2026-04-22 Rightsizing - Board of Education Public Engagement Session

001Hi everybody. I'm Aisha Conning, the proud principal of IDB Wells. Welcome to our beautiful school. We have some more chairs coming out there on the side. And I just want to take a moment to say thank you voters for voting for a bond to help us build I'm going to say I'm a little biased. the most beautiful high school in Portland public schools sitting on a hill with a west facing view. I'm so looking forward to opening it in 2030. Anybody who have eighth graders in the house? Eighth graders. They'll be the first graduating class in our new um brand new high school with 11 CTE pathway programs. I'm so excited for me as a principal of a public high school who's worked in public schools for almost 30 years. It's a dream come true

002to work with our community and our architects um to design a beautiful state-of-the-art public high school. Welcome tonight. I'm looking forward to listening and hearing the conversation. I'm going to turn things over. Yes, restrooms. Thank you so much, Miss Watson, for reminding me. Down this hall at the corner, we have men's, women's, and genderneutral bathrooms. Okay. And I'm going to turn things over to our esteemed superintendent, Dr. Kimberly Armstrong. Thank you so much, principal, and I do hope that that building is opening in the fall of 2029, not 2030, but all the enthusiasm um with that. So, I was going to say awkward. We're getting that building open. Listen, we are excited to be here with you all tonight and looking to launch another engagement series. You know, tonight is about listening and learning together.

003And I want to take the opportunity to make sure that our board and our student representative have the opportunity to intro introduce themselves and then we'll kick off the evening. >> Hi, my name is Thank you. Uh my name is Eddie Wong. Currently serving as the chair of the board. Uh I'm a former teacher in PPS. Also a parent of a middle schooler in PPS. Uh, last time I went through this right sizing process, I was a parent representative in Southeast for the Southeast Guiding Coalition. So, this is the second time been through this. Um, is that all you want me to say or just? >> Yeah. And, um, honestly, we're just here to listen. Uh, what and one of the parent feedbacks that we get is like, let's keep the goal centered and and,

004uh, clear. So, I just want to be very clear. Our goal here is to make sure that all of our schools everywhere in PPS is properly resourced. That means elementary schools like just some examples, elementary schools have um every elementary school has a full-time librarian, a full-time special ed teacher, things like that. Every middle school has uh all the robust programming anywhere like compared anywhere in the city. So you can go anywhere in the city and have the same offering of all the math classes, all the arts, all the music. And so that's the goal and keeping that in mind. But we're honestly here to hear listen from you. What are your priorities? Where your concerns, questions that we can answer? uh be here be and and just reminder we are really early in the

005process. We're just we're currently just establishing our guiding principles, our priorities and and things that we want to uh make sure we center and focus and prioritize. So, thank you for being here and taking your time out your evening. There's so many other more fun things to do, but uh we're glad you're here. So, thank you. >> Hi everybody. My name is Stephanie Englesman. Um I am Southeast resident zone 6 representative. Really glad to be here today. Um, I have two kids in sixth grade and one in fifth grade. And we are Cleveland bound. So, I'm also very grateful for the voters who passed the bond because we also get to start um a new high school when my kids are 10th and nth grade. Um, I'm really excited to hear what everyone has to

006say. I am cons constantly in awe of all the great ideas that our community brings to the table. You are all smart. You are all invested. And I'm really glad to see so many of you here. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Christy Split. I live in Southwest Portland and fill the zone one seat on the school board. We all represent the entire district, but I want to do something fun. It's not a huge number, but I want everybody in this room who knows me to stand up. Will you do that? Okay. Hi. Look around the room. These are all parents of PPS kids and a PPS kid. Each one of us could go to any high school and have this many people standing up that know us. we are part of your community, okay?

007And we're all here to work on this together. And I just wanted to set that context really quick. You can sit down now. It's lovely to see so many of you. Um so, um the thing that I want to say is, um Katie from Ricky, uh sent me an email. Katie, no, I'm doubting myself. Thank you. I'm like, okay. Oh, you're right in front of me. Um Katie wrote me I think she she her co-president let me lent me a pen recently. We sat together at a table at another event like this and she said she wanted us to start with a shared vision. She was wondering why aren't we starting with a shared vision. We're trying to start with a shared vision and we're trying to develop develop it with you. And I know

008it's really tempting to come in and be worried about our own schools. I think every single person I've talked to loves the school that their children attend, loves the teachers there, loves the community. But we know we have 12,000 fewer students. How do we adjust to that? And we're expecting to have less in the future. And so what's the shared vision for our district? That's where we want to start. So I my goal for all of us today is to be approaching this with that that question in mind. What is our shared vision for PPS together? And for those of us that are here, many of us southwest. So being thinking about that. Thanks. Um hi everyone. My name is Virginia Lefort. I live in Northeast Portland. I am a PPS parent. I have a

009sophomore in college who graduated from PPS and I have a a sophomore at one of your uh competing high schools. But I will say both of my kids went to pre-K over here. So I have spent a tremendous amount of time in this area of Southwest. So I have a lot of friends. I know the landscape over here well. So it's nice um when we're talking about your schools feel like I have a good grasp of like where everything is and um what the lay of the land is here. But what I want to take from this process, you know, as we develop this shared vision is really uh I keep saying like what keeps you up at night? What are you worried about? And how can we help solve for that during this process?

010Because at the end of it, what I really hope we're seeing is right-siz schools where we are able to best utilize the resources we have. So if there is a school with a half a librarian and another school with a half a librarian, we can make that a whole librarian. So, how what are those efficiencies that can bring stronger school learning opportunities for our children to the forefront here? So, um yeah, so I'm looking forward to hearing what everybody has to say today. Uh hello, Ian RTorto, student representative. Uh I'm currently a senior at Roosevelt High School. Um I'm really looking forward to hearing what you all have to say today, what your priorities are, um and what actually matters to you guys in this process. um because again we're at the start of something

011that is going to there's gonna be a multi-year process. Um so so yeah, I'm really looking forward to hearing from you guys today. >> Thank you. Thank you all. That was wonderful. So we want to start by making sure that our community understands what's happening with student enrollment and how we're using our school buildings. Just as important, we want our school board to hear directly from you, your reflections, your concerns, and your ideas. Tonight, we won't have time for a question and answer. There will be an opportunity for you to submit written feedback and ask questions, and we'll publish the answers to those questions. But tonight, you will have the opportunity, should you choose to, to share concerns, ideas, and reflections that will help the board create the guiding principles. So, to be clear, we

012know that there's rumors out there that we have a list of schools, a preliminary list, that we may have made some first draft decisions. All of that is inaccurate. We have not made any decisions about any school sites. and so or any programs or any boundaries. So if you all hear otherwise I would appreciate you all correcting that um the wrong information. So why are we having this conversation? Now we're starting here because what we heard from feedback is that some folks are wondering like what the why is or didn't come across clear or we didn't articulate it in a way that um really resonated with folks. So I'm going to make an attempt to do that. So, and let me just say that we know even talking about changes in a school district is

013impactful. It's hard. It's heavy and it's emotional. So, we recognize that in this space. And so, this is why we're excited to lean into this opportunity with community to hear directly from you. So, just as we get into the conversation, know that there are some things that we're holding true. We're keeping equity at the center of every discussion. We're being transparent along the way. We're moving carefully and thoughtfully, and we're listening to you. So, what's driving the conversation? Well, there's three things that stand out. The first is that we have fewer students enrolled. You'll see some slides and some information that shows you that enrollment is down significantly since the pandemic since 2020 and it will continue to decrease and that's not a Portland public schools issue. It's not an Oregon state issue. It's across

014the United States issue and we're addressing it. Second is we have a large budget gap and as long as we're in decline and we have rising costs, we will continue to have that budget gap. Now, we know that closing schools alone will not solve our budget issue, right? Like that's not the connection there. What I want you to connect with though is that we want to make sure that we we're resourcing our schools with the few amount of resources we have appropriately, right? And so when you have many many small schools, it's really tough to make sure that you're resourcing adequately. So that's number two. And then number three is the fact that we have aging school buildings. Now, I heard a a number and I'm still looking for my team to verify it, but

015coming in as superintendent, I was told that we have the oldest facilities of schools, public schools in the country. the history of Portland comes into play. We have many many facilities that are over 80 years old. Many of you have been involved or tuned into the conversations around seismic, right? As as we can as we know better, we do better. And we have some failing facilities, right? Safe to be occupied at the present moment, but maybe not should there be a disaster. and even needing the ability to heat when we needed to be warm and cool when we needed to be cool and also addressing what became popular during the strike. Right? Rats, mow, hot and cold. Does that sound sound familiar? Right? We need to address it, right? And so we are actively doing

016that. So those are the three big reasons of why we've launched into this conversation. So again, our goal is not just about buildings. All of this work is in support of students in making sure that we provide the best, robust, inclusive um wellresourced environment that we possibly can and we do so with safe, dry, responsive buildings. So I look forward to kicking off the evening with the next speaker. I just want to note we have a couple of board members that were double booked, but the great thing about these engagements is there's live stream. They will have the opportunity to watch this recording later. So even if they're not physically in this space, they hear your words and so I appreciate that. So next up, I want to introduce the amazing human that's going to

017come and take this mic. There we go. official. Thank you. >> Go ahead and give it up for our superintendent, y'all. Thank you so much for being here tonight. My name is Nicole Watson and I am senior director of family and community engagement. And I'm excited to welcome you here. You've already been welcomed. So, I'm going to get right to the what we call meat and potatoes. So, I want to make sure. Yes. Thank you, MC. You got it. You want to roll? Can you drive? We could do it. We could do it. We we're dancing together. I believe our first up is our who's in the house tonight. Nope, it's not in the house. Let's pause. I think what will be really important tonight, while we have so many folks in the space, we're

018going to do our absolute best to make it feel as intimate as possible. And what that means is more relational. As our superintendent shared this evening, we are here to listen. We are here to understand. We are here to be radically curious. And we want to do that in collaboration with you tonight and on Saturday and on Monday and going forward as we continue in this right sizing conversation and process tonight. Here is what you can expect for our agenda. We're going to have some welcome and some grounding which you just got some historical context around present moment and why we're here today which you just got. And then we're going to talk a little bit about what you can expect for the structure for tonight. And so as you um have been to an

019engagement previously, if you have or if this is your first engagement, what we hope you take from moments like tonight is the shifting that you will see us doing as a team and as a central office, as a district. What that means is we are responsive. As you give us feedback and insight, we're going to tell you we hear you. Tonight, I want to prove that to you a little bit by repeating back a little bit of what I've heard so far by the 85 responses I have received from the feedback form. And that's important because I think where we are uh is at a really important crossroad and it is important for you to realize and know and to affirm to you that what impact you are having is real impact that we are

020seeing in real time. So one of the things that we have heard from community throughout this process is that we have to prioritize and protect our children that it has to center student and student voice. We have been hearing that your school communities are radically important to you that they are safe spaces where you can walk to school where the high school friend from down the street or right next door can come over and volunteer in class. I was talking to my Ricky folks and I know director Split mentioned Ricky so we're going to pick on them a little bit. I happen to be sitting at a table with a few folks today where they share just a little bit about what makes their community so special. And from those side conversations, those really intimate

021moments that we get to have where you get to share our posture in this moment is to listen, not to respond, but really and truly to understand so that as we engage in this process together, we can do it collaboratively and constructively. We have also heard that transportation and our our pathways to school are deeply important. We have heard that being in diverse communities are radically important. That if we get to co-create what we get to build together, I want to see people that look like me or I want to be challenged to be otherred. We're seeing and hearing that. We're hearing about programmings and we're hearing about access to enrich and highquality instruction and education. I'm hearing about principles who are wildly courageous in doing this work alongside us. I'm hearing about classroom teachers

022who we love who love on our babies. We are hearing about support staff and art and science and math and steam. And so as you all are giving us this feedback, whether it be a post-it note, whether it be a Slido interactive poll, whether it be a feedback form, whether I be at Fred Meyer, wherever it might be. Oh, come on. That's I know that's y'all. And that's okay cuz we're in a posture to listen tonight while we're in this process and every other night while we walk through this together. So, what you can expect from tonight is some interactive polling. You can expect some access to a feedback form. I believe Chief Cardona uh was walking around with some post-it notes and maybe something to write with because we're going to ask you to

023write some things down if you don't get a question answered or if you don't get time on the mic tonight. We want to make sure that you don't leave without putting something in one of our hands with a way that we can continue to think and process and wrestle around these important decisions together. You're also going to hear from what we are calling SMEES, our subject matter experts. We want you to know that we are building the Avengers, so to speak. That internal to our system, we've got folks at every department level who are thinking and wrestling with right sizing in a way that is strategic and intentional. And we want to introduce you to some of those teams tonight. So, you're going to hear from our academic team. You're going to hear from our

024enrollment and data team. Now, we recognize that enrollment and data could be separate and in some conversations they might be, but tonight they're going to be a combined conversation because what we're hearing is more around that enrollment, utilization, capacity, these big words that we are figuring out what they mean in real time. I am figuring them out with you. And it is all right for us to be in a learning posture tonight and going forward because it's important to understand how you are showing up in this moment and what you deem important in this moment. after you hear from our um academic team and our data and enrollment team, I will be back up and I will lead you through um some conversations around imagination and dreaming because while we know what is challenging, I

025also want to lead us to a little bit of hope around what we can build and co-create and construct together as a community. After each of the subject matter experts give an opportunity to share the role that they hold and what they're doing, you're going to have about 10 to 15 minutes within that section to ask questions to maybe give some wondering, some curiosity, some insights, whatever is percolating or coming up. You can write it on a post-it note and you can just hold that post in the in the air. You can wave it like you don't care or someone of us from our team will come and grab that post-it note for you. We're going to put it on a place that we're calling the parking lot. It's a paper. It's not the real

026parking lot that you could not find today because everyone wanted to be at Wells tonight. With that, once we are done with each of the subject matter experts and their time in front of you, you giving some feedback, you asking some questions, you giving some ruminations and some curiosities, then we will save some time at the end specifically for some questions, open mic that our board can hear uh directly from you that can be about any content area or any subject that you deem important tonight. Is that all right? Oh, we are in church. Is that all right? >> There we go. Somebody's in the house tonight. Okay. All right. So, I want to give a brief um if MC I want to make sure that we understand how we're going to be in space

027tonight. There is a lot of bodies here. And because there are a lot of bodies, there are a lot of perspectives and a lot of multiple realities and truths. So, as is customary for most engagements that are hosted by the family and community engagement team, we're going to put a little bit of grounding in the place. my granny would call it, we season in the greens just a little bit. We just want to make sure what's going on as the the aromatic, the smell enters our space, we want to make sure that it is savory for all of us. So, here's what you can expect. We want you to stay grounded in purpose. We recognize that there's going to be so much coming at us. We really want to keep the main thing the main

028thing. We want to make space for emotions, but we want to stay grounded in engagement. What does that mean, Nicole? That means that I might have really big emotions and those emotions are all right. We empathize, we affirm and we make sure that we relate to the fact that what is might be bubbling up for you is real and true. And that's okay. And I don't want you to push yourself back from the table. I want you to try really hard to stay engaged so that even though it might be challenging, we still get your voice. We still get your space at the table. We want you to name the impact with respect and care and recognizing that the impact you're naming could be a person in this room, a lived reality or experience in

029this space. And we want to make sure that we do that with a little bit of love and tenderness. I want you to speak from your experience. While I might know what my neighbor down the street might feel, my neighbor may not be here. And so, while it is important to bring their voice in the space, it is equally important to speak from the I experience and not for everyone. And as we often say to our babies, we want you to listen, to understand, and not to respond. That means letting folks get their sentence out before we've already dismissed their thought, their reaction, or their emotion. I want to balance participation tonight. There are many big voices who are used to speaking in spaces like these. There are also some voices in the space who

030are not used to hearing their voices in spaces like these. We call that in the education world, we step up to step back. So, if you are someone who is constantly in spaces like these, we welcome you. We're so excited for your advocacy. We also just want to make space for that person who might need a little bit more wait time before they feel courage enough to raise their hand. We hope you contribute to share understanding, wrestling around with these really important concepts together. We also hope that you honor the weight of this conversation. I was having another conversation with some folks from Winter Haven and we were talking a little bit just about how heavy this is, but also how there's a little bit of hope, some possibility about what we could build together.

031But the weight of the conversation was still present. I want us to make room for multiple realities. Two things can be true at one time. Two things can be true at one time. And it is important for we to hold both realities at the same time. And last but not least, I think we know this one. We want to respect our space. We want to respect the guardians and the house that we are in. We appreciate Principal Connie for welcoming us into the space. And not only do we want to respect the space, we want to respect each other so that when we see each other at Trader Joe's or at Freddy's, although we might have disagreed, I can see you across that bread aisle and give you a nod and a what's up. Can

032you do that tonight? Can you do that tonight? All right. Okay. With that, I just want to briefly, as our superintendent shared, a bit of context want we want to tell you where we've been over the month of April. Chair Wong, I don't know if you can see, so I'm going to move a little bit out of your way, but this is what our engagement timeline has looked like. Let me explain. So, uh, Margaret Calbert is going to spend some time in front of you tonight. Margaret, wave your hands. Give a shout out to Margaret Calvert, who is our assistant superintendent of Office of School Planning and Modernization, who is the brain behind much of what you are going to experience throughout this process. And one of the things that has been deeply important to

033Margaret is understanding the learning lessons and best practice from Southeast Guiding Coalition. If the Southeast Guiding Coalition is an acronym SEGC that you're familiar with, can you raise your hand in the spot tonight? Okay. Look around the room so we understand who's in the room and who might have knowledge or understanding of this particular uh uh group that we had convened to um do some right sizing. In order to best understand best practice, we've convened some focus groups around the Southeast Guiding Coalition so we could better understand the impact um how certain families have been um feeling, how the transition felt, how they landed, what things were helpful, what things were not helpful. When I last spoke to Margaret, we had talked a little bit about her experience, and I asked her how many people

034were sitting on the Southeast Guiding Coalition. Does anybody remember how many people or want to guess how many people sat on the coalition? Oh, don't you be shy. I've seen you. Yes. What do you think? Y'all going to make me cold call you like the principal I used to be? Sure. Come on. How many people do you think sat on the guiding coalition? >> Okay, fine. 51 people sat on the guiding coalition. Which is important to note because as she is thinking about this process now, we want to understand what was best practice and what was not. And so we met with some folks, did some uh focus groups, used some researchers, held two sessions. One was at Kellogg right before the board uh engagement on April 11th. And then later in that afternoon on

035April 11th and on April 20th, we have hosted our second our first and second public engagement sessions for our school board. This is our third. On Saturday, we will be at Benson High School from 2:00 to 3:30. And on Monday, April 27th, we will be at Roosevelt from 6:00 to 7:30. We are also doing some stakeholder deep dives where we are engaging in some critical stakeholders to better understand their experience from their perspective. We have certainly listened to student voice advisory council, which I'm hoping one of my students from Winter Haven, she'll join me on the council next year. I see you, baby. And so our student voice advisory council is comprised of our middle school students who support much of the work at the district level by hearing some of our content first and

036being able to give us some feedback in real time. Our village table is our superintendent site council that consists of two people from each of our elementary, middle, and high schools that sit at the superintendent um with our with us at the district and those are designates from each of our schools. We've also met with the village table and then tomorrow I'm going to meet with elementary principles one at 10 o'clock and then one at a 5:00 to better understand how our front office staff believes we should be grappling with these conversations and what things should we keep in mind. So, we wanted to know where we've been and where we're headed in our engagement series. Last, but certainly not least, this just explains our why. If you see a slide like this up, it

037tells you why we engaged the Southeast Guiding Coalition, who was in that space and why. It tells us what our public engagement sessions are, who's in those spaces and why, and more information about our stakeholder deep dives. Last and certainly not least, we heard from your feedback that we need to use racial equity not as theory, but as you can scroll to the next one, pause there. Go back. Not as a theory. but as something that we're living into. And we want you to know we heard you. That the racial equity lens that we hold in our district is not to be just something we put up on a slide, but that's something you want us to live into. And we wanted to repeat that back to you tonight to say we heard that, copy

038that, and we will reflect that information back to you. With that, I want to pause and I'm going to introduce up our first subject matter expert. Dr. Dr. Philipe Hirishik is one of our um directors in our uh office and I want to make sure that I get his title right because things have been shifting and moving and I know he is a former leader here which is where I met him in this space. So I want to give him a moment to introduce himself, his team and what he is doing on the academic and activities side of the house. Can you give him a round of applause? >> Thank you Nicole. Let's give Nicole a round of applause please. So, good evening everyone. Uh, my name is Philip Pistach. Um, it's really nice to

039be back. I've supervised lots of student lunches here. Uh, I remember back to school nights here. I'm the former principal of ID Wells, uh, high school. So, it's wonderful to be back here. Uh, I'd like to start by saying that this work is really personal to me. My niece goes to Ricky. My daughter's running track right now on our um, here for IWLs. My son is at Gray. My wife works at Hayhurst. Uh we live in the neighborhood. We care about our schools deeply. Um, so I like all of us here, our board members, our superintendent, my colleagues Nicole, lots of people that you're going to have a chance to hear about, uh, take this work with, um, with real seriousness because we recognize the impact that it's going to have on on all of

040us, uh, who are part of PPS and our commitment as I represent. I think I'm supposed to go to the next slide maybe. Yeah, one more. One more. H maybe not. Um so I get to serve on a on a team that's full of educators who are really um uh who are working on ensuring that all of our students in PPS have high quality learning experiences in all of our schools. And our team includes representatives for our core academics team. It includes representatives from our special ed team, our multilingual learners team, our early uh learning team. Where's Dana Styles? Dana's in the back. She's the director of early learning for PPS. We have representatives uh from um Sun programming. um all of us who are really uh monitoring and supporting what learning experiences and activities

041our students are having in school schools. And so as we go through the right sizing process, we will be uh listening for and paying attention to not only what is the impact that right sizing is having on our students learning experiences but how we can ensure that our students learning experiences continue to improve uh through this process. So this evening, I'm here along with Dana and Dr. Jefferson in the back who supports funded programs to listen for any questions or suggestions or ideas that you might have that we can take back to the rest of our team uh to consider. Uh one of the questions that we have is as you think about your own child, as you think about your school, uh what are some things that you consider to be essential in having

042a high quality school? Uh, another question might be for us to think about what daily learning experiences and opportunities uh should every student have. If you think of something tomorrow that you didn't think of tonight, uh please feel free to email me and I'll make sure that your feedback gets back to the team. Thank you so much for being here and we look forward to uh this important conversation. questions. >> Yep. So, got some volume. This is the part of the conversation where we want to hear from you. What questions, what musings, what curiosities, what things are you wrestling with about academics and activities around our early learners, around humanities, college and career enrichment programs? Is there something coming up so that we can um take our questions kind of in a um in our

043subject matter expert learning labs? Is there anything coming up? I've got a microphone. said this. >> Yes, please. >> Sorry. Thank you. I know that I originally said this wasn't the place for questions because we want to try and hear from as many as you of you as we can. So, I think that if there are some questions that you have and you don't want to necessarily ask in the large space, that's where those stickies come in handy. Go ahead and write those down. But otherwise, we have multiple mics and we have runners around the room. And this is a part on the academic side for you to share your wonderings, your questions, I mean your comments, ideas, wonderings. And so if you just raise your hand, someone will move a mic to you. But

044if there's questions, just go ahead and write that down. We had a timer showing before. We have about 10 minutes for this section before we move to the next learning lab station. So what are your wonderings, comments, or thoughts? Yeah. So, I'm just sorry if I I missed the be >> um question about uh preschool for all and if that's something that has been thought of of a way of kind of having uh kids potentially enter their elementary school earlier. Um, I don't know if that has I don't know much about the organization of preschool for all, but I know I think it's being focused more on daycare currently. >> We have a subject matter expert. >> Dana, we're move. >> Great. Okay. Is this on? Oh. Um, good. Uh, good evening everyone. I'm Dana

045Styles. I'm the director of early learners. Um, I do manage our preschool for all grant that we receive um from the county. Um we do have preschool for all seats within the district and are continuing to think through um where we want to continue to potentially expand maintain our seats. Obviously this conversation around right sizing is deeply connected to that because we want to make sure that we are building really effective pathways into kindergarten for families. I don't want to spend too much time going into the nitty-gritty, but I'm happy to answer questions and um it is something that is part of our larger strategy that we're looking at. >> Great. Thank you. There's a question in the back >> for the uh I was wondering about the uh numbers like are students going from

046PPS to private schools or homeschooling more? I mean, what's the is the general population decreasing? Is there some numbers on that? Thanks. Is this specifically about preschool or is this um like in elementary? >> For the general PPS, we started out by saying we're going to be 12,000 students low. >> So, are students moving from PPS to private schools or are they moving out of state, going to homeschooling? >> Yeah. Um the primary driver right now for declining enrollment is actually lower birth rates. Um I as part of looking at our early learning uh we are seeing that there is just a declining birth rate within the county but as Dr. Armstrong said it is nationally we're seeing a declining birth rate um about of about 6% nationally and higher here in Oregon. Um so

047that is the primary driver around declining enrollment. >> Yes. So K through 12 represents so many different experiences and needs, not to mention ISC, dual language learners, etc. How um how are these considerations like being prioritized um throughout this decision? Because to me, I guess my my essential question is closing or combining elementary schools versus closing closing or combining high schools. These are very different conversations. And so how is that being balanced and juggled in in your conversations around this? >> I'm sorry. Hi. I'm just sorry. Um, we're mostly talking about K8. Thank you. >> Um, >> I have a Can you hear me? >> Okay. Um, >> can I just Sorry. Um, can you tell me more about the question that I I just want to make sure that we can even if we

048can't answer it that we we really capture. >> Well, no, I mean you you keep speaking to like K12 and the community impacts and high school has been mentioned like a a bunch of times and it's on the the board right there. And so I'm I'm just curious like uh kindergarteners and incoming kindergarters have very different needs and the schools have very different needs um with the exception of like facil aging facilities. Um how are Yeah. How are these being balanced? like kindergarteners need librarians but for different reasons than eighth graders need librarians. And yeah, just how are it feels to me I'm I'm curious about um how these they feel like they're being lumped together and it's hard for me to um answer these questions or think about these questions because I have a

049first grader and and a three-year-old. So that's my lens and I I um yeah, it's a lot of of different information coming into one siphon. Let me try to answer that question and then I'm I'm happy to be corrected. And this is maybe one of the ways in which this process is a little bit different from maybe some other processes that um or community engagement is that we're still in the process of determining the best way to go about this and we're asking our families to weigh in and help us elevate what are the priorities for us to keep in mind. One of the priorities is highquality student learning experiences and we know that connected to that are resources. So when I think about high schools in particular, one of the things that I think

050is really important at the high school level, other people may disagree is that our high schools are prepared for life beyond high school in terms of post-secary learning and college and career related experiences. So when we think about our high school programs, we I think should think about are there sufficient opportunities for students to be prepared for post-secary experiences in the high school space. In an elementary space, it might be a different set of priorities. We haven't determined what those are and we're really looking to families to share with us what you think is important. And so for the purposes of our academics conversation, just bringing back to as you think about maybe your own students, what excites them when they've come home, excited to share about something that they've learned, one they felt connected

051and engaged. What were those kind of essential components that we want to make sure we're attending to as we keep moving through the process? >> Um, Director Wong. >> Oh, can I just add to that really quick? I thank you for that question. And if it seems like we're clumping, you see uh clumping it all together, it's it's not. Every age grade has a different problem we're trying to solve. Like for example, our elementary schools, we have some elementary schools are over 500 students and some that only are 160. And so obviously the ones with 160 have a hard time having a full-time librarian and things like that. So it's a different problem and we got lots of elementary schools. At the same time, when we consider high schools, it like the discussion has more

052been about like feeder patterns, right? not necessarily closing a heist, but just like who's going where, right? And things like that. So, it if it seems like it's being clumped together, it it that's just a messaging problem. It's not every every school community has a different thing um that we need to look at and prioritize and yeah, it's complicated. So, thank you. >> Okay, I'm going to ask my question before more answers to one question come up. Um this enrollment decline, as you mentioned, is a national trend with the primary driver being birth rates going down. Uh and there's probably other drivers and none of them are reversing soon. Right sizing to today's numbers means right sizing again in a few years and again after that. Is there a more sustainable path than chasing the

053decline? And why isn't it being asked of us now? >> I'm happy to take a crack at it, but probably >> No, that's fine. And I know I'm like comments and wonders and ideas and then we just can't help but get those questions out and I appreciate it and I know that it's burning and I know that when we say right sizing we're we're not doing like one big swoop saying that you know basically any school that is under x amount of students will be closed or will be consolidated. We're looking across our city. We're looking at a map to see where our schools are located. What programs are nearby? Where might there not be programs? Right sizing could be an opportunity to add or move a program to an area that is underserved. Right?

054So, it's a collective conversation. Portland public schools has went through a right-sizing school closure consolidation. I think you all can name some of the schools that changed over the last 50 years. And so, this is something that we need to pay attention to. And again, it's not like one big strategy, but I got some of the we received and heard some of the questions. We are going to put out an FAQ and respond so that we have one collective document over time. But I think that more information will come up in the next stations as we prepare. Thank you, Phipe. To rotate to station two. Oh, we have one more question. We have a student comment that has a comment or question. I figure we definitely have time for our baby. >> Absolutely. Always. Here

055we go. Are you ready? >> Okay. >> It's written down. >> Okay. >> So, is it true that they are closing schools um >> in November? >> So, that's a good question. So, there's a will be a recommendation um to the board in November with a list of schools that um I recommend that uh we close. And then the board will take action. and they'll give feedback and either say no, that's not enough, no, we don't want to do that at this time, or yes, let's move this forward. They'll take a vote and then um by time that vote is complete, there'll be another process, and those closures wouldn't happen until the start of school, not this coming school year, but next school year. >> Thank you. >> Does that answer your question? >> Yeah.

056>> Okay, >> let's give the baby a round of applause. >> There we go. Okay. >> Yes, ma'am. You had a question. I think we had one more. >> So, why would you be closing like K through8 schools? It doesn't quite make sense because people moving around a lot is kind of like I don't know. I just closing K through eight schools doesn't really make sense to me. >> All right. And I appreciate that and I think that's a wonderful model of what we're looking for because at the end of the day our board will be taking action and they want to hear from you all. So I think what I heard you say is closing K8s may not closing all K8s may not be the right move and that's valuable information to share out.

057So thank you for that. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I think what I would just what I would add in particular these are students from Winter Haven. Um and you know they they come from across the city and so my concern for them is that you know they just a handful of them will go to Swood Middle School and then in that they'll be quite even more dispersed and doing that in a middle school year is particularly challenging when we know that the social networks are are so important to these these youth. So um so yeah that our our concern at least in our family is is primarily one that they are able to continue to be challenged in their science and math education and then secondly um you know uh we know that there's a

058an equity gap particularly for girls and it starts at a really young age and in my opinion Winter Haven has been a really um has been an answer to that. So, I would love to see I know there's a huge demand and if we could replicate that in another part of the city to help address some of the lagging enrollment um you know in as a potential solution focused thinking um but yeah, thank you for listening to the concerns of our community. >> Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your thoughts. I see a couple of hands. I don't see my second station. So, if there's other comments and ideas, we have some we have some people over here to your right that have that have questions. Oh, there we go. >> Hi. >> Um, my

059question, we keep on talking about um, right sizing schools, which is great focus, but I keep on hearing about the small schools and the low enrollment. And when reading the articles and reviewing everything, they talk about, you know, one counselor per x amount of students and for elementaryaries, the ideal number being 350. But my question is on the other side, larger elementaryaries, are they going to be right sized? Is that going to be serviced more? Because they're, you know, one whatever counselor to 350, but then you have 450 and you still have one counselor or I mean, is that is the right sizing going not just about the lower population elementarymentaries, but also right sizing or supporting the bigger elementaryaries as well? I think our data station Yeah, our data station will speak a little

060bit more towards that. Thank you. Which I think might be next. Yes. >> I I have a I just have a comment in regards to AC academics and looking at the you were talking about wanting to listen for well-rounded schools and what that looks like. I understand that school you guys have to like work on this project. Um, what I want to make sure that is known as important is that staffing beyond the minimums, if we go through this process and we, you know, tear apart certain communities, at least it'll feel like that. Um, and we end up with schools that are still looking at minimum staffing and fighting for arts and music and tech and and librarians, like that's going to be extremely upsetting as a parent >> and devastating. Thank you. Okay, I

061see one hand way in the back. We'll get that as the last comment idea or reflection and then I will turn it over to the data station. >> Is it on? >> Yeah. Oh. Um, I have a question. Okay. So, since you guys are talking about closing schools in general, there's still property taxes for these closed school properties and still zoning. So, what are you planning to do with the school buildings? Yeah, >> because like in Atlanta, Georgia right now, they're on target to close 11 schools and they're turning seven out of those 11 into community centers. So, do you guys have any plans like on what you're going to do with the schools? >> Yep. So, that that is a a broader conversation. I will say that uh we don't have plans of turning

062schools into community centers. you know, if we uh will look at our investments, we currently have a few empty properties across our city. We have some that are leased um and we receive funds on that. We have others that are vacant um and not used at all. And so we have started a conversation of what it would mean to sell those sites and then be able to pull those funds back into the district. And then others when we do sell property, the first right is to other government agencies. So there could be um some city offices that want to use properties for um housing or other public, you know, private partnership things. So first to the city and then it goes to the open market. So we'll share more about that when we get to

063that phase. We're currently grappling with um that right now. Oh, and we don't pay uh the property taxes on um in those buildings, but we do maintain them. Um and I see some other hands know that we'll have an opportunity. Fit your comment, reflection, or comment in when we do this second rotate. Oh, you already have the mic. Okay, really quickly. Go ahead. Go ahead. >> Okay. I can't promise how quick I'll be, but uh um you know, when we talk about what's important to us, I think a lot of what's important in our child's education is obvious. I know my daughter needs a reading intervention program. I know I want her to have a a caring staff uh at her school. I don't I don't feel the need to like list out the things

064that we want because I think what a lot of what we want is obvious. It seems like our sustainability problem is more due to a lack of funding than it is a lack of creative planning. we have so little margin of error to to make these decisions correctly and we're under so much pressure to do so because I think what we should be receiving for funding we're just not. Um and I think that reflects a lot in the attendance and the encapturements that we have. I'm at Chief Joe and we have 67% of the kids in our zone go to go to my daughter's elementary and 33% don't. And when I talk to those parents and I have sought them out on my street and into my neighborhood, a lot of it has to do

065with their perception of what public schools are and the lack of funding and they just don't want to get into it and have to get into this big advocacy, you know, war to make their school incrementally better. Um, so I appreciate the the organizational efforts that we're doing here to make things better, but it just seems like we have no margin of error. some people are going to be left out in the cold and it's not due to a lack of proper planning or creative input. It's due to the fact that we are getting 60 cents when we should get a dollar. And I don't I don't know that that's my goal is how do we advocate for the funding that we need so that we don't have to be so crucial and so precise

066in the way we do things to to leave as few people out as we can. So that's kind of >> Thank you for that. Thank you. I appreciate the comment. >> Hi, good evening everyone. It's great to be here. My name is Richard Smith. I'm the senior director for um research assessment accountability in Portland public schools. And I'm here uh to speak you to you tonight as the person who is currently leading our data team through this process. And so I want to quickly frame and I understand what it's like to go through this process a bit. I was a principal at a school in the southeast guiding coalition actually at two schools. One that opened impacted and one that went from a K8 dual immersion and neighborhood school to now K5 immersion school. I

067have a child myself who went through a school closure process out in East County. So I do understand the impacts. I understand that when we look at numbers that they're not just numbers on a paper, but they're you. They're your children. It's real impacts on there. So, we are here tonight to really hear from you about what's coming up for you when it comes to our modeling, when it comes to what we are prioritizing when we do that. When our superintendent and board say there is no list, there is no list, my team would have seen and generated that list. So, I I do want to assure you that you are hearing accuracy on that. So, in a minute you're going to see a a slidoh, and it's really critical that we capture some information

068on here because there are going to be some decisions made um by our school board and other leadership members about priorities that we set because we can take data and we can slice it in a lot of different ways, but that starting point is the critical piece and we need to know what we want to see prioritized within that. I can tell you we have endless data. We could pull endless more data. We look at enrollment projections. We look at neighborhood versus DLI versus focus option. We look at transportation. We look at programmatic items at schools. We look at demographics. But with all that said, what's going to matter most is what we hear from community about what is prioritized. So if we have not um done this yet, it's been on that QR code

069that you get. We want to get this information. We are going to take this information and we have a researcher and an evaluator who's going to take that and for each of these sessions formulate a summary, a summary memo around it and then an overall memo at the end and our school board will be able to see that information and you'll be able to see that information. It'll become public at some point and it'll all be out there for us to see so we know where we're moving in that prioritization. So, while we're working on this, I'm also open to feedback, suggestions, comments, and the I know there's probably a lot of questions and maybe some short ones along those lines. Okay. >> Hi, thank you so much. Um, I I just wanted to maybe

070piggyback off of what this gentleman said right here about fi financial management before even getting to what the criteria will be about what schools we should be choosing. I think our community would really like to hear with confidence that every option for looking at how to manage the money has been done. So the idea that there are existing properties that we are paying to manage that we've been sitting on for many years now that we're not really thinking about how to consolidate the people that are sitting in the district building and maybe that building should be sold. Also, I know this came up at one of the board meetings recently about how, you know, we have to maintain a certain percentage of reserves for our bond rating, but then there are reserves on top of

071that. So, are we using all the money that we possibly have? Are we being creative and really thinking about how to um be efficient with our resources and then say, "Okay, what is the criteria on the schools?" Obviously, we're going to be doing this. This is the exercise that we're we're going through. But at the same time that we're looking at consolidating, it would also be great to have a lot of confidence that we've done absolutely everything we've c we've been able to do to clean out the reserves that are appropriate to sell the properties to really look at our financial and investment portfolios so that we know that we really are at the end. Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you for that. We can definitely take that back to our to our finance team

072around that. Um, I don't think anyone in the space is necessarily in the place to give a deep dive in that answer right now, but we can take that information back to our finance team to see where uh they may want to go with that. >> Could I give a pro tip? >> Yes. >> Uh, the Tuesday school board meeting will have a long presentation on our budget dynamics. So, I encourage you to listen in. That's this coming Tuesday. We'll be getting a budget presentation. Some of us have kind of started to take a look at the budget already and it includes a lot of context like what you're talking about. Um, I also just want to flag we have 5% reserves. That is the bare minimum that any school district should have and what

073we need to have for our bond rating as well. We do not have anything above that. I just want to make sure folks know that right now. That's why we had to do the furlow days. Um certainly wish we had some wiggle room, but we don't. But anyway, come Tuesday or watch Tuesday and you'll learn a lot more. Thanks. >> Thank you. Always riveting conversations for sure. >> Questions over here, so we'll take >> Go for it. Yes. >> Appreciate it. Uh thank you. Um I I been thinking about my question. and hope it doesn't sound like I'm being redundant, but um a few people have asked uh very eloquently about uh the um the the number one causes of the decline in enrollment. And we keep hearing more about oh it's birth rate declining,

074birth rate declining. We can't solve that problem here in in this group, but uh sorry about that. Um but since you are presenting on on data and you do have a whole team dedicated to it, I have to imagine that you have uh gone through the entire list of all the different possible reasons and birth rate declining is only one of them and that's something that the school board does not have any power or influence over but the rest of the list there has to be items on there that the school board does have the ability to influence and I'm wondering what uh you guys have identified as the reasons that people are proactively choosing other options besides PPS when they live down the street from us and if there are plans to address those

075specific reasons. >> Thank you. That's a very fair question. Um we do know that birth rates is one of the reason also declining population in uh area is a second reason and yes postcoid there's a there is a decline in our in district capture rate and so we do have different items going on with our comm's team on how we bring students back into families back into our community back into our school. We do have different outreach principles are doing with communities and schools and so there are a few components going into that and we are going to continue to explore what else we can do. So thank you for that >> back. Hey, so uh for being here, parent Ricky, um I feel like I need the problem statement like what's in scope, what's

076out of scope. I keep hearing there is no list. You know, we see a lot of stuff in the media. So like how many like Southwest are we talking about? One element is definitely closing. Like what's the problem statement? What's the gap and and what is in scope and what is out of scope to help focus some of this at least for me would be helpful. Thank you. Yeah, I know that you're looking for that clarity and we are trying to vision that out u with our community and school board around what those priorities are. What does it mean to have those well-resourced schools on there, whether that's a school of x number or x program and so I really wish I did have a better answer for you right now, but that we are

077going to develop that answer as we get a little more, but our superintendent has somewhere on that. So, >> thank you. I know I just come up behind you and I'm like, here I am. I want to respond. Well, I appreciate the question and I do want to respond and I think if you all follow our board meetings, you know that our board passed a resolution directing me to explore the options. So, there was closures, there were consolidations and or boundaries. So, I just want to put out there that as we go through these conversations, I know in in media we've heard like 5 to 12 um that I said during a budget meeting kind of played out. And I can't imagine that we'll be higher than 12 within the next six or seven months,

078but the reality is that we can be as low as one, two, or or three, right? So, really a range. And it could be at the end of the day um the first thing that uh we decide to address or our board decides to address are boundaries and not even getting to closures and convers um consolidations. And so when we say that it's truly open right now and we're building the guiding principles, it's with that in mind. I also know that some folks had tuned in in our very first conversation. And here's the thing about our wonderful elected board members is that the conversations that they have are in open public meetings, right? So they may ideate on things like what about the K8s or what about focus options or what about where we have

079low capture rates or what about our schools that are small or have seismic issues or too large and all of those things. And because all of their conversations, all of their ideiation plays out in public. I think it raises the alert of people who's listening. And I will say, I just remind you that that's the purpose of the board as elected officials. They have to have these conversations in public and they have to be able to ask the questions. So there is no no scope defined. But we are hoping that once we get these guiding principles, we can move a little bit quicker to so what are we considering now? But we need to get to the place of understanding for our board the guiding principles that they would like for me to operate within

080when taking a look at schools. Sort of that uh what's that uh first layer of things you should consider. What are the guard rails, the expectations? That's what we're collecting feedback on now. So thank you >> superintendent. I heard you say that you're the the team has considered closures, consolidations, boundaries. Instead of consolidating, are we also exploring how to invest in smaller class sizes and explore different approaches like I don't know perhaps like Montasaori or like our focus schools have done really well. Um there's a lot of research that shows that this helps all kids especially low-income students, minority students. I was both a low-inccome and a minority student. um and kids with learning differences. I didn't hear that in the list of options you've all explored. I haven't seen it in the board uh

081notes or in the recordings. So, I'm just wondering why are we looking at only solutions that have negative impacts on our communities. >> Yeah, I appreciate that question and I will say that when we talk about program considerations, that's what we're thinking of. I got to tell you, as superintendent, I get a lot of emails from different school communities, and I won't name those school communities out, but it is heartbreaking to hear like, "Hey, we're a school that's focused on art, and we're losing an art teacher, so how can we be a school focused on art or we're we're a DLI school and we aren't staffed to provide the services that we need to?" Well, that's heartbreaking as well. If I had staffing, I would pass them out in ways that made sure that all

082of our spaces were resourced. But we don't, right? And so what we say is that, hey, if we're we're going to say that we have a focus option school focused on this, then we need to make sure that we're resourcing that, right? And we haven't been able to do that because we haven't had the resources. And then we get frustrated families, frustrated students like, I thought, why not? what if right so programs is essential in that conversation when we're talking about consolidations so yeah thank you >> hey there >> yes I'll come back for back I see at the back of the room so I just want to quickly introduce myself my name is Margaret Calbert I'm an assistant superintendent um and I'm helping guide this process as we go through so I'm hearing one

083theme that's surfacing that I just want to respond to very quickly part of what we are when we're talking about what is the mix, it's a like what's the right mix and portfolio that we're looking at across the district. What does that mean? It's going to be some of the pieces that you guys are bringing into the space with us. It's very important as you're going through and it's some of the some of the pieces and I appreciate I can I'm watching people work through we're up to 140 respon 14 responses on a slide. Oh, thank you. But some of those some of the questions in there are going to ask you to to lay out some of the tradeoffs and like what what is going to resonate for you. I also heard a parent

084say, you know, I have a first grader and what I'm thinking about for my first grader may be different when they're in in uh sixth grade as a middle school or in high school. So, the beauty of the community process is that we're going to have people that are engaging from different vantage points. Like that is the beauty of of of getting different perspectives from the people in the room. And so part of what you're going to bring into the space whether it's on a slide or the questions is you're going to operate from your perspective but it will help us to build out a framework what are the guiding principles so that we can come back and share sort of what we see and provide some options for what we'll look like that will

085create sustainable programming across the city. So one piece like what does that mean? That's why like we're not defining it right now but we are doing the broad brushstrokes that will allow us to bring back some options and then we'll be in an engagement again. So this is a first piece of like what like all the questions you're saying about what does it mean for a kindergartener or first grader seventh grader are really really important because then we're going to share it back with the board and say here not only do we hear the folks that were uh brave enough and willing to speak into this space but then the people that are a little more quiet and then what does that look like in the um in the various other pieces. So, I just

086appreciate both uh both aspects. And I'll pause there and just just say really we're going to be looking at things in a a variety of ways across the district. And we we understand that there's localized impacts on decisions that will have to be balanced with the uh the broader decisions across the district. So, both will be true as we go through. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Last question. Last question right here. For us. There will be more for our our wonderful school board. But last question. >> Uh not a question. Um observation comment. >> Uh I'm a parent of a student at Access Academy in fourth grade. She started there last year. We actually had been at Chief Joseph prior. Um, I will say we were frustrated by the services our kid was receiving in

087the school. And I hate to say that, but we were. Um, access typically has four times the number of applicants as it has slots. Winter Haven, which we also looked at, typically has two to three times as many applicants as there are slots. The parents are telling you they want these kinds of opportunities, right? >> Thank you. We >> But this but the but the school is not delivering them. I personally know several parents, several families who have taken their schools, taken their kids out of Portland public schools because they were not getting the services they needed in the classrooms and because getting into a program like Winter Haven or access is just too too hard. The market is sending a very clear message. There's an unmet need. PPS is not meeting it. Parents are

088finding other opportunities for you as the data guy. And I'll tell you, I'm a data guy myself. For you as a data guy, this is a place that I think really needs to be lean lean into is why are parents leaving? Because they're not getting what they need. Right? I'm sure there are kids at the other end who are also having these sorts of issues and parents are making choices that are right for their kids, right? But certainly there's a clear message, a clear signal that there's a need. it's not getting met and some parents are opting out as a result. >> Thank you. >> Okay, I'm g turn it back to you. Awesome. >> We're going to um we have about 15 more minutes together. We want to give our board an opportunity to

089respond with what they've been hearing tonight, but we have about five more minutes for more curiosity or questions that might come up from us, the team. Um we've got some more post-it notes here. I've got my apple steps for today. So, let's get a few more. Nicole, >> yes, my loves. >> I have a question to your right over here. >> Okay, come in right now. I'm gonna give this to Havoc. And then we have gentleman here with a microphone already. Cheers. Let's go. Do you have a question? >> Hand me a microphone. Um >> uh it's actually for the data people, if it's okay. I don't know if I'm breaking the protocol here, but um >> you guys have gone through the consolidation and closure process already. Um I'm my understanding of the evidence

090is that when that happens the schools that close when you announce that they close the outcomes dip for the students in those schools the schools that receive the kids that have experienced consolidation everybody experiences negative outcomes. Have we do you have some evidence on what's happened here uh when we've done that before? >> Appreciate the question. Yep. You can clap clap it up. Yep. So we this is part of the reason at the very beginning we said we were looking at um some of the pieces around southeast guiding coalition. So we have hired a team of folks to come in and look at what happened a from those decisions and what are some lessons learned. So we are in the midst of compiling that we'll bring that information out in the next probably six weeks.

091So we were we wanted to dig deeply into some of what you're raising like we made these decisions. We put some pieces together. How are the kids doing? How are the community doing? And how is staff doing? All three pieces are really important u for us to look at. And so stay tuned. We'll be bringing some information back out because we we know that there are some pieces we looked at national research sort of of what are the impacts and we know that this that many school districts across the country are navigating similar things, you know, uh declining enrollment, aging infrastructure, fiscal constraints. So we're doing both. We're looking across and then looking at recent our most recent decisions and yes we'll be bringing that out. We're not we don't have it all finalized yet

092but we will be bringing it out the >> sorry just also help answer that question when we look nationally to summarize when equity was centered it didn't result in a dip and when it wasn't yeah there were there there are definitely cases that it did dip. So that was data that we saw. Hi there. Thanks. Is it on? >> Oh, sorry. >> Is it on, Nicole? Sure. >> Okay. >> Great. Thanks. Um, so I guess the questions other than all the the great other questions I heard, um, one is about I guess echoing what what PPS is doing to up the desiraability of the schools. Like there's examples of access and Winter Haven where apparently they're very desirable. maybe because of something that they're offering that other schools aren't offering and how we can offer

093those things that at all the schools. But then the other question is aside of what's the interface with Portland with the city because I was I was just looking at like Beaverton. Beaverton has a much higher enrollment in their public schools like by ratio. So, it means they've got more families who are like, I'd prefer to go to Beaverton to have my kids over there. Why why aren't people wanting to have families going to their schools locally here? I guess that's my question. >> So, I will um this is everybody can hear me? Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, we we are there's a threepronged approach that we're working on. So, one of the pieces that we're doing right now is we have uh we're working with um our uh Chief Gross who is our

094in our communications team to look at um understanding why people are making some of the decisions they're making. So, that's one body of work that we're doing. So, this is this is a piece of an overall project because what we're hearing is how do you uh create sustainable pieces which is going to be welcoming families back into space. what are the things that are going to make highly desirable schools and that we can sustain them over time and that we're going to try to to to triangulate some of that information uh to the best we of our ability. And I would just say that when we look at enrollment in general that we are consistently looking at um how do we welcome families into our our school buildings whether it's at kindergarten, prek, sometime during

095elementary, you know, transition points that we're we're looking at all those things and trying to build out some strategies. At the same time, we're looking at um some of the pieces around how do we get the right mix of of opportunities across the city. It's a both. So, thank you for the question. >> So, I just want to pause for a second because I know that we have more folks with comments or questions and I just want to check in with my board and see because we're about nine minutes away from >> keep going. Okay. Okay. So, the board says keep going. I also understand some of you might have firm commitments and you have to leave right at 7:30. We understand. and we appreciate you being here. And for the others who have hands

096up and still questions, we're going to continue just a little bit longer and then we'll turn it over to the board to share just a few thoughts, final thoughts as they listen tonight before we conclude. So, we're going to go with a couple more questions. I think we're going to go to the left, then we'll go to the right, and we're just going to keep going left, right, middle hopefully at some point. Left. >> Hi there. Um, it's more of a reflection. I'm taking off my company hat. No work tonight. Um, I'm speaking as a mom of a nine-year-old and 11year-old. Um, our neighborhood school is Markham and we tried that. Um, and we went to another school and we tried that and now we are at a focus option. And when I think about

097just building on what the gentleman was talking about and other people having that wondering and curiosity of why are families picking focus options? Um, just to be transparent, our nine-year-old has autism. He has ADHD and he has anxiety and he can't thrive in a neighborhood school. There's no choice. Like I get called all the time. I'm the parent who hears from the principal. They know my child super super well. And there's a reason why we have them in a school with 20 children per grade level K through eight. And so I guess what I'm um asking is when you go through what these um the mix and the model will be for the portfolio for the right sizing to just consider the most vulnerable historically underserved neurodeivergent absolutely cannot thrive in a typical traditional setting

098where you're expected to be lectured at um he can't thrive in that environment. And so when I think about what I um envision for the ideal school experience, that early question, it's to make sure that it can be an interactive experience that I as a parent can go volunteer my time like a co-op preschool and actually contribute to the success of the school community. And that is not the model of the neighborhood school. even when it's well functioning. We at programs that are customized like focus options like Winter Haven and Odyssey and different uh organizations, different schools that have that the model's different. All year long they're learning about a theme and then they go live it. They live it in the community and they go practice the skills that make sense, but and they're

099clustered by grade level and they have multiple grow up, grow, you know, dip down. My child plays with kindergarteners. Um, that's developmentally who he thinks is fun. So, I just would encourage you to think about like who are we planning for? And not everybody's neurotypical. So, we need alternative options if we want to keep people in PPS. Okay. >> Can I can I can I make an can I also add to that? >> Hi. Um, I love what you just said and I love that we're sitting here in community and I am also a mother of a neurody divergent kiddo, an autistic ADHDer and I spend so much of my time supporting her and advocating for her and I'm thinking about as an observation what's happening here and I'm thinking about that I can do

100I can access the most like creative playful thinking when I have the information I need to feel safe. And I feel like we're asking for so much information and perhaps it's not available yet, right? We're gathering information, but I I feel like um to skip that piece and say let's gather and come up with creative solutions feels so tricky because instead of acting together to improve everybody's school, right, which is our dream, we're talking about closing schools or things that feel um scary and vulnerable. And what I notice is that, you know, like we're um it's easy to feel like we want to stand up and say what's right about our school so we can save our school instead of being able to work together. I feel like it causes community to sort of pit

101themselves against each other trying to just keep their school afloat or alive, you know, and that doesn't feel like a a space for growth. Um, but it also just I know it's not a great space to operate from a fear or a lack, but also I wanted to um ask that um like my daughter goes to Japanese to Richmond Elementary, the Japanese immersion school. I looked at countless schools, private, public, our local school. I had a different plan and this is what worked out and I couldn't be happier. Um because we have an amazing principal and it's her interest and it's a safe space. And so the idea that schools can just disappear after you find somewhere that you land when you thought you wouldn't land anywhere feels, you know, feels like a lot. And

102so I think it is hard to get um creative in that space of lack and worry and just um not enough information yet. That's what I wanted to say. >> Thank you. I appreciate that comment. I appreciate all of the comments. We know and we're clear that for too long Portland public schools has operated as a collection of schools and our hope is to change that where it's not it has to be this type of school or it needs to be in this neighborhood but that all of our schools and I know it's an ideal state it's a big hairy audacious goal as we call it but but the goal is to make sure that all of our schools create and nurture and support our students in their learning journey. So, I just have to

103say that we have amazing spaces that doesn't fall under a certain heading or category and and that's what we will continue to aspire for. So, thank you. Okay, where am I looking? Left, right, middle, where? I see some hands. Where's my microphones? Microphones. If you got the microphone, start talking. >> Okay. I just wanted to speak up a minute for neighborhood schools. I have three kids at a neighborhood elementary school, Ricky, right now. and they all have different needs and I do feel very lucky that they are all excelling in their neighborhood school. Um, just kind of to speak to the comment about like wishing that schools could operate as co-op preschools. I just came with my kindergartener was in a co-op preschool last year. I was treasure on that board. I am co-president of

104the PTA board at the elementary school and just today I read Cat in the Hat with a multil- language learner in the school. I helped the kindergarteners on I Ready. like there as you walk through the hallways of our school, you see so many community members and parents. Not just parents, we see older people from in the community who come in. Today I had a great conversation with my neighbor who happens to be a senior here at IDW Wells who comes and walks over to Ricky to work with the kindergarteners and had a great conversation about all the kind of crazy zany things she sees with the kindergarteners. So it does exist in the neighborhood school. We do have those communities and it can in some ways feel the same as a co-op preschool. >>

105I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Who has the mic? Start talking. Yes. >> Hi. Um, thank you. Um, I'm a retired chemical engineer with grandchildren at both Ricky and Ainsworth. And uh I have a question or maybe a suggestion that should I hope would play out in the budget meeting next week that's sort of an adjunct to the right sizing schools. And that is um when I look at the the budget data from if you go through volume two of this year's budget where there's budgets for every one of the 83 schools in the district and add up the salary and affiliated personnel costs for all 83 schools. That adds up to 441 421 million. I think it's $441 million. If you go to volume one and look at those very same line items for

106the overall district, it's totals up to $691 million. That's a $250 million gap to me. That's more than a third of the total people cost. that does not appear in the budgets of any of the 83 schools. I'm sure that's not all central administration, but it's not at all clear what that $250 million is. And I'd like to understand what are the goals for rightsizing the people costs that are outside of the schools but supporting the schools. and you know what are the goals and what's the process for for right sizing that $250 million of people costs that are not in the schools. I appreciate that and there will be some talk on that on Tuesday. So please tune in or or come down and visit us on >> Dixon. We are essential services. >>

107Yes. Um, I just >> I wanted to piggy back on the K through8 system and it seems like it's such a highly soughtafter program with the resizing. Will there be any consideration of modeling more schools after the K through8 and perhaps combining a middle school and an elementary school? Because the sense of community and engagement, it's unbelievable. I mean, we have kindergarteners that draw a picture of stuffed animals and they have buddies who actually sew them. It's really brings the community together and it's something really really magical and it's something that could benefit a lot of other schools too. >> I think I'll I'll just speak for the board and I'm sure they'll share out in their if it comes up in our final thoughts or the through the process, but that's why they said

108that they want to look at everything. They want to hear from people. They want to look at the data. They want some modeling. They want to know what history um has said about these. I know we I've had a new fresh set of questions on the K8 model. I know before early on people heard should we close them all? I've had some questions on hey actually is it something that um we should be leaning into perhaps right so so they are I can speak um a superintendent who reports to the board they are truly looking and wondering about everything. I would say lean in. >> Yeah, lean in. >> Um the one question I had for the board as they're making their um decisions and uh this has to do with population. Uh, and obviously

109I can only speak to this neighborhood in general, but we have what is accounting for probably like three major construction projects for massive um apartment buildings, Alpine Rose, which is houses and duplexes that are all having at least 40 to 60 of like specific units that are two to four bedrooms or more. So, as you talk about declining enrollment, while I understand that, I want to make sure that you're also maybe looking at what the city has in terms of specs of what is getting built in these neighborhoods because when these open in 2027 and if you cut a school or you combine a school and now you have a hundred new kids with nowhere to go, that's going to be a bigger problem down the line that you've just made for yourself and the

110community at large. So, I just want to make sure that's highlighted. >> Absolutely. Yes. We are we're not just thinking for the year ahead of us or two years, three years. We're thinking 10 20 years uh just like good city planners do. >> Thank you. >> Are you guys are you closing statement? >> Are we back on this side? We have a mic. Yes, >> I got the mic. Okay. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um so I just had two quick questions. First question is, you know, are we considering is closing schools the thing we need to do? Is it going to save us enough money? I'm just curious if we can make sure that we keep those numbers very open and available so that we're finding the cost per closure so

111that we know this is this makes sense. >> And then my other question, >> can I respond to that one really quickly? Yes, we will show the numbers. And as I stated in the very beginning, closing schools is not a cost-saving strategy. being able to resource for our students and in the classrooms is the the bigger part of the goal in closures and consolidations and we will make sure that we share those numbers out. >> Great. Thank you for that. And then my other question is for the board. Um as we walk through this process of engagement work, um you know, I think there's a lot of frustration in the room and across the district around just the lack of funding. We had a parent talk about it recently. Um it's it's it's the elephant

112in the room, right? like there's just nothing something is not right and it is at our state level and it is at down in Salem they are not and this is not just Portland's problem this is a problem across the state so like can we make sure that that education is included in this process so that we're you know we're also doing both because we need to come help you all bring resources to our schools but people need to know that that's going on that that's part of that's part of the puzzle here is that we don't have enough money in the pie and so we have to make these really hard decisions And so, yeah, let's just keep socializing that. >> Tell everybody about May 7th. >> I would love to. Thank you. So,

113May 7th, um, everyone's invited. There is going to be a school funding forum at Lincoln High School from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Everyone's invited. We'll have dinner and child care, and it'll be with, um, Senator Liieber and Representative uh, uh, Tanya Sanchez. They are the, uh, co-chairs of the very powerful joint Ways and Means Committee. They aka they're the people that decide what money can go and and be spent. So they need to hear our stories. They need to understand what we're doing here because they don't they they think we're fine. Senator Liieber thinks we're totally fine. We have enough money. So go tell her we don't. >> Thank you. >> So and I I know that we're probably getting to the point where you're going to hear from the board and they can respond

114directly to the things that resonates with them as they close out. We're going to do just about 10 more minutes and then we're going to let use the last 15 minutes to close down so we can get folks out of here by 8ish 8 o'clock. So 10 more minutes. I see the hands the microphone to the left and we're queuing up the hands to the right. Yes. Yeah. Hi. I'm a teacher. I'm a high school teacher in this district. Um and I think I heard you say previously Dr. Armstrong. Um, you brought up the idea of a public private partnership, which historically is just a euphemism for transferring public assets into private portfolios. And the last major PBS building that was sold off, which was Washington High School, known now as Revolution Hall, was virtually

115given away by previous district administrators for only $2 million in uh 2013, which was way, way under market value. And I'd just like to suggest a public public partnership to develop social housing in any decommissioned district properties to bring in more families into Portland instead of pushing them out with increased costs of living that comes along with selling off our public services. I appreciate that. I appreciate the call out. If I say public private, I assume that there's a partnership and not just a a giveaway or um a little bit sale, but I I appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> Hi. Um I am a PPS parent, but also a teacher at Ricky. Um I've been teaching second graders for 29 years. Um, and I would love I one of the things I hear is

116that we don't have the things to serve all the kids anymore. And thousand% I agree that as a teacher trying to meet all the needs of all the kids, personal, local, and immediate, my hands have been really tied with lockstep curriculum expectations where I'm not given the autonomy as a highly trained professional to modify and more than modify to create what my students in my room in that moment need. And you've been in my room, Dr. Armstrong, you know my room. I and I feel bound to reporting because I have to be within two weeks before or after my curriculum guideline. I am asked what page on the curriculum I'm at. Well, I have a student who's flipping desks because they're disregulated, but I still have to be accountable to be on page 114 on

117day whatever. So I think as we're looking at these kids that all need different needs and these families that need different needs, we need to respect the value of these highly trained professionals who can and want to do this, but we're trapped. So I guess I'm just saying more than asking, but it's something that I think we need to look at. >> Thank you, Dr. >> I appreciate your comment. I'm swinging over here to the right. Yes, >> we're over here. So, I know people are there. As we go through in the next couple minutes, some people will probably start to trickle out. I just want to highlight one thing up here. You'll see there's a second QR code on the left. If you get home and you say, "Oh my gosh, I forgot to

118say something or there was a question or there's another comment." Please make sure that you catch that left side QR code. The right side is I should be the slid that you already did. So, thank you for those that went in and added add information there. I have a comment back this way, Dr. Armstrong, but just wanted to make sure if people if as you are on your way out if you just don't forget to um get that second QR code. Okay, >> perfect. Thank you. And we will post the answers to these questions on the website. >> Yes. >> Hi. Um I'm also a parent of kids at school and I'm also wondering if there are closed sites or if there are sites that are going to be closing. I'm wondering I didn't really

119know I didn't really hear if there's somebody a board member or someone that's in charge of maybe research and development to help sh keep shaping the future of our education and making sure that it's bringing all the skills that our children are going to need. the world is fastly changing and moving and I feel like sometimes um you know the curriculum or the way that they are being instructed isn't really worth the time and so I'm just curious if there are resources out there to create pilot programs to create research sites and have grants from other places to maybe you know look around other places and try to see if there's also other solutions um out there to meet the needs of the present time. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yes. >>

120Hi. Uh thanks for the very many different comments that are coming out. I come with the lens. I'm I'm a researcher up on the hill at HSU. I study artificial intelligence and human cognition. Um things are going to be changing a lot. I fear for my child and what the world will look like for them with the technologies that are coming down the pike. Um, when I think about a school system that is going to be able to equip my child and her cohort with the skills to live in a our future world, um, I just think that I hope you all as a board and a leadership think about what programs are going to be nimble and flexible. We're talking a lot about physical structure here, but to hearken to the teachers comments over

121there, being flexible in this world is going to be entirely important for it to be successful. And so thinking about all of those resources, one sizing, but also all of the other things that are going to need to be adapted on rapid order succession are going to be extremely important for PPS and all the other school districts in our area to make sure we can educate our children for tomorrow's future. Thank you, >> Dr. Armstrong. >> Thank you. I think we're coming down this way. >> Two more comments and then I'm going to turn it over to the school board. Um, I'm a sixth grader. I go to Winter Haven. And earlier I noticed something you were saying and I was wondering why are K8 schools in and elementary schools getting more priority uh getting

122less priority than uh high schools and regular middle schools? >> Yeah, that that's a good question. I I I think I I hear what you're asking is like we're we're talking about supporting regular middles and high schools and then it sounds like maybe K8s are with the focal part of the conversation. Is that is that what you're asking? >> Yeah. So, I think what I will say for high school, high school went through a redesign some years ago and I think it's we've been communicating that um by 2029 all of our high schools will have been updated with uh for the most part boundary adjustments that um were set up in their redesign. We're still going to need to focus on it. I think all of our sites that we're looking at, all of our

123programs across Portland public schools, we're looking at, it might sound like a lot of the conversation is on like one particular type of school or K8, and I think that's just what's coming up for people, but it really will be all sites that we're discussing over the next several months. And to the folks who are talking about visioning and future and all of that coming alongside this conversation in another couple of months um will be a vision and mission statement along with the strategic plan as we look through to the 2030s and what we believe to be true for Portland public schools and the programs that we offer and the ways in which we resource. And so we're looking forward to bringing that alongside the conversation too. All of this feedback will be valuable and

124informative as we move through that process. But thank you for the question. Okay. >> Okay. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> And I think there was one more hand over here. Did they get a mic over there somewhere? >> Yes. Right there. We see you. We're moving. Okay. You get to close us down. >> Oh, no. >> No pressure. I would just like to encourage the board to use more thoughtful language when they are commenting um to parents about um rising costs of the school district because one of you said something flippant about PERS and health care and custodians. Um, and as an educator that works in this building and that's been doing this for 20 years, I found that offensive because no teacher is getting rich off of this job. Um, and it is

125a small price to have health care and to have PERS for qualified teachers who care enough to do this job for all of the parents in this room and their students. Um, thank you for saying something. I was trying to sort of correct something that I heard that made me feel very sensitive about um the district budget. Uh I'm a former teacher. I am like I think anybody in this room that knows me knows I'm a huge advocate for not just our teachers but for our staff and all staff at all levels. My god for me would be mortified if he thought I was saying anything bad about custodians. She's the um custodian at and Monica at my kids school and I'm close with both of them because I work school lunch once a week.

126Um so I just want to say that um I didn't mean for it to be flippant. I was trying to be fast and just make the point that he was asking about this gap and I am so glad that our teachers in Portland public schools have excellent health care benefits. And I'm also so glad that our we have a commitment to our retired teachers, but those are expensive at the same time. It's not being flippant. It's just being real. We don't have $250 million going to extra staff in our central office. It's that if you add up the salaries of the staff at our schools via that document, you're missing the costs which I think are almost 50% of sal addition to salary per staff goes to pay for health care retired teacher benefits. the

127ben the future retirement benefits of teachers and other staff who also match those contributions as well. So, it's just a big chunk of money and I just wanted to make that point. Personally, part of the reason Portland public schools has awesome educators and staff is because we have high pay and benefits and I stand by that we need to continue to do that. So, that you heard something otherwise. I just want to be super clear. I it it did not mean it that way. I just wanted I just was like having a sensitive reaction to that number being thrown out there and wanted to just say that. So thank you. I just wanted I have to clarify that big time. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for for giving grace for that clarification to

128happen. Okay. So now we are at the closeown moment. Uh we are going to hear from our esteemed board members as well as our student uh representative Ian Rural who I think is going to start us off and then that will um conclude tonight. Remember the future engagements. Hopefully you got a picture of the QR code and at the conclusion of the last words uh we will hopefully see you again or at least um in the near future. Thank you. >> All right. uh they give me the mic because I uh I have many things to say. Uh I have not been texting my friends. I've been writing down notes. Uh don't worry. Um so I just want to start off by saying uh I heard a lot of comments about what our schools uh

129the the different ways that our schools aren't doing enough. Um and I know that that's true because I've lived it. You know, I and I'm currently living living it. Um, but we have to acknowledge and this is and I loved the comments about the state government because the reality is the state go you know your state legislators don't come to IW Wells High School when we're talking about closing schools when they decide not to not to fully fund our schools for the 20th year in a row. Um, and when we when you're when we talk about an organization that's been cutting I mean how many year consecutive years have we cut? I mean it's been it's been three years over $120 million. Um uh the we we've shaken the couch the couch cushions. We we

130had this conversation at the beginning of the year when we tal when we talked about outdoor school. Um we talked about what it would mean to try and fund outdoor school because the state government did not um and try and make up that gap. But the reality is is that we're running out of options. Our reserves um are you know our reserves are you know practically gone um because we have to keep them at 5%. Um, I also would like to say that I I absolutely agree that that when when you have a reputation um for having poor schools that people will move move out and decide to take their kids otherwhere other places. when the DSC, the district student council, which I am uh which I chair as the student representative, when we went

131uh down to Salem for our day of advocacy, I gave an interview to K2 News where I said when when I see a number as someone as like a stats nerd myself, when I see a number like uh Oregon is 46th in the nation for K through2 education. That's the kind of statistic that makes me want to take my kids out of public school. And so if we and so if we want to have uh like these issues are tied and I am continually worried that the worse and worse we the state allows our schools to sink the more and more uh people are going to choose to go elsewhere. We are creating demand for public for private schools um which I which is just only going to make things worse for us because then

132we have to cut and eat even more and we have to close schools and these are all things that are going to make people want to move away even worse. Um, and I also heard the last thing that I'll say is I also heard a lot of uh uh a lot of big dreams about what our district could be, the things that we could be doing. Um, and I would like to say that that sounds awesome. I am a big advocate for for really systemic uh systemic reform of our education system, but again, those are all conversations that need to be had uh at the state and even national level. Um, and there's a lot more that needs to be done there. Um, so I won't speak for for too much longer, but remember to

133remember to contact your state legislators. Their emails are public. Um, it's my favorite fact. >> Ian is always really hard to follow. I just want to, you know, wrap it up. Now, um I wanted to say, um you know, when I was listening today, um I was kind of keying in on what we were hearing from some of our families that have moved their kids out of their neighborhood schools to JDLI, to Winter Haven, to access, which I do want to clarify is an academic program. It is not a focus option. But what I was hearing is a lot about what's working. And then I started to hear that about some of our neighborhood schools as well. So I feel like what we need to do for me as a board member, what I want

134and what we need to accomplish is for every student to have that experience in their neighborhood school. That is what is equitable. So that's the endgame for me. And as we go through this process, I would love to ask staff, you know, we've done a a lot of, you know, what are your priorities? What's not working? What I heard today is actually a lot about what is working in your schools. And I think we need to really be looking at that as a board too because what I'm hearing is there are things that are working. We don't hear enough of that and I heard a lot about project based learning. I mean that was kind of the commonality I was hearing um across the um the focus options and access. So um yeah, as a

135board member I want to know what's working and I want to deliver that experience that's working to all of our kids. So you know um I feel like I've talked a lot tonight. Sorry. Um, so I'll just uh we got told that one of the things people really wanted to hear from us is what we were hearing and I definitely heard loud and clear from the crowd today that for our focus option K through8s they really love their schools and that they really value those schools and that they know that that choice has kept them and other families in the district. And I'm saying that because this is me listening and learning. I'm a neighborhood school parent. my kids and we have the same sort of co-op vibe. Um I'm at I know kids K

136through five at our school because I work lunch every Friday like I said and there's dozens of parents that engage similarly I would guess. What do you guys think? Um at our school that are there regularly um and do a lot to be part of our community. So I know that there's magic to be found at our neighborhood schools and our focus option schools. Um so I just want to acknowledge that. Um, and me listening and learning and growing is um, something that I think is really important for all of you to see. Um, I am really grateful for all of the thoughts and questions that people have. I've been writing a lot down. Some of them I've already asked the district for, some of them I will again ask the district for, and some

137of them are brand new to me. So, thank you for that. Um, I met some Winter Haven families when I was on the campaign trail because one of my kiddos had actually lotteryed, one of my twins had lotteryed into Winter Haven and we were super excited about it because it's a great program. And then she made the unusual choice of going to a neighborhood school instead because she wanted to roll out of bed and walk there. Um, and I saw a family who left who's a good friend of my fifth grader who's not at a not at Winter Haven. So, I think my inarticulate point is that we're all really connected. And to Virginia's point of all of the stories that everybody has been sharing today about what's great at their school and what's great

138at their school and what's great at their school is beautiful. And I have asked the district and I would like to see us doing video montages that we put out into the community so that everybody who's considering whether their kindergartenner is going to go to Winter Haven or Ricky or Abernathy or anywhere instead they like, "Oh my god, look at the bike buses. Look at the walking buses. Look at the teachers who have been teaching second grade for 29 years and who love their students. Um, and so that kind of that kind of sort of getting out there showing showboating and showcasing our beautiful schools to the entire community as they're deciding where they're going to go and say, "Hell yeah, we're going to come to PPS." So, thank you everybody. I'm going to sit

139down. It's been a long night. I'm really grateful for everyone's thoughts. We've got one. >> Yeah. Um I guess the bummer about going last is everybody already said everything I want to say. Uh I want to repeat what director I basically director Lefor said everything I wanted to say which is that you all highlighted a lot of great things are happening and one of the priorities that we want to stress as a board is how do we keep those uh wonderful things that are happening through this process is often scary and unknown right um I also want to push back a little bit because a lot of things can be true at the same time uh one of those things is that PPS is part of Oregon but we are not Oregon meaning that PPS

140PS is actually lifting up the whole average of uh Oregon. Uh I don't know if you saw the latest numbers, but just to brag a little bit because a couple things can mean true. There's a lot of things we do need to improve and we are outperforming everybody else, including our wonderful suburban neighbors in terms of our test scores and everything like that. We have the best teachers in all of Oregon, uh maybe even the country. They do so much with so little. And uh you know I just want to take that time to applause them as much as we can. Um and there are a lot of needs that are not being met right and so we can do both those things. We can solve those big problems at the same time. Consolidation is

141scary. Budget cuts are scary. Uh one of the things a parent at a PTA said to me as good feedback is that don't be scared to just tell the truth. People can handle it. Um we are not looking at a bright budget outlook for the next three years. our state legislators have told us that hey don't expect us to do anything for you probably for the next couple of years maybe three or four years is it's pretty grim and one of the thing about consolidation I I want to also dispel some uh misconceptions um bigger schools don't necessarily mean bigger class sizes it often means the opposite because the less personnel can go much farther if you add a teacher it helps um reduce classes for three other classes instead of just one and so

142like less money goes farther are there when we have uh more consolidated schools and we can also try to solve the problem for getting that small school feel because it's another thing that I've also heard tonight about what was really important as well for for our families and things. So um I really want to thank you for uh coming tonight and sharing these. These are all valuable inputs. We heard a lot about our focus options that we haven't heard from a lot uh our previous engagement sessions about how important they are to you about uh what they do for your uh kids and and the opportunities that they provide. So, thank you for sharing that. It that's something we will take back and think really hard and discuss very long about. So, again, I'm not

143not supposed to don't know if I'm supposed to close it off or hand it to someone better at closing it off. Thank you. >> So, it's it's not it's not about better. So, I'm gonna say that, but I I want to app I want to appreciate everybody in the room and and sitting in some discomfort today as we as we go through um and engaging and leaning in. And so, I appreciate uh the passion that people are bringing, the board for engaging regularly. Um our superintendent for um being with us uh and answering so many questions this evening, uh our uh subject matter experts that were with us tonight, uh Nicole Watson and the FACE team. Uh so just want to thank everybody. Uh as a reminder there are two more sessions. There's one on

144Saturday at Benson if you feel like hey let's let's go for this again and let's have another conversation and then Monday at Roosevelt. And with that I I'm looking to see Nicole Watson. Is there anything that you would like to share? >> Okay. All right. Thank you very much everybody. There was a lot of you think you guys talked about it. Well, the first one