give her a round of applause. And our babies in the house tonight. If any other students can make sure uh get their questions and our comments in the space. Please don't be too too shy to raise your hand and get your voice in the space. With that, I want to move us into our data modeling and enrollment conversation with
045Assistant Superintendent Margaret Calvert and our Senior Director of Research and Accountability or Accountability and Research, Richard Smith. Please give them a hand as they come. Okay, good evening, everybody. Uh Richard Smith, Research, Assessment, and Accountability. So, quite a quite a few things that we work with there. And um I have the opportunity to lead the team that's going to be working through modeling and data and collecting your feedback and analyzing it and providing reports and all the fun graphs and tables that you're going to look at along the way as we go through this process. And so, tonight is very valuable to get your feedback um for our school board and for us to understand where we place priorities, where we really dive in and look at those guardrails. So, if you have not gotten
046a chance to go into this Slido yet, would you please do so while we have this conversation and and this discussion so that we can get that feedback and we will be analyzing all of these uh like I said and sending those reports on and those reports will become public on where people landed on certain things. So, with that said, um super quick about me, I'm a former principal in Portland Public Schools. I've been through similar processes during the Southeast Guiding Coalition. I was the principal at a K-8 that became a K-5 and I got the opportunity to open up a brand new middle school from five different K-8s in Southeast Portland. And so, I do understand that behind every number, behind every table is a family, is a student, is you all. And so,
047we take that very seriously as we look at this information, as we make this planning. And so, I hope that as we go through this process, that you can get that sentiment and feeling that this is something that we're all doing together. So, with that said, we are going to give some opportunity to give us feedback on what you would like us to know, what you would like us to see, and some maybe brief questions along the way. Because as was indicated at the beginning, we have not made decisions yet around this. There is no list yet. This is something that we are working towards and working through in this process. So, if I Good evening, everyone. My name is Margaret Calvert. I know. I WAS JUST LOOKING FOR A GOOD EVENING BACK, but that's
048that's all. I didn't need a clap, but I'll try it one more time. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um so, if people give me a thumbs up if you are in if you're able to access the Slido, do some indication that you're in. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Um Uh as Richard Smith shared, my My name is Margaret Calvert. I am an assistant superintendent. We are working to coordinate a variety of work groups. We have spent a lot of time looking at um at a number looking at the district in a number of different ways. So, I am a math teacher by training and by life choice, I think. So, as we go through, some of what we are going to we are looking at getting some feedback so
049that we can understand um what what the values are. As Senior Director Watson shared, there's on your table there are six factors that are currently in our student assignment policy, which is um essentially boundary policy. There are some tradeoffs that are inherent in those, and so we're asked about some of your experiences. What does that look like? And then the last question that we will ask is what are we missing and what would you like us to consider? So, there are a number of things that we've shared just in general. We've talked about trends in enrollments. We've shared some information and we have a website. Our website is up and we'll get the some information posted later this evening or first thing in the morning that includes things like utilization which like how how are
050we using buildings? Enrollment, what are some of the trends? There's also pieces around what you're describing of you know, what's important to you in a school and and we recognize that schools aren't just buildings, they're centers of communities. So, as we go through the process, there are going to be some we're really looking at how do we lay out the guardrails and think about some of the framework and that's where you're going to help us do today in some in the Slido and then also in any of the questions that you have. Ultimately, we we what we want to share is there are a number of levers that we use in a process where we think about what a school system should look like. What does our portfolio of schools look like? So, one of
051them could be movement of programs. It could be that we are looking at consolidations or mergers. It could be that we're looking at boundary changes. So, it's not just one thing that we're looking at. We're also thinking about what is the portfolio of student experiences that we want to offer across the district in every part of the city regardless of zip code as well as what is not what is that mix at the elementary level, at the middle school level, at the high school level. And Dr. Parman shared earlier this evening that you know, in the in in the north and the the ethic and the sort of the um, feeling here in in the north is really a K-12 continuum and that that is really something that they've been working uh, for across schools.
052So, that's really kind of the broad strokes of what we're thinking about um, and then we'll be back again and again to say, you know, what is what what is here's another set of information. What do you think? How can you give us some feedback? Um, and then we'll continue in iterative way um, all the way through November and December. So, we're this is you know, we're launching and we're kind of working our way through and we'll pace it as we go. So, with that said, I'm going to stop and really say what questions you have, what is surfacing for you um, and how can we uh, either we want to hear the questions, what's coming up, but then also if we have some answers, we'll we'll try to share some. Oh, come on. Okay,
053here we go. Um, can you give a kind of a summary of the, you know, budget of this budget projection, right? Like where what the the gap we heard a you know, some number of hundreds of millions dollars or something, half a half a billion dollars or something, right? So, what does that mean in terms of presumably that is counting expected student populations for years, the amount of federal funding that you get per student each of those years, state, you know, what what however the state ties it. Could we get a summary of of what the projections mean as far as the student populations go, how how the how the numbers where the numbers come from? Yeah, so if you've tuned into our lovely board meetings, which are very entertaining, of course, because you get
054to learn about finances, um, which everyone has so much time for, I'm sure. Um, there's a lot of information given about kind of our projection for next year around $50 million deficit that's due to declining enrollment as was stated. We get a certain amount of money per student from the state, from the federal government, and from local areas, as well as some local revenue not coming in as high due to property values going down. And a myriad of other factors. I believe I said increased cost, declining enrollment, and the local revenue not being what it was expected to be. And so that's going into next year what we're working through right now. In terms of school consolidations, as Dr. Franco talked about at the beginning, while there is some level of potential cost savings there,
055it doesn't end up being per school the amount that we paid per school cuz those students still go somewhere else that we would pay for them. But there is a a level up there with certain like staff and other things. I had a clear. You wanted to know. I'm sorry. I just I felt like I I think I think she Corey might be saying it, but I think the last part of your question was about where we get the population like decrease. There's a PSU you know, can you answer the PSU part? Yeah. Yes, thanks. We partner every year with the population research center at PSU, and they project some issues some populations out. And what we're really experiencing is multi-fold. There's been a declining birth rates for the last 10 plus years actually, and
056it's really coming up through our elementary system right now, and it's going to hit middle and then high school down the line. On top of that, we were seeing increase pre-COVID due to population moving into Portland. That is no longer the case. So, we have the declining birth rates, we no longer have population coming in, and then post-COVID we've seen this nationally, not all the students returned. So, we have a lower number of students now prior to then. That last part you had Corey was the one I was curious about. Do you know the percentage of students in say Multnomah County who are >> Yeah, so you're asking about a true capture rate. We have an approximation of it and it depends on which study you look at, but it's around between 81, 83, 84-ish
057percent. For accessibility, I just want to make sure that everyone heard the question that was on the floor. Do we all hear? I just want to Do we got access? All right. Second question up. Well, this is just a clip. I'm so sorry. I just want to clarify the question that you said. Can I Okay. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. You said that consolidation does not save money in the budget. No, I said it does save a level of funding, but if you if a school's costing 4 million to run and you close that school down, you don't save 4 million right there because the students move and so you still have to staff for those students. So, there's a level of it, but really we're looking more at how we resource schools so
058that we have equitable programming across all of our schools so that we're not saying you're going to get a half-time person here and a half-time person here, but how do we get that so everyone has the same experience? So, it's less distribution of of the resources spread out more thinly. I'm not the most patient, sorry. Um, I just have a clarifying question. Can someone talk about what does the right pathways mean on the survey? The feeder pattern that allows as many students as possible to continue together from one program to the other. What does that mean? So, an An example of that is if I leave elementary school that all of us in elementary school go to the same middle school and then when I go through middle school, we'd all go to the same
059high school. That's one example. When we're ready, we also have a question online, Assistant Superintendent Calvert. Uh this kind of ties into the uh the the lack of enrollment. Um as I understand it, lowering birth rates has something to do with it, people moving out of the district, and then there's just kids that are in the district that are simply just not enrolled and choose an alternative educational outlet. Um I know that in 2025 they started the recruitment, retention, and recovery campaign, but I haven't really found a lot of information. How successful has that been? Is that an ongoing effort? Is it something you're ramping up to? And and I guess a root question would be how many more hundreds or thousands of kids would we need to enroll for the next academic year to
060make up the 50 million? Like what What is the actual number of bodies that that that's the differential here that's in play for the lack of funding? Want to take some of that? I'll take part of it. Thank you for the question. Um Uh one of the pieces is the the enrollment campaign will be ongoing. So that is true. So and um we are working with uh principals and um school communities to uh welcome students back into Portland Public Schools. So that will We've started it. There's some information that we've uh shared. Uh our Chief of Communications, Candace Gross, has uh helped support schools in some of that um the marketing campaigns and and that sort of thing. Um and that will continue. So that Some of these streams are just they're ongoing work. So
061that's going to be ongoing work as we go. The question about how many students would have to come back into um Portland Public Schools to make up 50 million dollars, I don't know that I know the answer to that question. Yeah, I can take it. There's actually not an answer to that because one of the reasons that we're going through budget um cycles is cost The cost of doing business has just gone up. And so, even if we added more students in, eventually, like you would get to the critical mass, but it's so well beyond anything we've been enrolled at. We do have to um understand that our costs have gone up faster than the state's funding formula has gone up. Therefore, going to be that it's not really looking at X amount of students
062to get there. Okay, this question comes from Christie Harris. When it comes down to deciding what schools to potentially close, what process is in place to prioritize Title 1 schools over lottery/emergent schools, if any? So, part of what we are hearing as we go through this process is um there's questions We will build a framework and with a uh input from the school board, which will lead into some guiding principles that which will lead into some ways that we look at um how we'll make decisions. What we've heard pretty consistently is that uh one of the equity considerations that we've that people are saying are important is to think about how we are looking at our Title 1 school. So, that has been consistent over a number of pieces. So, then we'll take that information
063in and we'll build out sort of what does that look like as we go through the process. I'm going to go back here and then I'll come back We'll come back up front. Thank you so much. I really feel like a lot of my question was addressed by What was your name? George. George, uh about recruitment and retention. Um and it sounds like if even we hit 100% recruitment and retention, we're still facing a budget shortfall and we'll have to close schools. So, there's a certain inevitability to this at the moment, but I just watched the Trail Blazers spend $100,000 on lobbying to get a $300 million grant from the state. To to build a the structure that for basketball? So, if if there is an inevitability here and there's certain things that okay, recruitment
064and retention can't do it. We I I refuse to accept the premise that we don't know what a model school looks like. You know, we do. Portland public has some really great schools in it. It isn't that we don't know what that looks like. It's that we don't have money to make that happen. And so 100% of our focus needs to be getting money here. Where's the lobbying campaign? Where's the ad campaign? Sweet dear Eve here started a letter writing campaign to get that money going. So, you know, this feels really nice to be here with you guys. It's also really sad, but let's just just get get more money. There's it's out there. We need money. Let's figure out how to do that. Thank you. We have a question here. Hi, I've got like
065a two-parter. My name is Ariana. I'm a parent at Buckman. Buckman elementary is an arts-focused school. So, it sounds like a lot of people have a lot of opinions about that. Love to talk to everyone about it. But, I do want to say that Buckman is a title one school. And it's also full of 50% neighborhood kids. So, I just want to premise my question with that. I'm also with a table that has another focus school here and it's immersion. And they are also a title one school, Cesar Chavez. But, one question that I have is I really appreciate this exercise that we did where we talked about, you know, what makes a whole school? What makes I don't remember the question exactly, but y'all remember it. Well-rounded. Exactly. I heard a lot of arts.
066I heard a lot of that jazz. I want to highlight that in small reading groups, which I 100% agree with. My kid has autism, same thing. Um but their classes are being blended next year. First and second grade are being blended. So, small reading groups sorry. Um also our arts teachers are being cut. So, So, question is like we're making these cuts, we're doing all this, even if we close the focus schools, when would those arts realistically be coming back to all schools? Like, I'd really love to know, is that 2027? Are we talking 2034? Because my kid might not even be in school anymore. So, I just want to say I support arts at all schools. I support um everyone having access to the same, and I want a realistic timeline for that because
067I want to leave here feeling good, and I know that I have cuts coming next year no matter what schools close. Thank you. Thank you, and that's what we'll have to work through on when we go through this process on what the resources are available. Thank you. That is valuable feedback for us. Um hi. So, this kind of piggybacks on questions about enrollment, which is to say, don't you all think that if you close schools that have smaller classes, and then you push kids out of their neighborhoods into classes that will now be larger, especially for K through fifth, where a lot of children are emerging with different learning disabilities and so forth, um don't you think enrollment is going to decline further when parents who have the alternative to not put their children in
068that situation do so? So, I do want to address the um there's a misconception out there that small school means small class sizes. Um that is not how we staff our schools. So, you will sometimes see larger schools that have smaller class sizes and smaller schools have bigger class sizes. There's there's a range that goes through there. And so, in some cases, we are having to do more blends right now because of some of the smaller class sizes and resourcing. And in other cases, we don't have to do that where the numbers lie. So, it's not a function of the school being big or small what those classes look like. It's more of a function of where that grade range lands. So, and to your second part of the question, um there's there's mixed reviews
069on on how that lands and how the process goes as well. So, when I think, you know, just to tag on a little bit here, one of the one of the questions and that we're talking about is, you know, what does it mean to be a well-resourced school? We also want the schools to be sustainable, that don't um that can weather fluctuations in enrollment. So, some of what can can happen is that you may have a small first grade, but a large fourth grade, right? And so, how do we um navigate and really think um about building some of those buffers so that there are some predictability to what the student experience is. So, that's also There's a piece about well-resourced. We also want it to be sustainable um as we go uh through some
070of the changes that we're going to see in the in the upcoming years. Is there another question online? Is there or is there a question up top? Okay. Yeah. School funding uh the funding from the state Um could you explain to me how um I think the uh PPS funding from the state is paid for with Is Is this PPS funding from the state coming from county taxes that go to the I remember uh Measure 5 in '91 or '92 and all of a sudden overnight we had to like bring in our own paper and supplies and everything and everything changed because the uh local taxes were going to the state and getting redistributed uh to all the counties rather than just being kept local and I've always wondered if the difference in uh cost
071of living in the metro area versus outside of the metro area meant that the uh you know, the the the schools outside of the metro area were proportionally better funded than the than the ones you know in Multnomah County. I don't know if if you have numbers for basically like how much local money goes to the state level and then gets redistributed to what the difference is in those numbers. So it's a highly technical question you're asking. I love to talk through it at some point. There is a cap on certain funding. That's that's the cliff notes of it. Some of it goes to the state, some of it gets redistributed. There's also local numbers as well. So the answer is it's complex. School funding comes from a lot of sources. Some are capped at
072certain levels, some get redistributed, and some are variable year to year. But we could definitely have more of a discussion on the ins and outs of that. I think for this purpose I might put too many people to sleep in this room if I went through that. Fair enough. Oh, we got one here. We got one Yeah, definitely definitely come talk to me after. If any of you have watched any board meeting or any of these engagements I've been to, I talk endlessly. I preach to so many choirs about 5 and 50. I love to talk about 5 and 50 because the reality is that it has made our jobs all across the state as school districts a lot a lot harder financially. It's that's why you know we're not the only district that took
073furlough days this year. You know it's there's tons of districts in Oregon that are going through the exact same situation that we are budgetary because of the state wide system. I think you need a button that says measure 5 and 50. Yeah. Mhm. Hi. Um My name is Ellie. I had the privilege of attending a lot of these and I am a a neighborhood parent from Buckman which is the half I'm from the neighborhood half. And I was wondering I know from having the privilege to attend and knowing there are a lot of parents in my neighborhood that cannot that the title one issue and the focus issue don't seem to overlap that much besides us. And I'm kind of wondering how you're going to take the lens of equity in how you address the
074focus schools because one of the things that has become apparent to me in listening to the board's reflections at the conclusion of these meetings is that there is a big divide on opinions on the focus schools and I'm wondering if you decide to close all the focus schools, that's one thing. But if you do not, are you going to try to be equitable? Buckman is a title one school, but we've been limited in our lottery spots. And if we had more lottery spots, which we have the capacity for and there are wait lists of the kids that don't get in that would like to go there, we wouldn't have the low utilization numbers we do. And we're the the lone low utilization focus school as a title one school and I feel like it's sort
075of this weird locked in thing where we we don't get more lottery spots and the lottery spots would prioritize low-income students. And I'm wondering how equity will be dealt with in making decisions about focus schools. Thank you. And this is where we really do we are looking for some of these guiding principles and some of these guardrails. In addition, we will look at those items as we go through this process to see where those fall out. Awesome. Thank you so much, team. We're going to wrap with our final question up here at the top. It It's not really a question, but I just want to thank the the student representative. They they do They're really great. I see them. I see you. We need to listen to you. And I give you, you know, all
076your flowers. There's going to be a public school funding forum for people who want to be involved. I'm not putting it on, but I'm advocating for it because we do need to come together as a community and and do a Buckman. You know, if you want to form something to to get the community involved, I'm going to be doing that for our native community because enough is enough. Like we have to stand together as a community. This isn't the board's fault. This isn't our fault, you know, it we just got to try to fix it in the best way we can and advocate for funding that's rightfully ours. Um you know, we had energy funding. We have housing funding. We have funding that is here that can help our community. Like I stated on Saturday,
077let's go outside and plant some trees. Let our librarians go sit in the grass then. Um you know, what are we talking about when we talk about clean energy? We have all this funding. You know, but as well as, you know, I was visiting with one of my indigenous um you know, teachers, instructors. When we're trying to think about this, too, a lot of our kids who are in these alternative schools, they're there for a reason and we need to really respect that reason. Um some of our kids don't fit in this big world, you know, my daughter herself, she's going to be a high school next year leaving our middle school and she doesn't even want to go. Um you know, we're culture shocked right now and we all need to really come together,
078but I come in I speak at these because I come from a different place and I see everyone. I hear everyone. If you need support, connect with me. I will help you start a little, you know, group to talk about how we can help each others communities because I'm here just not for the native community. I'm here for everyone. And I appreciate everyone for being here and letting me speak. Again, I see you. Let's make some change. Thank you for so much for being here. Thank you. And um Nicole, are we now turning it over to So at this time, I love cordless microphones. Hello evening everyone. I'm up in the balcony. It feels like a good place to be. At this time, we would love to hear the reflections from our board. We have
079about 15 minutes remaining. And so you all can sort out in the order in which you all might want to give some reflections for tonight. Please give a warm round of applause for our assistant superintendent Margaret Calvert and senior director Richard Smith. Thank you all so much for being here. Um I think what I am going to take away is um I know with the shared vision that you all have laid forth for um what our schools can have and should have. Um I I hear each of you advocating for the pieces of this that touch your families and are impactful for your children. Um so whatever exact form this all takes in the end, I hear that call for um small class sizes and groupings so that kids can have their individual and specific
080needs met. I hear the call for enrichment and opportunities that That like Okay, there it goes. That uh allow kids, regardless of their learning style, um access their education in a way that is uh right for them. Um and really, you know, the call for experiences where all of our kids can thrive. I'm going to take that forward and um just be doing a lot of reflecting on um how we can uh continue to create strong communities that nurture our kids and have all the pieces they deserve. I also uh want to uh echo the invitation to you all to attend the funding forum on May 7th at Lincoln High School. Think it starts at 6:00. It starts at 6:00, dinner at 5:30. Dinner at 5:30, forum starts at 6:00. I'll be moderating, my colleagues
081will be here and there'll be folks from other districts as well as representatives Lieber and Sanchez. So, please come, come with your questions. Funding really is at the core of all of this and so even as we're making these decisions about our district, we also really need to keep the pressure on the state to reform the way education is funded. So, please show up on the 7th if you can. Thank you. I just want to say really appreciate hearing from my neighbors and friends I see in the audience and heard maybe this is selective but I heard all the fun things. I heard outdoor space, movement, arts, really big proponent of the arts as integrated into academics. I heard concern about the socio-emotional support available for students that seem to need more and more. And
082you know, reading, writing, arts and movement are are really important to this community. I also heard concern about equity concerns and how we'll consider Title 1 schools and focus options and that's a great question. And I also want to just appreciate some of the demographic uh concerns and questions that came up around you know, what would it take, you know, what the catchment rate is for schools, the capture rate I think it's called. And so there's a lot to consider. I'll be processing this probably until the next engagement and again really appreciate your time and attention tonight. Oh. Sorry. >> Um I love the statement we have great schools, we know what great schools look like. Um and I think think we definitely do. Um if they go down to Salem and put together a
083task force that cost a million dollars to tell us what it looks like, you'll make me really angry cuz we know what we need to do. Um as far as for me as as Ian, we have got to get Salem really listening. And I think that May 7th is something the more people go the better it will be. And when I was going down to Salem this year or this just few months ago trying to get money, um I found out there's an education stability fund of over a billion dollars that there's that's just sitting there. They won't even talk about giving it to us. Um they have to get a 3/5 vote, but um it's in a place where it could be sent to the legislature and it's not being done. So I think
084this May 7th time will be a time to say, "Hey, do something." Or write the letters. Write and and write personal stuff. Not just we want the money, but this is what's happening and this is why we need the money because maybe they'll listen a little bit more. Um I also I'm really interested in the um having the neighborhood school and the focus together. That sounds like a you know, a win-win. I know Sunnyside does it as well. So and where and I taught I I was so fortunate. I taught at MLC in the primary. And we had storyline. We taught that all the time. It was just a project-based. It had music. It had a focus, it had art, and you all the kids got interested at the level where they could. So, I
085we weren't geniuses. It could be done everywhere, I think. Anyway, I love hearing all of your comments, all of your questions. Um please Well, Ian's going to say it at the end. Listen to Ian at the end, and look up those measures that you have to look up and understand. Um I just want to briefly thank everybody for coming. Um I have been fortunate enough to attend all five of these, and consistently and without fail, the dedication and commitment to our public schools, the ideas that you bring to the table, um the thoughts that you have, and the engagement in this process is really helpful and has been really profound. So, thank you. Um yeah, um I, like um Dr. Englesman, have also attended all five, and what I've seen um and heard are very
086common themes across all of our listening sessions, and I too love the comment um we know what a well-resourced school looks like. We need money. We do also have these themes, and what I keep hearing consistently is about our literacy and our small reading groups, and access to the arts and movement for our kids, and so when I think about our board goals, building around um K-3 literacy, fifth grade math, and on track to graduate, it's really time, in my mind, to really enshrine those values that I'm hearing from the community, and protect them as we move through the budget process that we're getting ready for, and uh the comment about the timeline, like what happens between now and when we start implementing this to make sure that we don't lose the access that we
087we have, and make sure that we're truly building something better with what we have to work with right now. I just want to say also thanks to everyone for being here. When we said when we first talked I wanted to mention something and I'm sorry that I don't know his name but remember I was talking about how this was from the beginning we're trying to do engagement we're learning as we go we're growing. I mean our staff has been working hard every single one of these has been a little bit different and frankly it's gotten to the point where now it's like let's just keep going they're going great. But we had someone come and testify and point out a gap that we did not have an event scheduled in North and Northeast Portland. I'm
088sorry I don't know your name but I see you and we made the change. We're here to listen and learn from all of you. BLAKE? BLAKE OKAY THANKS BLAKE. YEAH THAT WAS BLAKE. And I think a few of us heard him testify and we're like really like but so we're really glad to be here but also I think that it just kind of shows how much we want to listen to community. It's like a real value for the district right now. We have new leadership as a district. I ran for office in part because I felt like the district wasn't responsive to families and parents like me and weren't hearing about the problems we had in our schools. And I really feel like we're turning a page as a community and these discussions have really
089made me feel like we're in this together. So I just want to thank you all for having that spirit today. And asking a lot of really great questions. I'm going to swear like a little bit mostly just so it this doesn't end up on the news but if you're not pissed off at the state legislature and our governor right now you're not PAYING ATTENTION. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO start paying attention if you're not to what's going on there. Um May 7th or not Yeah, May 7th is an opportunity to talk to the two women who make the big decisions on our budget. That's Senator Kate Lieber and it's also representative Tanas Sanchez who represents um not this exact spot, but the next one over to the east, but includes some of North Portland in her
090district and then northeast. Um so um that's she's she's in the neighborhood and um she wants to hear from you all on May 7th. You she needs to hear from all of you on May 7th so that we'll be prioritizing um school funding and it's not just Portland, it's everywhere, but why it's kind of worse in Portland is for a good reason. We happen to pay our teachers better and I think that's a good thing. It's why so many of people love our schools so much. We have excellent educators who get paid well. And should get paid even more. So I don't want to be like this is the ceiling, but just with the resources we have they're they're um yeah, so we end up in a in a position that causes us some issues.
091Um so anyway, um bottom line, we're listening. What I heard today that I took away that I hadn't heard before the emphasis on the small group learning. Um I'm really glad that's happening. I don't think that has to go away with blends or with large class sizes, just saying. I think those small groups become even more important and more use used when you have blends from my experience um at a school that has blends. Um and so I just wanted to clarify that. Um The other thing I heard a question about that didn't really get answered was about focus options and I actually agree with Patty that I think having focus options that are neighborhood schools plus focus option is such a cool idea. So I'm not saying that's what we're going to do, but
092I just wanted to say to the Buckman parent who brought that up like I think that seems like a pretty cool approach um and so we'll see what happens, but um but I just wanted to thank you for bringing that up today. And with that last word Thank you. I've spoken uh first the last few times, so it's nice to speak last to uh collect my thoughts. Um so first of all, uh don't get me started on the governor. Um I don't know if any of you guys saw I had a letter to the editor go in yesterday in the Oregonian. Um so it was all about the governor's executive order. Um not too many nice words, spoiler. Um but the reality is is that the state government has deprioritized education funding for for the
093better part of three 30 years. Uh not not three. Uh it's been a very long time coming. Um the budget stuff that we're going through now. Um and it's going to keep happening unless we do something. Uh unless we make a real systemic change, and that looks like fundamentally changing or getting rid of five and 50. Um because the reality is that when five when measure five passed, school leaders said, "This is going to be a a disaster." Uh and then it was a disaster. And then they and then they passed uh I forget what the number is on the one that uh that required them to to fully fund our schools, the quality education model, except they added an asterisk that said, "Well, if you can't fund a fully funded schools, you can just
094write a report about it." And then they wrote a report about it every single year since that ballot measure passed. So the reality is is that we've we've been in this situation for a long time. And one thing I heard uh I've heard tonight and through the other engagements is I've heard so much about all the things that make this district special, um all the great things that we're doing. Again, we know what it looks like to have good schools. And there's so many amazing things that we're doing with our focus options, with our early literacy programs. And it makes me um incredibly incredibly sad that we even have to consider getting rid of these programs, um and getting rid of the things that make us special, um because we're facing year after year in
095budget shortfall after budget shortfall. Um so I'm glad that you all came out today. Um, I loved all the feedback that I heard. This is going to be very helpful um, going into the future board meetings about the right-sizing conversation. Um, and if you have any questions that you didn't want to share to the group, feel feel free to come up to me. I would love to talk uh, especially about 5 and 50. Go ahead and give our board a round of applause. Go ahead and give yourselves a round of applause. Listen, this is a lot. And we know that we have been in an engagement series that started on August 11th. And so for you, if you have been to one of our engagements or have been to all of our engagements or if
096this is your first engagement, your voice matters in this space. If you didn't hear your comment or did not get your um, voice in this space, please make sure that you use a post-it note or 3x5 card and on your way out, um, stop by any of our staff and we'll take that from you and ensure that our board gets um, that data and that feedback. Lastly, but certainly not least, it's not over. We are just getting started and we want to make sure that we're hearing from you ongoing and throughout the process. So the Slido, which is what you that interactive poll that you took earlier with our assistant superintendent and our senior director of research and accountability, going forward, if you want to give some insights and feedback, something comes up this week,
097something comes up later tonight, please make sure that you are using that feedback form that will be open consistently throughout engagements. I think the last time I checked that form, it had about 210 or so responses. So we are seeing, we are going to reflect back to you what we heard you say. We're going to find some ways to meet with our families of color, our non-English speaking families, and we're going to start hitting the living rooms, meaning we're headed to schools to be able to meet with you in community where you feel comfortable and the most safe. With that, we want you to take care of yourselves and each other. Please have a great night. Thank you so much. >> Mhm.