2026-02-24 Board of Education Work Session

001Thank you all for being here. All right. This public works session of the board of education for February 24th, 2026 is called to order. All items being considered this evening are posted on the PPS website under the board and meetings tab. This meeting is being streamed live on PPS TV services website and on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks. Please check the district website for replay times. Good evening and welcome. Thank you all for being here. Uh before we get started, just a couple housekeeping reminders. Uh we're pleased that so many community members are here in attendance. Uh we're I think it's just awesome that you're taking your time out of your day to be part of public education. Uh if if there's any signs, displays, or banners, please we

002ask that you please hold them below chin level so that the people behind you can still see. Also, just keep the stairs aisles clear for safety reasons. Uh and lastly, in general, we appreciate everyone just being generally mindful and respectful in this room together. On tonight's agenda, we have the opportunity to hear from staff about the program programmatic restructuring at MLC and have a chance to hear public comment on it. We'll have also have an opportunity to hear a presentation on the graduation data from last year as well as post-secary readiness indicators. We're also going to be getting an update on our enterprise resource planning uh budget and then a budget update from Chief Morrison. I understand we also have a special video to start off this meeting. >> Yeah. Well, I'm excited. As you

003know, we prioritize getting out into schools and in February, as we're in the final week of Black History Month, oftent times we are very fortunate to have talented staff on the team. And so, I want to share a video of one of our executives uh performing at that Black History Assembly. So it's being queued up and sing till earth and heaven ring ring with the harmonies of the Let our rejoiceing rise high as the listening skies. Let it resound now as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has taught us. Facing the rising sun, a new day began. Let us march on till victory is one. Thank you. And if you did not recognize who

004was singing, that was our chief of human resources, Angela Freeman. >> And and she actually could quit her day job because she's talented. >> But she won't. >> But but she won't. We're not going to give her any ideas. >> Amazing. >> Well, Dr. Freeman can hear us. Thank you. That was amazing. Um, that's it for our intro, right? All right, moving on. Uh, let's move on to the consent agenda. Board members, if there's any items you would like to pull for a separate discussion, please indicate that now. Miss Powell, are there any changes to consent agenda? All right. Do I have a motion, a second to adopt the consent agenda? >> So moved. Second. >> Thank you. Director Deass moves. Director Chase Miller seconds the adoption of the consent agenda. Is there any board

005discussion on the consent agenda? >> I'd just like to briefly call out one of our uh one of the things on this agenda uh is another resolution to appoint student representatives uh to the uh to the board committees. Um we had one uh I believe a month or two ago. Um so we're adding that was for one student. Um we've now got four more students uh to add to various board committees. Um, so we're still waiting on facilities, but here's hoping that we're that that by the end of this year, we will have a student representative on every committee. >> We we do have a student on the facilities committee. >> It won't be on this resolution. We're going to do it on the 10th. >> Great. >> Yay. Full house. >> So soon we

006will officially have students on every on every committee, but but right now we have we have we do like basically have students on every committee. So round of applause for that. I want to just um recognize you uh student reportorto for making sure we got we have students on every committee. We had uh two students start one student yesterday at the policy committee um Nora and she's amazing and um Issa wasn't here but we hope to see him next time March 30th. >> Awesome. Thank you. I was hoping you would point that out. I also got to meet Nora yesterday. Did amazing. the student voice is just uh absolutely important. So, thank you. Any other discussion before we move to a vote? All right. The board will now vote on resolution 7251 through 7256. All

007in favor, please indicate by saying yes. >> Yes. >> Opposed. Abstensions. Student rep uh student representative RTO. >> Yes. >> Thank you. The consent agenda as amended is approved by a vote of five to zero with student representative toro voting yes. All right. Our first item for tonight outside the consent agenda is to hear from staff about the programmatic programmatic sorry. Thank you. Restructuring at Metropolitan Learning. >> Can you guys hear me? I just want to be able to vote even if I'm virtual. And I vote yes. Thank you. >> Thank you. I have uh amended the vote tally is now consent agenda as amended approved by a vote of six to zero with student representative rto voting yes. All right, back to MLC. Uh as we have as well as learn about resources students

008have to help them select their school for next year, we'll have a chance to ask questions and hear public testimony from community members. And I'll hand this over to Dr. Armstrong. >> Thank you, Chair Wong. So our plan for tonight is to share our thinking and the context behind how the decision was made and share what high school alter alternative and focus options are available for our students. And so before we hear from a team, I just want to acknowledge um some things that have come up and we've received some feedback on our engagement and decision-making. And the team is going to talk about the decision-m but I also just wanted to say typically when we're informing it awfully often occurs after a decision has been made and involves communicating what was decided and explaining

009the rationale behind that decision. While engagement on the other hand happens before a decision is made. gathering perspective, identifying concerns, and building a shared understanding. And I want to recognize that while we chose the path of informing about the decision that was made, members of our MLC community wanted to be engaged to inform um before a decision was made. And so we had a listening session and heard from community. And one of the things um that I committed to in that was to review um with someone from OD from the Oregon Department of Education their language on whether MLC high school was a separate school. And so the off the Oregon Department of Education confirmed that MLC K12 is a single entity not two separate entities like K8 912. And so our legal team has

010confirmed that we are operating within board policy and state law. So tonight you'll hear that we have focused on what the MLC high school students need next. And I'll turn it over to our senior chief of schools and academics who will introduce the rest of the team. Please come forward. Good evening board members and student representative. My name is Christina Howard and I am the senior chief of academics and I am joined by Dr. Adams, our chief equity and accountability officer and Dr. Cardona, our chief of schools. Next slide, please. >> Oh, um, as we've started other presentations, um, we want to continue with our learning target and success criteria focus. Um, so for tonight's presentation, um, I'm learning about the data that informed the decision to conclude the 912 programming at Metropolitan Learning Center

011and I can articulate the reasoning and context surrounding the decision. And so I want to provide a little bit more context before I jump into this slide. Um, conversations around school programming began with principles. Um, as we approached a $50 million deficit for next year, we asked principles about the impacts to programming and schools and areas we should look at. In those conversations, MLC 912 programming was brought up by principles to look at that in regards to being able to s to sustain the quality of high school experience. Um, also around staffing stability and instructional continuity and equity of access to opportunity. And so, um, over time, enrollment in our alternative learning environment has declined to a level where we are no longer able to consistently provide a broad and responsive range of course options,

012stable staffing, and the depth of instructional support students need and the diverse pathways, wraparound services, and personalized supports that define strong alternative programs. And when enrollment falls below a sustainable level, the flexibility, individualized attention, and comprehensive supports that students rely on become increasingly difficult to maintain. And this was brought to our attention as well by principal engagement in that. Um, a strong alternative learning environment also depends on educators who can provide personalized relationship centered instruction, flexible yet reliable schedules that support individualized pathways, and consistent staffing that builds trust and continuity for students. And so when it drops to a very small level, staffing often requires split roles, blended groupings, and complex scheduling structures. Over time, these adjustments can strain the individualized supports and stability that alternative learning environments are designed to provide. And students in

013alternative learning environments deserve meaningful academic opportunities, enrichment, and strong peer connection. So, if we go to the next slide and so we wanted to share a bit more around the enrollment process. So, students enter MLC through two ways. um the annual school choice lottery which is an online application initial lottery results in January weight list in place for follow-up offers and all families are encouraged to visit the school and then also reconnection services referrals students and families discuss goals interests and needs with an outreach coordinator and families also meet with school staff before a final decision is made so we've had a lot of questions around the enrollment process and so tonight our presentation is really going to focus on a lot of questions that we've been hearing and ensuring that we are clarifying some

014of the things that have been coming up. >> Good evening everyone. I get the honor of sharing the data slides in our presentation. We wanted to start by sharing trend data regarding MLC's high school enrollment. Over the past 10 years, as you can see on the slide, the high school enrollment at MLC has declined. Today the grades 9 through 12 enrollment is less than half of what it was during the 201617 school year sitting at 40 students. This graphic is called a swim lane and it shows the progression of MLC students who attended MLCK8 and where they chose to attend high school. It answers the question, how many of MLC's grade 8 students continue on to MLC and high school? As you can see, 203 out of 216 students or 94% of the students enrolled

015of the students enrolled into a high school other than MLC, while 6% continued on to metriculate into the MLC high school grades. The remaining 27 students or 67 and a half% of students in the MLC high school program enrolled into MLC after attending a middle school program or a high school program other than MLC. Next, we wanted to take a look at enrollment demographics at MLC and examine how those demographics compare to Alliance High School and also to all PPS grades 9 through 12. As you can see from the chart on the left, MLC's enrollment is not currently proportional to PPS grades 912 enrollment or Allianc's high school enrollment. Additionally, MLC's enrollment percentage for students with disabilities is much higher than the PPS grades 912 students with disabilities rate, which is 14.8% compared to 35%

016at MLC. And finally, the yellow table shows the proportion of MLC students based on when they enrolled at the school. It's a companion piece to the swim lane chart on the previous slide where we just couldn't get it to fit. A question often comes up regarding the profiles of students who attend MLC. We wanted to provide some examples of students high school enrollment histories. These profiles have been anonymized and each represents a current MLC student. Brendan in the Navy blue square has had two enrollments. He spent part of 9th grade at Alliance at Benson High School and the rest of grades 9 through 11 at MLC. Kyle has had three enrollments. He split grade nine among IDB Wells, Edwards, and MLC. Since then, he's been enrolled in MLC and currently is in grade 11. KC

017has had four enrollments. They attended Grant Southern School, Edwards, and MLC for part of grade nine. They're now at MLC are in grade are and are in grade 11. And finally, Aaron. Aaron is currently in 12th grade and completed grade nine at Grant and split grade grades 10 among online learning academy, Mount Scott Learning Center, and MLC. And so what we often see is students have multiple enrollments that are at um the program. There have also been questions about the student experience and academic schedule at MLC. Included on this slide are two student schedules that have been anonymized. One for a student in grade nine and another for a student in grade 11. Courses with an asterisk represent courses where more than one course is being taught at the same time or where multiple student

018grade levels are present. This is intended to show that the ML show the MLC high school experience and how there may not be the same breath and depth of academic programming as other alternative schools and programs and comprehensive high schools. Due to low enrollment and staffing allocations, MLC High School offers a more limited range of courses, frequently blends grade levels and subjects, and has fewer elective and advanced course options. On a similar note, I wanted to offer a side-by-side comparison of our two in district high schools, our alternative high schools. MLC has many unique things that Alliance does not, and Alliance has unique things that MLC does not. As an example, the MLC electives program um is really a proposal led by co-led by students um an elective. We also see student portfolio, student led

019conferences, social social emotional supports, an advisory model for students in grade 612. And then CTE looks at mass communications. Previously, they had internships. Alliance is 912-based looking at project-based learning. There are two school models. There's a five period block and also a self-paced model. And there are two school schedules, a 5-day and a 4-day intended to be flexible to support specific student needs and remove barriers to continued school enrollment. We also see similar to MLC um social emotional supports for students that are enrolled. And then the CTE focus looks at natural resources, automechanic, manufacturing, and digital media. So, as no two students are the same, I know that no two high schools are the same or high school programs. And so, this just gives a comparison of MLC versus Alliance. In a future slide, I

020can talk about the other alternative options available to all students within PPS. This slide attempts to answer the question, how many students are needed to maintain and sustain high school programming? On the first three rows, we have a comparison of MLC, alliance, and all PPS grades 9 through 12 in terms of FTE or full-time equivalent position per student. The columns to the right then show the FTE per student. looking at teachers only, teachers and one social worker, and finally teachers, a social worker, and a vice principal. On the next row, we show MLC's grade 9 through 12 projected enrollment, which is 38. And then the final two rows show how many more students MLC would need to enroll in grades 9 through 12 to match either uh the alliance FTE to student ratio or to

021match the PPS median FTE per student ratio. To reach the median PPS FTE per student level for grades 9 through 12, MLC would need to enroll 136 students or 98 students more than they are projected to have currently. To reach and match the alliance ratio of FTE to students, MOC would need to enroll 98 students or 60 more students than they are currently projected to enroll. This next slide shows a few things. The table on the far left shows the staffing that would be aloc would have been allocated to MLC given their current projected enrollment. You can see that total is 7.0. The middle table shows the ratios of students to instructional staff only both at MLC and across PPS grade 9 through 12. And lastly, the table on the right shows what staffing at

022MLC could look like if we staffed it based on our ratios for staffing high school programming. You can note the differences in the total columns for the first table on the far left and the third table on the far right. As we have mentioned, when schools or programs have lower enrollment, additional staffing often has to be provided to ensure programming and that increased costs of the program. Finally, in terms of program sustainability, the costs you see presented here are based on instructional programming staff only. These staffing numbers in this presentation are for teachers, administrators, support staff. These figures will differ from what you may see in budget book volume two or the adopted budget, both of which include and factor in all building staff like custodians and nutritional services along with their actual salaries and

023not an average FTE cost. The projected savings from concluding the 912 programming is also shown in terms of instructional programming staffing only. As the comparison shows, smaller programs are more costly to operate as they don't have the same economies of scale that come with larger levels of student enrollment. I had a chance to share about our indig alternative high schools already, but we also contract with certifi with community- based organizations. All of our CBO schools have small class sizes, coaching and personalized supports, credit recovery embedded, and communityfamily fields where all students know and are seen and feel seen. I'm going to just highlight a couple of these, but there are many more. We have Rosemary Anderson Prep, a long-standing partner in PPS focused on culturally responsive programming, especially for our black and African-American families. There

024are three PPS campuses including North Portland, Lent and Southeast and a location in North in New Colombia. They offer a small that's not a school anymore. >> They offer a small, >> caring, flexible educational environment meeting uh students where they are at. We have Helen's view. This is through MED. They offer several CTE programs with a big presence of TRIO and college post-secondary supports. NA nations academy. It's a culturally sustaining program and supportive curriculum and wraparound services. It's a small school about 50 students with small classes and a culturally um in a cultural arts program. So our students had a chance to have a fair today both at school and here in the PEC um where they got the opportunity to work with reconnection services. So somebody who was working with them one-on-one to explore

025these options. There were representatives from each of these different programs and schools in attendance where they got a chance to hear about the programs, ask questions, um just build knowledge about the school and the offerings that they have. I have a couple flyers if you all would like to see what they had a chance to explore. Um, and I went to the evening fair just now here in the PEC. We were asked to include a second session where parents could attend after work, even prior to the board meeting. Um, so representation from each of those different programs is also upstairs to ask question answer questions that parents might have or students. And finally, we are going to give tours to our a couple of different options for next week. So, we're going to look at

026Jefferson High School, which is an option currently. Jefferson is one of our focus option schools here in PPS. It's a smaller school um but a comprehensive high school. We have Benson High School which is looking um which is CTE focused and Alliance High School which is right next door. And so we'll have tours or visits or a bus going from MLC to Jefferson and then to Benson and Alliance the next day next week. They'll take them directly from school MLC to Jefferson Benson Alliance and then back again. Um so that students have the ability to actually walk the hallways, ask questions and visit the schools. And that concludes our presentation. We wanted to kick things back to Dr. Armstrong before um to see if she would have any closing remarks before we took uh questions

027from board members. >> Yeah, I think we're almost ready for questions. I just wanted to so for knowing that lottery um has closed, correct? Are there some sort of like placement preference that students um from MLC would receive and can you say anything more about that? >> Yes, we are giving priority to students from MLC or preference and so when looking at the current lottery for Jefferson Benson Alliance, they would have preference um or priority in those different schools. Our contracted CBOS or our CBO partners have a little bit different of a system. they are, you know, looking in welcoming of MLC students. Their process is a little bit different and so they like to have one-on-one meetings with students um to engage them, get to hear their stories, make sure that it's the right

028fit for their students. But then that process is um on a little bit different of a timeline than our current uh PPS lottery. >> So when you say preference, priority, I mean, I'm saying that if a student from MLC wanted to go to Benson, they would be able to enroll in Benson. Yeah, and we've looked at already the numbers of the schools and the principles had a chance to be upstairs just now to meet students as well. So, there shouldn't be a barrier in getting students into our our schools and the schools of their choice, the places that they're excited to go that is either their next best fit or even maybe a better fit for them. Okay, >> great. Um, I'll turn it over to the board. >> Right. Well, um >> yeah, let's

029we're going to move to public comment. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, because um we have some requests from some board members and I granted it, we are allowing public comment on this work session topic. So, let's start with student comments first. Uh before we begin, I just want to review some guidelines for public comment. Uh first, the board thanks you for being here today. Uh your comments, your insights and reflections help us improve our work. Our board office may follow up on board related issues raised during public testimony. We also ask that uh complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as personnel matter. As I repeated uh just repeating from last meeting, the board does not deal with personnel issues. I will remind PPS staff who are giving public comment that

030they may not provide testimony about students that could violate confidentiality protections under FURPA. This includes testimony using information that could identify students, especially their school community, by use of direct or indirect link linkages such as school grade, special education, or other status. For materials you would like the board to receive, handouts, pictures, etc., Please hand them over to Miss Powell on the side there who will then distribute it to us or them. If you have additional materials or items that you would like to provide the board or superintendent, we ask that you email them public comment all one word at pps.net. If you do not get to finish your testimony, you also are welcome to submit your testimony, the rest of your testimony that way as well. Uh please make sure that when you begin

031your comment, please clearly state your name and spell your last name. You will have three minutes to speak. When the yellow light goes off, that means you have 30 seconds. And when the red light is on, that means it's time to end. Uh, so let's start with students. Can you call our students up first? >> Yes, we have Milo Wade and Nick Feifer. All right, you may begin when you're ready. >> All right. Um, my name is Milo Wade, W A. Uh, greetings and thank you all for the opportunity to speak here. I should, or rather I could bombard you with messages of sincerity as to why MLC should stay. I fear you don't care. It shows. There's no remorse, no care, nor any consideration in the way you have executed this. I'm not trying

032to antagonize you or denigrate you. I'm trying to point out how poorly this was executed. It seems as though it is too far gone to expect a caring or even thoughtout answer. Through the patronizing mess of the listening session, it was made clear to us that the district is focused on numbers. We are nothing more than profit, numbers, and statistics to them. Not only have we voiced our opinions, but we have shown you how important this school is firsthand. I should, or rather I could ask you that you hear me and listen with purpose rather than listening to get to your turn to talk. We do not want to hear how unfortunate it is and how you feel about suns setting our school. It is disrespectful and downright laughable to come to a school, tell

033an entire community that you feel sorry for them, and then give confusing and redundant answers as to why you're closing the school. I speak for all of us when I say I'm so very sorry this did not land the way you wanted it to. I can't possibly imagine what that would have looked like, but clearly this wasn't it. I'm not here to stop the school from closing. I'm here to attempt to pull some level of personality or sincerity from you. Also, Liz rules. >> I had to throw that in. >> Um, my name is Nick Piper. P E I F E R. Hello. I have so much I could say. I could talk about how shutting down MLC is taking away a safe space for queer and disabled students. How in a big school so

034many of our students will not get the attention they need to thrive. How the community at MLC is one of the most kind and welcoming I have ever seen. How MLC has an 80% graduation rate compared to Alliance's 40%. I could talk about how this school has helped me. about how at MLC I have never been made to feel the same fear of judgment and bullying I felt so regularly at other schools. I could talk about so much, but I won't because I know you have made up your minds. You have shown no care for individuals, for our experiences, our voices. You have shown you care about numbers. 40 students, that's a nothing number. I could come up here and sob and cry. I could tell you about how I wanted to kill myself. And

035what would happen? What would we get other than a trigger warning to the audience? You have made this decision without consulting the community completely behind our backs. You have made up your minds. You set up meetings for us and give us opportunities to tell you how we feel. You're trying to act like we have an opportunity to help ourselves. But 40 students is a nothing number and you have made up your minds. The school tours and information fairs and counselors you assigned only further show me how without consulting the community, the real people this decision will affect, you've made up your minds. This is an unjust decision. >> Thank you. >> The way you've gone about making it is absolutely egregious. I am infinitely disappointed in PPS for not only making this decision, but the

036way you have told us, the way you have said you are sunsetting our school. You are not sunsetting our school. >> You keep saying you understand. >> Thank you. I'm sorry, but we're at time. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm not sure that the clock reset, so I don't think that they have three minutes. So I think maybe >> Would you like another minute? >> Sure. >> Sorry for the interruption. That was my mistake. >> Thank you. >> I am infinitely disappointed in PPS not only for making this decision but the way you have told us. The way you have said you are sunsetting our school. To sunset a school in my own words is the gradual closure of a school as opposed to shutting them down immediately. You are not sunsetting our school.

037Please stop saying that word. You keep saying you understand. You understand how we help. You understand our purpose, our values. But if you understood, we wouldn't be here right now. Also, Liz rolls. >> Great. Thank you. Thank you for being here in your testimony. Um, who do we have next? >> We have Ezra Weiss, Allison Mosher, and Crystal Hilton. You may begin when ready. And a little tip, if you begin before the green light shows, you get a little extra time. >> My name is Ezra Weiss. Uh, Ezs. Um, I prepared a lot to say, but I think I'm going to just uh just talk. Um, it's not too late. It's not too late to unmake this extremely shortsighted decision. this school is a miracle for so many of us. It it has been a

038a I remember the first day when I finally was able to drop my son off at MLC after not working out at our neighborhood school after after not working out with homeschooling and dropping him off and feeling this sense of belonging and coming home and sobbing because I was so grateful for this miracle of a school. And my story is typical at MLC. And I've been to many, many amazing schools, objectively amazing schools, and none of them would I call a miracle. Metropolitan Learning Center is a miracle. And it is they actually deal with all of these challenges that so many of our kids have extremely efficiently. They if if you put our all these kids in these other places, you're going to have to hire more staff for all of these places and it's

039going to cost the district more money and the and it will end up uh everyone's going to be unhappy that it won't solve the problems and it it's uh it's just so shortsighted. And the other reason it's shortsighted is there are 30 nth graders enrolled for next year. We just need to promote this school and and uh we need to promote the school and replicate that and in a few years we'll have 120 kids in the high school. Most kids would love to be here. They just don't know about it. I didn't know about it. It took us forever to find MLC. So please, please, please, I'm begging you, give us give us a year. Give us a year. We will make it happen. There will be another 30 kids in the next two years.

040And then give us another year. There will be, you know, 90 kids. Give us another year. There will be 120 kids. Please. Thank you. Thank you for considering it. >> My name is Crystal Hilton. H I L T O N. Um my child Oh, sorry. Wait. >> You can go ahead. We'll reset when >> we've been all over PPS and I've worked in some of the schools. Um Fabian and Robert Gray. I worked in the Sun School. Um and I know um most of them are actually toxic. These big schools function like prisons, not schools. They are policing the kids. They are teaching competition and not cooperation. And MLC needs to stay intact so that it can be the model for the rest of the district, frankly. I mean, and just tossing these kids. My

041daughter's already been on a 504 plan. It was awful being followed around um by another person and you know made feel like an outsider and everything. She doesn't have any learning disabilities. She doesn't have any any diagnoses of any sort. She just needed social and emotional support. Um going from school to school to school and trying to find this um she was at the Portland Village school one year which was amazing. She had one year of care and real cooperation in a nice school. her test scores went up by 90% in that one year. I was terrified of when what would happen when she went to IDB Wells and immediately it was it was like um racism, the environment of bullying of the teachers. Um not to mention, okay, here's a way they can save

042money. IDB Wells is using block scheduling without utilizing the cost savings of it. They have seven classes at a time still every other day. AB AB they're cra it's going it's crazy making first of all and the students still have seven classes at a time. The teachers could have half the students at a time and the students could have half the classes at a time. I went through block scheduling already and then I I know how this can work. Um the the district are are they composting food waste? I know that at Robert Gay when they've composed their food waste, they reduced their cost on waste by 80% and at the time only two schools in the district were doing it. And sorry, but how much is the superintendent's admin making? I see no reason

043that any anyone should be making more than a teacher. No offense. Nobody. So you're So you're talking about several times more, you know, per person. and and and they hired an attorney apparently. What? What? This is this is not okay. This is not a good expense. Um way to save the money, spend the money. Um I already mentioned the Chromebooks at a meeting. Um Chromebooks are ruining our kids' education. I know that the the contract um with Bezos, whatever Amazon, who does the Canvas subscription, it started out at $150,000 a year. Now it's $200,000 a year because it can increase by 5% a year. There's all of these wastes of money and they can use pencils, papers, and reusable books. >> Thank you. Hi, good evening. My name is Allison Moer. It's M O S

044E. In 1989, I came to MLC as a 10th grader, a refugee from a traditional school where I was bullied and miserable. At MLC, I found a community filled with love, respect, autonomy, and creative freedom. My intellectual curiosity was nurtured and encouraged, and I graduated in 1992 from MLC. I believe that had I not had the opportunity to go to MLC, I likely would have dropped out. However, because of the care and education I received at MLC, I went on to graduate from PSU with honors and later from Uovo Law School, sixth in my class. Today, my son is a ninth grader at MLC. He's flourishing both academically and socially. MLC continues to foster an inclusive and supportive environment where differences are respected and celebrated. There are no equivalent public high school options in Portland.

045No other public schools with a student- centered approach to learning. It is my understanding that many of the current high school students who transferred into MLC suffered significant bullying and social trauma in traditional middle school and high schools. I fear that if PPS closes the high school, these kids will drop out. These kids are precious. They are brilliant. They deserve a school where they can be themselves without fear. The argument that PPS should close MLC because the school does not offer a robust program is very tonedeaf. These kids need a safe and supportive learning environment, not a wealth of elective options. The high school MLC high school saves lives. I am confident that if you interviewed MLC graduates from the past 55 plus years, you would hear this sentiment echoed over and over again. Also,

046MLC is part of the fabric of what makes Portland special. What makes Portland Portland? I hope you all looked at had a chance to look at the change.org petition in support of the high school. You'll find that over 2100 people signed and over 120 people offered heartfelt testimonies explaining why MLC is important. This school is beloved in our community. The lack of transparency or consideration regarding the proposal to close the high school is dumbfounding. PPS asserts that closing the high school would save a significant amount of money. It's not readily apparent how closing the high school will result in any significant savings to the school district. However, it is very clear that closing the MLC high school would result in the incalculable loss to our community of a legacy bequeathed to us by generations of

047Portlanders. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. Uh we will open this up for board discussion, board questions. >> Thank you. I'd like to start uh here. Thank you. Um, first of all, as a student representative, as a student, um, my heart goes out to everyone who is going to be affected by uh by this change. I think that this is going to be obviously a very massive uh disruption um uh on the district student council. We have uh a representative from MLC and they were we were just talking um about how uh horrible it is and how they uh there was we have a student who uh who was on the DSC last year um who I've been talking with, they were also an MLC student and they were telling me

048how they didn't succeed anywhere else. You know, uh MLC was the only place where they where they felt like they they uh ever actually succeeded um as a student. So, I think MLC is an incredibly special place. Um that being said, I would like to uh frame this conversation a bit. Um first of all, we're look over the past 3 years, our district has cut more than $120 million. This is uh in many cases uh a direct result of the actions and inactions of the state government. Um I say this very frequently. I love to get up on my soap box about school funding at the state level, but we're looking at a real systemic problem here. And if we want to talk about elected officials who don't care about your kids, that's where I

049would start. I would start at the state uh at the state government. I was just in Salem two weeks ago telling, you know, my state representatives how they don't care about me because they don't. They've they've had about 20 years um to figure out how to fully fund our schools under the system laid out under ballot measures five and 50. And they haven't done it. Not one time have they fully funded what they call the QEM, the quality education model. um instead of trying to fix how our schools are funded um or fund our schools, they have decided to sit around and do nothing and sit in the middle, sit in the limbo between fixing the system um and making the system work. And so that's why we're here today. Uh, and it's and it's

050horrible that that this has led to this decision, but I just want to preface that we could be that that even if we manage to save MLC this year, we could be back here next year because we're because these budget cuts aren't stopping until we fix the systemic funding problem, we're going to keep having massive budget cuts like this. And things like this are going to happen. The things that make our community, that make our district special, are going to go away because they cost lots and lots of money. Um, so that's the unfortunate uh I think reality of the situation we're in today, but I just wanted to start it off with that. >> Thank you, >> Director Sullivan. >> Yeah, I'm in a terrible position because I taught at MLC for 20 years

051and and I know what a wonderful school it was. I taught in the primary. So it's a kind of a different school. You know that it's a little different in primary. Um but we as you know interacted interacted with high school teachers, high school students all the time and I know it's a very special place and I don't think I knew how special it was because that's the only place I taught. And later when I've gone to different schools and seen what goes on and my children went to different schools and they were fine. They didn't need something special, but I know lots of kids do. So I the thought of anything closing at MLC makes me very very sad. However, now I'm on the board where I have to worry about all the schools

052in the district who are also having problems, different problems, but big problems with money. And when I heard that Lou Frederick's was here arguing for MLC, he is chairman of the education, he's a senator in this legislature and he's head of the education not department but whatever they call it committee and and I don't think he said anything about any responsibility that he had and they are sitting there with a um education what's stability fund with over a billion dollars in it and they're letting it sit there and they're not helping. So, I'm totally furious about that. I'm sad about MLC. I'm wondering, you know, what I guess your new principal must be doing quite a job of recruiting. And I I would like to ask um some of our um maybe Renard to come

053down and what what would happen if if we got the what did you say 30 30 kids in the freshman class would that make it more affordable or are we still in real trouble or >> I think we'll have the Can you just come back to the microphone since there may be some questions? >> What else are you >> Hi, Director Sullivan. Um, I can start by saying based on um our analysis and I want to open up my um paperwork here. Based on our analysis, if we um wanted to, for example, um get to the same kinds of programming um that we have at Alliance, we would still need about 60 more students. >> Can we ask the audience to please be respectful of discourse? Um, I'm asking more about dollars than programs because

054I know it's a different program. >> Yes. >> So, how about moneywise? Would we still be um so so much more down financially if we had those 30? >> I think what I could share is um anytime you add more students to a school or program, it typically reduces the per student cost. So that certainly is something that would happen. >> So there'd be some savings. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Okay. I it's it's very difficult. I know it's so difficult for it's as difficult for you as it is for me. I know nobody wants to to cut this. But when you talk about what are other schools cutting, I don't think they're closing any other schools, but a lot of schools are having to have huge classes are losing social workers. It's not as

055if the other schools are are getting away free with this huge cut. It's it's terrible for every student, every teacher, every school with this these amount of cuts. It does feel really bad when it's really cutting a program. I don't I really don't have anything else to say, I guess, except it's it's so very frustrating. I think that um Ian's said it very well and I guess that's all I have to say. Sorry. I have um some comments and some questions. Um I want to start by saying that um I grew up in PPS. I'm very familiar with MLC. I have many friends who attended MLC. I graduated from an alternative school. There wasn't a place that worked for me in PPS. Um, so when I listen to your students speak about the community and

056the safety that they experienced at MLC, I understand what that feels like. Um, I have been reassured as a parent to know that MLC exists as an option for my kids who are um, I guess demographically similar to many of the kids at MLC. I understand what a loss this is. Um, you know, student representative RTO uh said it all really well. Um, where we are now is a is a situation that is 30 years in the making. I was in fifth grade, I think, when measure 5 passed. And this is the accumulation of 35 years of neglect on the part of the state of Oregon of our children. We were in Salem as a board last week. I was there yesterday as a parent and the response from our legislators is um more than

057disheartening. We're told that um there's not really anything that we can do about this. And I refuse to believe that. I hope that you all refuse to believe that. Um there are a number of things that can be done about this actually. We need revenue reform as a state. We need tax reform. We need to tap the educational stability funds so that kids can get what they need. We begin the work this year of looking at consolidations and closures over the next year. You were the first community that we're having this conversation with, but you won't be the last. And that is heartbreaking. And this is where we are now. And we shouldn't be here. >> I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, you can email your comments. Thank you. Please don't interrupt. >> Yeah, let's >>

058I respond to emails also. It's impossible to respond to all of the emails, but I've communicated with some of you. Um, I think you know your community is in pain. You're experiencing a tremendous loss and we and our superintendent um are the people here to hold this. Um, but we're at a point where we don't have options. We would we are we are we wouldn't be doing it if we weren't saving money. Nobody wants to cut this program. >> Stop interrupting, please. Or we will move this meeting somewhere else. >> We are closing buildings next year. >> Also, please don't address. >> Okay. >> Please, can you please stop? >> So, I'm I'm just gonna continue. You don't have to address the >> Um, I have a couple of questions. Thank you. Um, one is

059that I know that MLC High School is a safe place for kids who are queer and neurodeiverse. Um, I also know that, um, in a high school population of 40 kids, um, we have a lot more kids in PPS that are queer and neurodeiverse. So, I'm curious about where those kids right now are finding community and, uh, having success in places that are other than MLC. Um I'm also curious about how the principal was engaged in this process and uh what voice and say uh she was able to participate in with this conversation. >> What what I would say about to your thank you for your questions director Chase Miller. What I would say to your first question is we would need to do some research. The only um identity or orientation related information we

060have is the information that students provide when they take the successful school survey. Um but we could certainly look into that to see and look at things. For example, where are non-binary or queer students saying that they don't feel significantly less safe than their um straight or heterosexual peers and things like that. We can certainly do that kind of analysis. Thank you. Again, can we make that available to the MLC community when we've >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> We began a Can I ask this guy the second question? Can I answer that? >> Yeah, please. >> Uh we began the a a process of working with principles in small group called academic program design to look at staffing. We knew we had a budget deficit about $50 million for next year and we knew

061that we had to shift and change things across all of our schools prek through 12 in the next year. um the principal was able to be a part of that process and actually at the end we invited all MPG which is multiple pathways principles and high school principles to be a part of that process because the system really um is connected. We can't have a shift at one school without impacting others. uh during this process um principal Ashley or Principal Hudson was able to be a part of that along the way and also when looking at the reductions that were occurring within the school communities both at comprehensive high schools and alternatives it became pretty apparent that the programming just wouldn't be able to work next year. Dr. Adams showed the sidebyside of what would

062be needed that 7.0 0 and if we were staffing based upon how we staff other comprehensive schools it'd be 2.7 and the program at that point was just not able going to be able to exist in the same way. Um and so we began to have that conversation of you know what does this mean for the school community? Is it viable? Uh and it's continuing like we are currently within staffing in this week with all K12 principles and they're coming into the building talking about making it work. Um and we're seeing reductions across the school district including our high schools. Um and again as you know director Sullivan mentioned it's there are no great answers. We're seeing reductions across the board. >> And then oh sorry I can just add one more um piece around

063M98. So in addition to general fund allocations we were also looking at measure 98 um which funds uh high school um dropout pro prevention, college and career readiness um 9th grade on track um CTE. And so because the state has allocated um a set amount I believe it dipped a bit and then our rising costs in folks right in humans um the allocations for M98 were also dipping. So there was uh it was multiple things happening more than just gen fund and I shared that in the listening session too um that we had to look at that too. So then when you factor in all those programmatic pieces it becomes really challenging. Um, can can any of you speak just preliminarily? Um, this work hasn't really kicked off yet, but what is the district looking

064at like long-term in terms of what schools and programs and buildings we have open? >> So, we are kicking off the process of reviewing previous things we've done. So, Jefferson is rising and the Southeast Guiding Coalition, uh, Margaret Calbert is leading that work. So, getting it, can you hear me now? Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. We are currently beginning that process. Margaret Calvert is looking at both historical things we've done like Jefferson is Rising and the Southeast Guiding Coalition getting a chance to talk to stakeholders within those communities to see what worked and didn't work. So that's not just principles, it's also teachers and staff within those buildings. Um and then making a long-term plan to look at, you know, over the next couple of years starting in this year, you know, what does

065school consolidation look like between schools and programs? Um but that is already begun and it's incurrenly in process. >> Yeah. And I just wanted to add if you think of some of the shifts that have occurred, we have um at least two of our schools who are losing seven or more um staff and another two high schools that are losing six staff. And so while you know it it isn't a close of a of a whole entire grade or or four grades like the number of staff that are are being lost. And then the other thing is when you look across our K5 schools we have schools that aren't able to offer a single grade level at the elementary which is why those classrooms are being blended together with other grades. All of those are

066signaling um the impact of enrollment uh decline and as Dr. Adams mentioned we are seeing double digits in high schools also with a change in title funding some schools have even larger cuts if those have previously been used for staffing and so across the district we are seeing pretty significant impacts to staffing next year. >> Yeah. Um, I was really heartbroken to hear about the impacts at Roosevelt, um, which is a community where families have experienced disproportionate impact from ICE and violence in the community and housing and food instability. And, um, whatever these cuts are in any community, they're they're hurting kids and they're really hard to make. Um, I think this is my last question. Um, how how much money are we saving with this closure? That's on the slide. >> Yes. So, we

067have it on um slide 13. Um projected savings from discontinuing programming in MLC high school grades is $1.1 million. >> Ask your state government where that is. >> Please don't respond to >> um I just Are you done? >> Okay, great. Um I will keep this short. There was um a student and I was going to remember your name. I think your last name is Owen. I'm looking at you. I'm sorry that I don't remember your first name. Um but you said you didn't want to hear platitudes from us. So I will not I will do my best to not do that. Um I just can't not acknowledge the situation. I was a high school teacher. Um I saw high school kids who didn't fit in in my gened population. And I also taught a

068class of kids that were in like a credit recovery that were coming back to our mainstream high school after being at an alternative high school to get their diploma from that same high school. So I have experience working with kids that didn't fit the mold at a public school. Um like the general neighborhood school. Um so I just can't not say that I totally I feel for all of you. Um the one thing that I've had in my on my mind related to this is just if there's a place where if a group of students if all the students wanted to land in one spot um have we considered a way to do that? Is there a school that has the room >> I hear you. Um but >> sorry. Can you continue please? >>

069Um please stop. What I wanted to say is, wow, I thought maybe this might be like a nice idea to try to give kids a chance to stay together. And I just wanted to see if there's been any thought about proactively trying to help kids stay together that wanted to stay together. Every school is a little bit different and so it'll be based upon the student preference or what students are looking for. You can't hear >> this one. That's better. Okay. Uh, every student's different and so, you know, we do have capacity. We see schools that have room to grow. Jefferson as an example where you all have just done work to increase the, um, enrollment at Jefferson High School. But if students are looking for a certain thing, um, you know, it might vary.

070So, we do have capacity at some schools, but it it's based upon student preference. Some might be more interested in CTE, some might be more interested in the culturally responsive programming at NA. It just it depends. But if students wanted to go together, we are working with reconnection services and so they could say, "Hey, we'd love to explore this option together." >> Great. Thanks. >> Um, >> sorry. >> I also wanted to just quickly um offer up that just echoing the thoughts on state government and just the woeful underfunding of our schools over decades. Um the I heard somebody holler out, we're not supposed to know it, but um March 8th at some point, that's the last day of the legislative session. Um it is not too late for you all to be in touch

071with your legislators so that they can understand the effects of their decisions to not um do anything to help us deal with this. Um I hear from the audience and in my email concern that we're doing this not to save money or that it won't. And I just trust that we wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't because of the $50 million hole in our budget that we're facing. Um, and so I just have to get that out that there is a place where you can go and say these same things to people who actually can come up with the money to help solve the problem. And then the last comment that I just wanted to make is I've been hearing in my email and tonight about um some of the bond related work that

072we're doing. And I just want to clarify for everyone so that you all know transparently that the money for our school modernizations is bond money and you can only use it for a very limited number of things. There the like easy way that I remember it is sticks and bricks, things you can touch. Um and so we can't unfortunately use it to pay for staffing. and we already um hire out. I also just want to make clear that we can only levy up to a certain point, which we do, and there's a statutory state set cap on how much money we can raise um via our local levy to support schools, and we're at that cap. So, I just want to make sure you all know like the options that we as a district have

073are very limited, but we um are committed to doing our best to be as efficient as we can be. Um and I just I just have to say that out loud to this audience because high school built in history. That's nice. >> Thank you. I completely missed the point. >> Um I have some prepared statements. I um I'm Michelle and I actually graduated from MLC a long time ago and I loved it. Um it was up to that point the longest I'd ever been at one school. Um because I attended school in Venezuela and Mexico and in Washington DC. And by the way, all of those schools, all that I just mentioned are all closed. Um, and I survived. Um, MLC was really important to me because of the length of time I spent there

074in one place and the people I met. Um, I still have relationships that even weekly with um my my base room teacher, um, my my peers that are older and younger than I am because of the all ages aspect. And I know that Betty Mather, one of the founders of this school, uh, daughter is here, and I shared with her tonight with what an impact Betty had on my experience at MLC. I learned, and this doesn't sound like much, but I learned how to wash out a paintbrush, uh, from her. Doesn't sound like much, but um, I felt seen and heard in a way that as a black student that moved around a lot and it was a new kid in a school um, was really, um, meaningful to me. Um, I didn't learn math,

075geomet geometry, chemistry, Spanish. Uh, nor did we have an environmental focus. What I did learn was design thinking. How to take a lump of clay one day, envision what it could be in a week or two and do that thing to make it look the way that you envisioned. Um, which offers so while we're here listening to community, we also have an opportunity to dream, to envision. And when I attended the school, we had a very uh large focus on design thinking and visioning and visioning um art thinking. So um it's it's possible to have a lump of clay, which is what we have today, and turn it into something beautiful. uh using those those design thinking skills, vision, operating that vision, operationalizing the vision. We also had, which is another change, we had the

076symbol yin and yang, the black and white inverted yin yin and yang symbol, which to me symbolized um looking at things from multiple perspectives, looking at opposites, um looking at feminine, masculine, and um and and the messiness that comes with, you know, not having a lot of gray area. And there's a lot of gray area here, I might add. There were 32 kids in my graduating class and many of them are still in Portland and those that aren't are still in contact. Um, and it's been precious to have those long relationships and and and still continue today. I didn't have access to traditional classes, science and math, or any preparation for college. I attended college as an adult and graduate school as as well into adulthood. um I wasn't prepared to um take on that

077academic challenge. MLC has been changing since it was formed. It was formed 58 years ago and it's changed much like you know hairstyles, waistlines, the trees in the park are bigger. And so I just want to um while I feel I I feel sad about this moment and nostalgic, I also feel uh like we can weather change. Uh we will be resilient as a result. Um, and like someone else up here said already, we >> do something about it. >> Yeah, sorry about that. Um, we have the opportunity to make change. We have the opportunity to envision a future um that that we envision. Um, and and again, we can we can survive change. Um, people do it all the time. We can be resilient to change. Um, and I I I'm going to say

078I don't appreciate the heckling, by the way. feel I feel like it's really disrespectful. Um that's just my thought. You're you're free to say whatever you want. I'm sharing my feelings about it. >> Please stop interrupting >> also >> or we will end this conversation and move on to the next topic. >> So I just I just want to say that we are tasked with being up here thinking about 44,000 children including the 30 that are uh that are high school students here. And it and it's tough. It's it's really it's really challenging. Um, we we care about all kids, including MLC kids, and we have a $50 million budget deficit this year. We had a $40 million last year, a 30 million be the year before that. Um, that does not come without trade-offs,

079and this is one of those trade-offs. Um, anyway, that's those are my comments. >> Thank you, Director Lefort. >> I have some questions answer. I >> I wanted to add I'm sorry, a couple notes about the slides that um were impactful for me tonight and and a question. So slide se seven showed our attendance disagregated by race compared to other alternative schools in our district. The least well served in our district are black kids, Native American and Pacific Islander um which we have very very low numbers at MLC and I don't know if recruitment will um change that because we've been talking about recruitment for literally I've been involved in those conversations for tw over 25 years. Um, slide 13 had the per student spending. Um, and it was quite a range between 28,120 at

080MLC versus 8,729. That was on slide 13. And and that was impactful to me as well. My question has to do with um what there's a slide that talks about how children enter into MLC. Some kids lottery in and then some are referred by reconnection services. Do we know what those percentage um percentages are? >> We can >> said as a parent who couldn't get their child into MLC. >> I can get that answer to you. I don't have it off right now. >> I was just I was just curious if if there was a larger percentage of of students lotterying in versus being referred. I was just curious about the numbers. >> Okay. >> Sorry. Director Lefort. >> Um so I've got some questions and some comments. Um, when was the lottery for MLC

081uh opened and closed this year? >> November 15th to December 15. >> Let me look on that. >> Okay. So, I'll just assume that's correct. Does that sound right? >> I don't know if we have that information in front of us right now. >> Okay. So, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to pretend that what I'm hearing is right and that it was opened on November 15th and closed on December 15th, which would tell me that this decision was made um sometime in the last um two months. Um the numbers for 26 27 for next year, what is the total total enrollment like if we like if we were moving forward? What's the total enrollment right now? on how many students are on the waiting list for all grades. >> So currently MLC's

082projected enrollment for 2627 is as follows. For the 912 it's >> I can't hear him so sorry go ahead. >> For the 912 it's 38 students and for the K8 it's 227 students. Um there were 15 slots open in 9th grade and 15 in 10th grade. There were 26 applicants for 9th grade. So 15 received offers and 11 were added to the wait list. and only two students apply to 10th grade and both received offers. Typically, how it's worked is they will open a certain number of spots and they'll also look at metriculation from 8th grade to 9th grade. Students who are going from 8th to 9th grade are automatically accepted. Then they'd open up the weight list afterwards based upon the number of seats um that are open after that. Uh last year, every

083single student was offered a spot on the wait list um who applied in 9th and 10th grade. So the 38 includes the metriculation and the 15 slots and there's 11 on the weight list. >> Yes. >> Sorry, I'm just doing a little math. Um why do we have a weight list? >> So typically they look at having two sections. So at 9th and 10th grade and 11th and 12th, they open up the uh the weight list to see first how many students will be metriculating in from 8th grade to 9th grade. And once they know that number, they then pull students off the weight list. And so as the example for last year, um all of the students were offered a spot in MLC. It just took a little bit longer to see who was

084coming or metriculating from 8th to 9th grade. I I think where where I'm hoping to go with that is if enrollment is an issue like like why don't we let the 11 who are on the waiting list >> and that was the case last year where everyone was offered a spot from the wait list and so I didn't I don't anticipate that having changed in this current year. Uh it typically just takes a little bit longer to ensure that we know who's coming from the middle school to the high school. >> Okay. Okay. So, it's not our practice to keep kids on the waiting list and intentionally keep numbers low. >> As I know from last year, every single student who was on that weight list was offered a spot at MLC. >> Every student

085on last year's weight list was offered a slot at MLC. Thank you for >> um so you mentioned that um there was a larger conversation with all the PR principles and I was wondering if MLC's principal recommended eliminating the high school grades. >> MLC's principal looked at what was currently being staffed um and was concerned about being able to make the program work at the current staffing level. So, we were able to see across the board at all school staffing levels. And so, every principal got a chance to say, "Here's the impact on our current numbers. Can I make it work?" Like, if we're looking at two sections for each >> Sorry, is that the current staffing level or the what you're forecasting for next year? >> Forecasting for next year. So, looking at that

0862.7 number, it's just not possible to make the programming work at the school if we're staffed in the certain the same way as other schools are. So, I just want to say um for me, I do view this as a school closure. Um I don't believe that we should conflate eliminating MLS's high school with consolidations. Um the group of students, they're not moving as a cohort like you would with the consolidation. Um, and I realize we're in a budget crisis, but we don't have a true fiscal impact statement, which is something that we would receive if this followed board policy. So, for me, I don't really know what that hard number is. I saw the numbers in the deck um that you presented um and they were different than what was in the budget book

087from last year. So, it was really difficult to understand. I wasn't necessarily able to compare apples to apples. And I really would love to know what the the real bottom line is. Um and I have real concerns about splitting up uh a group of high school students like this. Research shows that um implementing and voluntary uh moves at this age is detrimental to students across the board. I'm not trying to um and it's signific there's a lot of research that says that this significantly um has a negative impact on student outcomes and um I think even the most welladjusted students struggle with something like this and you know I attended the listening session um I'm on the TLE committee and heard testimony in our meeting I think it was last week um and it was

088compelling um I would personally prefer that we pause um back up and start with a fiscal impact statement. So if we truly if we truly need to close the high school um we can have that uh conversation in a way that is student centered and engages these families. This is a really big deal. Um so I just I don't I was taken by surprise. The community was obviously taken by surprise. So, um I I would really have loved to have seen this uh done differently. Go. You just got your side. I'll call on director to pass or sorry, vice chair to pass first and then director Englesman. I was just going to say that um >> we have a bunch of hard decisions in front of us and we're um we're we're going to have

089lots of trade-off. We're not going to be a able to um get everything that we hear from community. We've heard from Crestston Ainsworth Dunaway Roosevelt um trying to think uh Woodlon Peninsula Cos Chavez. So, I just want to impress on people that we have 40,000 students over 40,000. We have really, really tough budget decisions and bouncing it down the road isn't going to help because at the end we're going to have trade-offs to make that are going to cut across the board. The last few years I've been on the board, we cut fat. We're now into muscle and bone as I think a student uh representative Rorto said a couple meetings ago. Um, it's not fun and it's not easy and there are trade-offs that are going to be made regardless. It doesn't matter the

090community. Again, we've heard from multiple school communities, all very, very passionate. >> Are you closing those? >> Please don't interrupt, please. >> Are you >> uh, Director Englesman? >> Thank you. Um, I'm sorry I'm late. Uh, I would like to make um something exciting about my kid in OB, but I know this is a very serious situation, so I don't want anyone to think I was doing anything disrespectful and being late. Um, I'm glad I could be here at the very end for this important conversation. Um, I appreciate that we have 44,000 students that we have to figure out because the state won't fund us properly, how we're going to deal with next year. However, to me, process is critical because without process, we don't have transparency and we can't build trust in our communities.

091And thank you. Um, without a process, which many up here have behind the scenes heard me say, the outcome is not what is my focus right now. My focus is the process. in the court systems. Um we had judges whom I respect greatly teach us as new and older lawyers that um process is important for our clients because when they come to court if they understand how things are going to go and they feel heard and they feel seen, they can feel part of the process even if the process doesn't go their way. Um and so I hold that very true. Um I also have a unique experience of being someone who was uprooted constantly. Um, I moved halfway through third grade, halfway through fifth grade, half at the end of seventh grade, at the

092end of eighth grade, and at the end of nth grade. And I can tell you that it is extraordinarily traumatic if it's not done right. And it's hard to do right at this age where it is so critical for people to have a community and to be able to make decisions and be part of that. Um I am still I like I still have those scars of being uprooted against my will because my parents were moving all over the world. Um and so the process part is both important to me because it builds the transparency and the trust that our district is trying to do and it also has um personal impacts on me that I don't want to see us recreate if we don't need to. the result may end up being the same,

093but just like we did with Jefferson, just like we're going to do with the redistricting and the resizing and the right sizing, whatever we're calling it, right sizing, we are going to be making this a community effort. Um, and we owe that to our constituents, our people, our families, our students to make this a process that they understand and they see and they don't feel like rugs are being pulled out. Um, I also heard from someone who had an idea that I, um, I was just reading it on the way here, not while driving before. Um, I understand that, uh, Alliance, Jefferson, and >> Benson. Um, I appreciate that those three have been offered. Um, and that obviously people have their neighborhood high school as an option, but if we're trying to keep this cohort

094together regardless of the outcome, I would like to see it that the school can decide collectively or groups can decide collectively and that we should open up any school to them because they might be able to find someone, some student might be able to find their better fit at Cleveland or at Grant or at Lincoln um or at at McDaniel um instead of being limited um or going to their neighborhood schools. So, um I have, you know, great appreciation for the task at hand of figuring out how to deal with our budget crisis. However, process is something that I will never let slide. Um and so my concerns over the last few weeks and tonight remain with this just being and I agree with Director Leford. I see this is closing a school. Um you

095are a community. You are not you are a community. You are a school. SO, I'M JUST UM, YEAH, I'D LIKE TO go ahead to to say a few more things here since I spoke at the beginning. Um, all my questions have pretty much been answered by other members uh of the board. I had many of the same questions. Um, I do think that this was um a failure of process. Um uh I was disappointed and I was and I was surprised that I was hearing about it um from my uh from my fellow students on the district student council and I was like why hasn't the district said anything about it and I and I was further disappointed the district didn't have a public statement um on it for uh you know until I guess

096I guess this is this is it. This is the big public um I guess uh event. Um and so that's definitely uh a a big thing. I I think that also the uh I would have liked to see some equivalencies in the slideshow like in terms of putting that that that those dollar amounts um and those FTE in context. You know, what does that look like at a different school? Um because it just didn't it didn't feel like it fully got there for me in terms of proving um the uh how this would be a benefit to the district as a whole. um because at at a base level again closing a school is going to have a massive negative and so I think we there is a pretty a pretty high um burden to

097overcome at least at least for me to to say that uh especially a program like MLC that closing it is a good idea. Um but again this this is this is a hard year um for us budget-wise and it's probably going to be a hard year next year. Um, I I I've heard some some questions about, you know, what else is being closed? What, you know, where else? Uh, that that right sizing conversation is still yet to come. I do think that the that that conversation might end up with more schools getting closed. It's just MLC happens to be the first um the first one that that we know about. Um the the 50 million by and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe the 50 million is 50/50 uh district uh and

098central office. So that's 20. So half of all of the budget cuts this year are going just to the central office. Um so people ask where are the central office cuts? That's where they are. Um and again this again comes off the backs of years and years of cuts. Um also we're currently fighting a lawsuit with the federal government because of our I believe it's because of our DEI program. Um correct. So um so it's like we unfortunately we have that costs money. We have to fight that. So, it's it's an it's an incredibly hard year for us. This is this is an incredibly hard decision. Um, and and and yeah, I'm I'm put in a really in a really tough spot. Um, but if if if it were if it were in front of

099me right now as a resolution, I would I would not vote yes. Um, so what is the what is the process with this? Like when we vote on the budget, is this folded into that or is it its own vote? >> Yeah, I appreciate you asking the question and actually I wanted to comment on process um because just the word process with with the absence of um context is a little misleading. Um, I do believe, we believe that we followed board policy. As you know, what governs us as a school system is board policy, state law, federal law. And so, we followed policy. Um, and that's board policy 6.10.030. Um and so when we talk about like process I the first the comments around um you know not going out to the district or other

100folks hearing about it. It was important for us to inform the MLC community first and so they were the very first ones to get the message and then after that we had um a communication plan to get the information out to the rest of the places. The process actually started with the engagement of our leaders around um recommendations for um our current, you know, $50 million deficit that uh Chief Howard spoke to. Then after that process is where then we began to figure out, you know, the implications, make plans, and then get out and make sure that we inform the the community. Like there are many things in our our budget plan or scenario or recommendations where we didn't go and you know ask groups the specific question well if not this then what or

101um to give them an opportunity to speak further. I mean there's just some things that we had listed that we're not able to afford and um MLC 9 through 12 is one of those things. And so that's just the process. >> Oh, but when when when do we how do we vote on this or when do we vote on this? What is that? >> Oh, the vote. I'm sorry. So, the board votes on the budget in June. Um, that's when the budget typically takes place per board policy. And under the Oregon Department of Education, there wasn't a call out singular vote for the um the issue that we're discussing today. And so um yeah, I don't know how how else to answer that. Now, if there's a different interpretation of a policy or if you

102know the board believes that we acted um outside of that board policy, now would be the time to inform us of that. um and or Oregon um Department of Education um their rules and and what they have set up to to govern also how school districts operate within state law. If there is a belief that that wasn't followed, then we are um that that now would be the time to to share that with us now. But um I believe firmly with not only our council but the interpretation from uh leaders at Oregon uh department of education who confirm that uh we took the appropriate actions that we were within the letter of the law. So >> So I've heard like just via word of mouth that this is a decision that has to be made

103by it's either this Friday or next Friday. But it sounds like this is not this is a part of the vote the vote that we do in June. So is there a hard deadline on this or is there opportunity for a cost analysis as director Leaport spoke to? >> Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think we can always provide the board with information that you're seeking. And I I have a feeling that as we open up into our robust budget conversation that begins in April and continues on until final adoption in June, that there'll be many questions that you all have as a board and want other information or supporting or supplemental information on and we will make sure that we provide that to the board. >> Um, I have a question. Do

104have we had outside legal counsel look at this um question about whether we're following the letter of the law, which I don't I I believe we are, but I I think it might be helpful to understand. >> Excuse me. Yes, we had um outside council take a look at all the relevant statutes and make sure on the school closure part that we met all of the statutory. The policy interpretation and application is something that that we we the staff looked at, but the actual regulatory law and landscape. Yes, we had that double checked with outside counsel. >> Thank you. >> Students, not statutes. >> Can I go? >> Yeah, go ahead. >> You you haven't said anything yet, but >> go ahead. >> Um, so I just want to go back to when the decision

105was made. So, if the lottery was open between November 15th and December 15th, when were notices sent out to parents telling them that they had received a slot >> in January. And I can talk about both those things. Sorry. There's two different lotteryies at MLC. There's the primary lottery which is currently open. So, that opened on March, sorry, February 18th and closes on March 18th. The previous lottery for the high school opened up in November of November. the 12th and closed December 12th. And parents and families got letters in January saying if they got into MLC >> when in January? >> Uh I'm not sure. >> The 15th, it sounds like. >> And when were families notified about the closure? >> Uh two Tuesdays ago. >> So a couple weeks after those notifications went out.

106What drove um the decision being made so late? Okay. Go ahead, Chief Howard. Speak to the budget engagement process again, please. >> Yes. So, we um Sorry, can you hear me? Um we had been working with principles um for the last couple of months, engaging in looking at um our enrollment trends and looking at um how much things cost, looking at projected staffing numbers and having those conversations. Um and then we went into a community with a a draft list um and got feedback on that. Came back together, took that feedback, continued to look at other other areas while still analyzing our numbers, analyzing our staffing allocations, continuing to work with principles around programming and then that's when the decision was made. So the community engagement happened for the draft list what mid January. Um

107and all along we were still seeking feedback and understanding okay what are we doing as a result of the engagement and then also still analyzing where our numbers were at. I mean we're still analyzing right we're analyzing every day on enrollment trends staffing allocations um and where we're at. So after just as we're talking today like I still don't what's frustrating to me is that I don't know how MLC fits into a holistic conversation about school closures which is how as a board member I envisioned something like this working. Um I'm not as concerned about what outside counsel tells us about whether or not we're following the law. I'm more concerned about the spirit of our board resolution and I feel like we're way outside of that. Um, so I would say I'm going to

108echo what student director RTO student represent RTO said that if this were in front of me as a standalone resolution, um, I would vote no because it isn't part of this holistic conversation. I don't know how much it's going to say. >> Yeah, I appreciate that. And I think as I said earlier, like if I if if the if the board um feels as if we were um our interpretation of your policy was um incorrect or uh misaligned, we are prepared to hear that. Um like I said before like you know we believe that we were operating within uh policy within law but if there is some other interpretation now would be the time uh for us to know so that um we can go a different direction if that's um you know per policy

109we would need to um so >> just yeah just to quickly build on that you know uh thank you so much you got kind of to the heart of what I meant when I originally said a failure of process. I think that you know that that yes, you guys probably followed the policy in the letter, you know, in the letter of the law correctly. Um, but I think that that there was certainly an opportunity to look at this situation as unique, you know, and view that and say maybe this situation is different and maybe this uh maybe we should attempt a a wider approach, you know, just because this is a special situation. Um so that's the all that I would say um is that in a situation like this you know in the future

110I would I would heir on the side of of community engagement um even even if the you know the the specifics of the policy say otherwise um just because again the community has been so hurt uh by this you know as as we've seen here today um that they've showed up here today to to show their support for MLC um and and so and so clearly they would have liked to be engaged um earlier and and if that's not the policy then we then then we should look at at changing that or at least changing the interpretation. I appreciate I I just want to say thank you soon director Rotoro. I do agree if there are some things within our policy that are unclear and there's an opportunity through policy committee to make clear as

111we begin this journey. We will not be operating within the spirit or applying our own individual interpretations to special circumstances. we um lead through policy and I think it's really important that our language is clear and because we are going to be back here multiple times and there is no school that or any any group of grades um that will be closed that doesn't impact a student that's already on the continuum through that school. So, we will be back here having other conversations about other schools with passionate community and students. And so, the clearer we are in what we're able to make decisions on um I think the better for all. >> I I agree. I think we do we do need to follow our own policy. Um and then because and that's why we

112have it so we can apply decisions across the board. Um, so I I mean we've gotten out inside council, outside counsel confirming that we followed our own policy. And I guess we could spend more money and get maybe a second outside counsel. I I don't know how that works, but we're spending money trying to figure out how to save a little bit. It doesn't make sense to me. >> Well, um, certainly the legal team can look at anything without additional, the internal legal team, but I also want to call out they're your policies. So if they are unclear, that's an opportunity for I I guess I'm just as the lawyer repeating and reiterating and emphasizing what Dr. Armstrong just said. They're your policies. We the staff operate at your direction. And so if there is

113an opportunity for clarity that you want to tell us, then then that's yours. So it's not I guess what I'm trying to say and not very articulate saying this really isn't a legal issue because you can write what the policies that you want and tell the board the board can tell us what to do. So I guess I would I I just want to clarify that's not really a legal issue. >> Okay. Thank you. It's a a board policy issue. Thank you. So I think when this started there was some inter- confusion at least when I started looking at this um was MLC or is MLC a program or is it a school? It is a school legally. Our policy has a process that we follow for school closures, but I feel like what we're

114looking at is almost a technicality um because we're talking about um eliminating four grades and somehow that doesn't count as a school closure. So, we're in this kind of weird gray area. >> Yeah. I I think it's a program culture. A program closure, not not a school. >> It's a school legally high school. >> Okay. Thank you. We're moving on. >> We got confirmation of >> Yes, we had confirmation. >> Can I moment? >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Is the confirmation that it was a school or a program? >> MLC K12 is a school >> grades. But that let me clarify that is one school that's confirmed with OD. the the grades with the separate 9 to 12 is not a school and the same thing happens when you look at K8 moving to K5

115that six seven and eight that's not a school closure so it's the way the OD looks OD looks at it and the way your policy is written suggests that it's K12 again the legal part the statutory part of what a school is is a statutory interpretation the rest of it is board policy within your purview you. >> So, uh I wasn't sure if anyone else had you want to >> No, go ahead. >> Um so, for me, when I'm trying to figure out is this a school or a program, I think about my fifth grade, my sixth graders who just switched from one elementary school to a middle school and they switch schools. Um we are now telling MLC eighth graders that they can't continue on in their school and they have to go to

116a different school. So, clearly they are switching schools in our closure. So for me, this is a the semantics of it is what we're talking about right now. But the kids who no longer can continue on in their school because it doesn't exist anymore have to go to a different school. And we would never say that that's the same program because they're going to a different high school. So the semantics of this are and I also the some of the process concerns I have this feels very rushed if I learn that letters that the like if we were going to do this we shouldn't have opened a lottery for students to lottery in and frankly we shouldn't have sent letters to then two weeks later shock people who are excited to get in in the

117same way that people are excited to get into any of our lottery schools um to take that away and the reason that this is important in two ways. For the students that we're impacting, it's also concerning to me because our other programs and schools out there don't know if we'll do this to them too because we are starting this now. And I I guess you asked I can't remember how you put it very well and I don't remember what you said but you said something like if we're doing this wrong I would like to be the one that says I believe that we did this wrong and that we should pull all the way back and if we are having a right sizing conversation and I learned today that we're going to start seeing the

118initial list sometime in the fall and that we'll be voting on that in December. I believe that this conversation should be part of that conversation because to someone someone who said it um we may end up in this whole right sizing conversation we may end up realizing that we need MLC when we're closing something else. Um, so I don't I appreciate that there's a budget crisis, but the rushness of it, the the the taste in people's mouths, the concern for other families in other schools and other programs and other buildings also, we might I mean, we might we might need this. So for me, I would say this decision cannot be made. It should not be part of our budget this year. It should not be part of a conversation we're having. Um, and we

119when we start having the right sizing conversation where we're going to involve all of the district families, I hope at least that's what I was I'm hearing. And I think that's great. And I was really profoundly moved by how the district did the Jefferson and all of the other programming. Um, and so I would like to be the one that says, "Yes, I think we did it wrong. We should acknowledge that. Move all the way back and then start again. So, where do you what do we cut instead? >> Well, I I mean, I don't think that's how we do this. Um, we're going to have to cut No, no, no. But I mean, like for these families here, we were never cutting anything this year. Um, and then suddenly we're cutting something now. which

120should be part of the budget crisis conversation that we're having in with everything where all of our families are being engaged and they're going to Cleveland and like that is not I mean it's I appreciate that that is the knee-jerk reaction to say what do we cut instead but that's not the >> appro it's not the appropriate for these families and for this decision this should if we're closing something it should be part of the grander bigger conversation of closing anything which we are going to have to do acknowledge that so Yeah, >> I just >> just want to >> so I appreciate what you're um saying, Director Englesman. Um I guess I wonder not necessarily about whether something was done wrong or right. I think it's more of a policy question and if it

121is um a a broader conversation around around the board policy. Um, and I just want to just reiterate as I know we have a budget update, you know, we're facing a $50 million deficit and if we had the opportunity to take all of the things that we're listing out, we have 300 FTE that we're reducing and if we had a runway to spend a year on that and having folks weigh in, um, we would we would do that. And and so I I'm wondering if you're asking about um the policy and if um you believe that it needs to be made more clear and this is an example of being out of policy through you all's interpretation. Um I think that that would then mean that we would need to do something different. Um, >>

122so I I also want to reply a little bit quickly as well. When we went through, for example, DRA and the Southeast Guiding Coalition, a lot of schools in the last 5 years were changed from K through 8 to middle schools or changed through K through 5. And that wasn't a school, you know, that wasn't closing a school, but it was also diverting a lot of kids to a whole different bunch of schools. So, there is precedence for this. And I'm I'm a little bit worried about this discussion about changing policy one for for a couple reasons is because when what I've seen in the past and by the way this is not directed at the MLC community at all. This is in general. I'm talking about in general what we have seen historically in

123the past is that oftentimes there's bends in rules or or or uh looking reooking at the policy especially when certain communities come out in full force. And that often leads what? It often leads places like uh in the outer southeast that serve historically disadvantaged uh families feeling unheard and unseen. And this don't think this didn't just happen. This just happened to my kids school. this just happened to outer southeast during the SCGC process. And so there's a very real danger in terms of saying, "Hey, um, you know, we're going to relook at this because of some outcry." And and this is basically history repeating itself over and over again. I grew up in Chicago. This is what we called redlinining in Chicago. And so what I really want to bring up is that we have

124I want to reiterate, we have a very short runway like Dr. Armstrong said. I mean we have seven FTE devoted to almost 40 students. No just just pure math. I know that sometimes there's some of these teachers over cross over to middle school and teacher. So let's just say 5ft FTE may be saved in this. We are looking because of $50 million in cuts. We are looking at a zero sum game. This is a zero sum game which means saving some here is going to take from somewhere else. Now, in a in a high school, other high school, what I've seen also in the past when cuts have happened, I'm looking at 2010, is that often the least protected disciplines are cut. And why I purposely said least protected because um it's not the least

125important. It's just least legally protected. I'm thinking about art teachers. I've never worked an entire uh more than two years where the art teacher I worked with didn't get cut or be reinstated or go back to part-time and it was just unstable because art is one of the least protected. It's also a place where a lot of our especially of our a lot of our neurody divergent students tend to cluster uh among. So if we're looking at worst case scenario again there's a range about what this impact but say for example if we preserve 5ft here uh a typical high school load is about 150 160 students let's say 150 for um just to be conservative uh that means if we cut six art teachers from six school or sorry five art teachers from five

126schools that's 750 students that are being affected. So what I'm talking about here is that it it is a zero- sum game. This is this is something where decisions now have consequences later and unfortunately you know we we do have to go through the progress of you know where are we going to cut where we going here and again I do agree the best approach is looking at the systemwide the people best able to do that is you know I remember the process last year where where you know gather all the school leaders figure out where where we can cut what are things that you know are super valuable and things like that you know that process is the process to make wise decisions are equity based and to veer away from that which I

127am very concerned um where this discussion is going is now going to be veering away from perhaps an equity based system. And so >> so this is again I'm bringing that up because decisions here have consequences later. And if we're going to let history we have to be very deliberate and very intentional when we make our decisions so that it's not going to result in the same thing which is our communities that feel left out continue to feel left out. And I I I want I can't reiterate that strong enough because um we're looking at another 300 FTE that we need to cut and it never none of them are going to be easy, right? This is going to be a hard discussion for the next year and the year after. So um I said

128my piece if there's any last questions or comments, we are at time. I do have one one last comment just in terms of demographics that 53% of MLC's student body is underserved. Um so I just wanted just to to call that out. I was looking at demographics yesterday and I just want to be clear with my thoughts that I do not believe that we are following board policy. Uh the notification for something like this has to happen in January and um so that families have notice and this I just firmly believe this needs to be start part of a larger conversation. We can't cherrypick schools, which is what this feels like. So, it's against our policy. >> Um, where are the de where's the de the underserved population? >> Uh, under the enrollment data on

129the PPS website. >> Okay. Because we had a presentation that doesn't bear that out, but maybe I'm looking. >> They didn't put in socioeconomic status. So, that's probably why it wasn't You guys must have chosen not to include that number. >> We didn't. There was only space on the slide. >> Okay. >> I wasn't speaking about MLC's >> demographics specifically. I'm talking about the general process. I've seen this happen before with lot of community support will show up. Again, thank you for showing up. I'm not saying anything about MLC's community where a lot and they through those actions have swayed decisions by the board that have resulted in downstream effects that were less than equitable. And I think again this is not criticizing this situation but it it's what the the reason I'm pointing this

130out is because um if if the board again traditionally historically responds to the communities that show up that is cherrypicking in a way because it is allowing certain communities to have a louder voice than others. >> No again I understand what you're saying. >> I think I think I'm not against my decision. We are not in my my mind we are not following board policy. This should be part of a larger conversation. We're going to be having a very difficult consolidation process. We may come to the same decision but to do this as a one-off just doesn't feel right. >> Okay. I don't disagree with you there. Could you could you highlight and share with the board exactly where in the policy that is not following? >> I can pull it up. Sure. >> Sure.

131May I make a comment as a person that's been in Portland for a very long time? I was born here, went to high school here. Um, is there some way we can look at the historical uh outcomes from school closures and uh busing and some of those uh decisions that were made by I'll say all-white boards uh in the 70s and 80s up until very recently that resulted in uh kids from my community being bust out of the community, schools in my community and in my neighborhood being closed. Um, and and it's not just Portland, it's Chicago, it's it's it's all over the country. So, if we could maybe have some real uh historical data presented to us about outcomes and how these decisions that seemingly are neutral um how they end up disproportionately harming

132communities of color. >> Thank you. >> I just like to see some history. >> We are at time so we're going to move on. >> Can I just say one more thing? Just >> let me make a request. I'll call it to you. Um I do want to actually more maybe specify director or sorry vice chairs of passes request a little bit more. I think it would be nice to have in the last 10 maybe 15 years if you can um a list of all the schools have gone through programming or enrollment changes or boundary changes to so that we can see when we make these bigger decisions or we look at the bigger picture to see which schools have been impacted more often than not uh especially recently and you know after the SEGC

133after DRA I think it's really important to see which communities have really borne the brunt a lot of the brunt of uh these boundary changes uh and and >> Okay. Um and then Danglesman >> and then we need to move on. >> Yeah. >> I just um I just had one um if we had you mentioned Southeast Guiding Coalition. If we had followed something similar to Southeast Guiding Coalition, which as I understood it took if not many many months, I think it actually took a couple of years of community exact two years of community engagement. So I think to say that we have precedent for doing it this way and then relying on something that took two years to do is comparing two things that are not the same. So if we had a process

134here that was 2 years or even 6 months it would feel like we were following precedents. That's all >> I just want to clarify the SGC process was a engagement process when the decision came about changing K through 5. That's the part I was discussing and that was uh because certain schools uh changed through K through 5 from middle from K through 8 was not considered a school closure. That that makes sense. That's the only part I was commenting on, not on the whole process. >> Sharon, do you do you have the policy number for the school closure policy? >> Maybe 6.1.030. So 6. Yeah. Okay. >> Thank you. you can share that with me later. Um, thank you for your time. Um, this did go over about 50 minutes. So, thank you for everyone

135their patience and thank you staff for answering questions. We are now moving on to the next topic. uh can you we can talk after the board meeting or maybe email because we do need to move on with our >> I can't and again it's not a simple answer. So thank you Sharon, can I have some water? Is there an extra cup where I can have a little bit of water? It's okay. Oh boy. >> Where you can sit comfortably and I can phone a friend when I get a question. It's fine. I don't care. Uh, let's do a threem minute break so people can potty and stuff. >> I'll meet Isaac for questions about the graduation. All right, let's uh >> Mosy on back. Let's get started again. pass each other. >> All right. Next.

136Next up, we have our data dive uh winter graduation postsecondary readiness for class of 2025. I'll hand this over to Superintendent Armstrong. >> Absolutely. We're excited to present data for the class of 2025 and I will turn it over to the team to get the presentation started. Thank you. >> Good evening again. Uh Renard Adams, Chief Accountability and Equity Officer for the District, joined by uh Senior Chief Christina Howard and Chief of Schools Dr. Isaac Cardona. um pleased to be able to share our most recent data on our graduating class of uh 2025 with the board as um we're trying to model what we expect to see in schools and classrooms. These are our this is our learning target and our success criteria. uh we want you to learn about the current rates of graduation

137completion and post-secary readiness for the class of 2025 so that you can in so that you can articulate those rates as well as the targeted actions that we're taking in response to the data. So let's start by talking about graduation and completion rates. I wanted to first take a moment to unpack and define graduation rate. I realize I should have done this a couple years ago or every time, but it's not as um I've I've had comments that um have helped me understand that some people believe it's as simple as the number of students in 12th grade who graduate over the number of students in 12th grade. And it's not that straightforward and simple. In the US, the grad rate is defined by the nth grade cohort of students. So that's everybody who entered nth

138grade in the same year. And then from there we look at the four-year graduation rate. We take all the students from that cohort who graduate within four years. And the denominator is the original original cohort plus any students who transferred in who were also nth grade in that same year even though they weren't in the same school minus any students who transfer out or any students who unfortunately pass away. So it's a really pretty comp it. our high schools are used to the computation, but it's not just a straight numerator denominator division um problem. So, I wanted to share that for the class of 2025, the 4-year cohort graduation rate is 82.5%. This represents a decrease of 1.4 percentage points from the class of 2024 and also represents the third year of declines in graduation

139rate. and we're going to talk um later about what we're doing about that. When we look at our 10-year completion rates, similar to graduation rate, you notice that our data have crested and have now declined twice in the past three years. Five years is even more complicated because it includes um students who graduate with a diploma, a GED, a modified diploma. So, it's um a larger group of um typically is a larger it encompasses a larger group of students. >> You started with fractions, so we're going to need some help. Go ahead. >> And is it five years? >> In five years, yes. Instead of four. So four years is just they got their >> diploma or modified diploma or modified diploma. Then as soon as you add in fiveyear, you're giving other alternative pathways

140to be considered. >> Absolutely. Like a GED. Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. Leading with fractions. >> Sorry. It's the math. It's the math person. >> Very unstable. When we look at our graduation rates by student group, which is shown on the slide, our four-year graduation rate, we see that all students of color saw a decline in four-year graduation rate of between.2 percentage points and 4.8 percentage points. On a positive note, our students with disabilities are showing marked improvement in their graduation rates, returning to a rate of nearly 72%. Five-year completion rates typically see a slight increase from the four-year graduation rate as more students are successfully crossing that stage. As we saw with our graduation rate, special education completion rate showed the greatest improvement while our English language learners and

141our native students saw the largest decline in completion rate. Next, we'll look at uh graduation rate by high school. Twisted a slide. I um this slide shows the trend data. McDaniel, Roosevelt, and Wells saw slight increases in graduation rate while all of our other high schools showed a decrease. I'll linger here so you can look at that. As we have noted with completion rate overall and by student group, it typically follows the trend of graduation rate for the class of 2025. Here we see some high schools holding steady while others are seeing a decline in the number of students who are completing high school within five years. So that's the what our graduation rates are down and we know and it's been three years of them steadily decreasing. And so now I want to talk

142about the so what. Now we talked about the what, we'll talk about the so what and then we'll talk about the now what of graduation rate. So we did some analysis into the data. We pulled high school leaders together. Uh we've had multiple conversations with them. We've visited campuses and this is these are some of the things we've learned by looking at our data and um looking for root causes. First, we know that time in PPS we're really understanding that time in the system matters. When students are with us for four years, our graduation rate for those students is 96%. And as you see in the second time matters time in PPS matters section of the slide, those graduation rates really decline when students have been in a PPS high school for three years or

143two years or just one year. These are some additional insights that we found. Um, as you know, we have these persistent and generational racial disparities and we are still have so much work to do in recognizing difference and celebrating and supporting it without allowing it to predict student outcomes. We are um language barriers. We are not doing as well with our multilingual learners as we would like to be doing. Um, as a system, we have to continue to find ways to strengthen the academic supports for those learners. In terms of special education, our students with disabilities are showing some progress and we know that this is an area where Chief Bruno and um Dr. Kelly Charles, our senior director of special education, have been focusing time and effort and working with principles in schools. And

144so we are thinking that we might need to replicate that support for other student groups. And then we also have been looking at our data systems both what we centrally can provide to schools and then the data systems and tracking mechanisms that they use inhouse to monitor student progress and metriculation towards graduation. We recognize that there um can and will be improvement there and we can strengthen our communications and our trainings regarding um the data that you need to look at and can look at in order to make sure students are doing well and really to ensure that every student has a plan. Right. And so now what um a group of uh senior directors under the direction of senior chief um Howard have come up and worked with principles and we have a plan

145that we're tenatively calling project graduation. It's an immediate and it's a short-term and a long-term plan at once. It will include a regular ongoing series of focused support meetings where we'll be working with our high school leaders, identifying those root causes, looking at our data and practice gaps, learning from each other. Um where where Dr. Cardona may be doing it differently and getting a better outcome than I am. We want to under we want to highlight unearth that and understand it. And um talking we also want to talk about supports that are needed for schools and students. The why is, you know, was pretty obvious to us when we got the data. We're in a three-year decline. It's not trending in the right, that's not the right direction. We want to trend in and it

146signals the need for increased and targeted supports for students and schools. And what this is is really a collaborative all hands-on deck effort. Um we have our high school principles and we have central office team representation from academics, student support services, the equity team and the data and accountability team are all sort of wrapping our arms around our high school principles and our high school students to try to see if we can drive some increased support and improve some of the outcomes that our students are experiencing. So in terms of post-secary readiness, we also um want to share the uh readiness level of the class of 2025 and I'm here to say that it actually increased. So that is a little piece another piece of good news. Uh in terms of post-secary readiness, there are

147multiple ways that a student can demonstrate post-secary readiness. They can do so through advanced placement courses, through successful completion of international baloret courses or dual credit courses. They can complete a career and technical pathway. They can attain the seal of biiteracy which requires an assessment or they can achieve a post-secary readiness score as measured by the PSAT, the SAT or the ACT. So students have multiple options in how they demonstrate their post-secary readiness and show that they're ready for college, career, and beyond. Overall, post-secondary readiness is at its highest level in nearly three years, returning to the percentage it was in 2021 2022. For the class of 2025, almost 72% 71.7% of graduates demonstrated post-secondary readiness. And notably, all racial and ethnic subgroups saw an increase in their post-secary readiness except for our Pacific Islander

148students whose performance and readiness level remain pretty flat. Next, and we're almost at the point for questions. Uh, this graphic has been shared with the board before. This visualizes our post-secary readiness continuum. Post-secondary readiness, as you may be aware, uh, begins with our eighth grade to 9th grade transition, which includes our eighth grade success teams connecting with our ninth grade success teams to plan on how to support incoming students. for ninth grade on track. All of our high schools have nth grade students in communities, which means that for the most part, students share the same three core content teachers, which allows for teachers um and students to get to know one another and deepen their relationships. The ninth grade success teams include a school lead and three core content teachers who receive a release period

149to meet regularly to collaborate, re review student data, and develop, implement, and monitor student interventions. All ninth grade students are expected to receive uh the high-quality instructional materials that we provide and the necessary tiered supports to prepare them for career and techn career and technical education and or advanced coursework. Advanced coursework whether it is uh advanced placement, international balorate and or dual credit is offered at all of our high schools. These co these classes prepare students for college and allow them the opportunity to earn college credit. Throughout students high school experience, students are receiving career exploration and post-secary advising and participating in activities connected to their post-secary plans. Credit completion and recovery options are provided throughout high school and students are enrolled in our indist fit for them. We believe that these supports together contribute

150to our increase in our post-secary readiness scores. So the headline is graduation's down a little, post-secondary readiness is up a little. Um, and with that, I'd like to we'd like to take any questions you might have about these data and what we're trying to do about them. >> Director Slate, >> thank you. Um, I just have a few questions. Um, and some of you may or may not have answers for. Um, I am wondering what we feel like might account for variation in graduation rates across demographically similar high schools. Um, I uh noticed that there were sort of like my understanding of like our demographics and socioeconomic sort of dynamics across the schools. Sometimes you see just different results like Lincoln is significantly lower than Grant for example and generally I think we all kind

151of think of them as being similarly situated. So I'm curious if we have like looked at what might cause differences there. >> Sure. One of the things we saw when we looked at the data um one we know we had we encountered some um data processing challenges this cycle. Um there were uh reductions in central office on the data team. So we had new people doing new responsibilities as we've spoken to principles. Some principles have also had new people in new responsibilities working on this work. And so there was a little bit of a misstep there. Um we also noted and what we were >> to be really clear before we move on. So we just saw numbers that you think some of the issues they're just the wrong the numbers are wrong. I we

152have an opportunity every year to um look at the file of students um because unless you know where a student went to when they leave you, they still count in your denominator, which lowers your rate. So, we have an opportunity every fall to look at the list of students who've left and try to confirm where they are currently so that they don't inadvertently count in your denominator and count against you. So, we know we had some staff there. Um, at the same time in in um when I'm thinking about the two schools you mentioned, I'm thinking about the difference in some of their students of color graduation rate changed tremendously u between and among the schools and that seems to have accounted for the difference in the decline as well. >> Okay. Interesting. Um I

153um thought the time in PPS was a really interesting slide. By the way, I meant to say sorry that I didn't send any questions in advance. I looked at your slides last night and I didn't think you'd want questions this morning or anything, but I'll just instead just spur of the moment. Um, so um I thought that side was really interesting. Can you tell us a little bit more about that dynamic? Um, like are these kids that are like trans like coming in from other districts or coming in from private school or just moving here? Like what do you know anything about cuz I'm just I that was just like a really interesting not the one on the left was stand still alone but the one about like the kids that are kind of coming

154in late and then not graduating. One of the things that we um notice when we analyze the data is just what you said, right? With when students come in and are only with us for a year or two, those students have often been very uh mobile and they often come in credit deficient. And so we're doing a lot of work trying to get them all the courses that they need in order to graduate on time. Um that is not to say we could you know we always think we can do better >> um and and help all students be successful but it is tough when someone transfers in you know August of their senior year and they might need you know they might be 10 credits away from graduation instead of eight >> um that

155that or six or five that so that poses a challenge. >> Got it. Um, and then I just I mean you talked a lot about the disparities we're seeing across racial and ethnic groups. Um, I keep seeing just every conversation we're having, English language learners is is it. Um, and I know we also care deeply about our Native American, Pacific Islander kids and and black kids who also have um numbers that show an achievement or a gap that we want to solve for. But I just um can't help but notice that that just keeps being the hardest number. And I assume that's true across like most school districts given that the evaluation is done, you know, where they're taking tests in a language that's not one that they easily understand or whatever. I don't know

156how to say that the right way. But um is that true? Is my assumption correct that that is the case across many districts, the preponderance of districts that ELL struggles in my experience um there is there has been in my previous district we had we struggled with our English language learners as well. Um what you typically see as I speak to my colleagues around the country that are part of the council is students who enter in the early grades tend to acquire language because that's when language is most naturally acquired and then we immerse them in the English language and they become bilingual and by middle school they're out of um they no longer require those multilingual language multi-ingual language services. Um, but that's very different. It's a very different profile of a student who

157shows up in 10th grade and is not an English a fluent English speaker who now needs um instruction on how to break the code and learn how to read. And at the same time, you have to expose them to that rich academic language in order for them to understand the content. And that's that's a struggle and I don't think it's unique to PPS. >> Yeah. I once taught a multil- language learners social studies class at the high school level and it was really challenging. Um, and then I have two little things and then I'll be done thanks to everybody. For whatever reason, probably because I was a high school teacher, I got really excited about this slideshow. Um, I was curious in the future if you might consider adding data on CTE participation and how

158that affects graduation rates. Um, and then the other thing that is more just of a thought for the future, sorry, >> I'm sorry I just said Benson, but go ahead. >> Oh, okay. >> I apologize. >> It's okay. Um, on the project graduation, um, one thing on my mind was um, considering partnerships with some of the community based organizations we already have contracts with. as we I know from previous conversations that those contracts come up every summer. Is everything okay? Did I do something wrong? >> I'm are CTE kids in these numbers. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Career technical education. >> Did you say you wanted to include them? >> Um they are in the numbers, but like I would think it would be cool to do like a breakout of like >> participation in those

159programs and how that affects graduation rates because those a lot of times kids that aren't like in AP classes are I don't know. I just think it'd be interesting. Um, and then for CBOS's, the CBO's idea, I know we redo those contracts with them um later this year, like in the spring, and I think it might be interesting to consider the idea of seeing if some of them could help with like the um that project graduation work that you all are doing potentially for those that might be active at the high school level. So, it's just an idea. I usually try to keep my ideas for Dr. Armstrong on Fridays and I forgot but I just broke my own rule. But >> can I um just add a couple of things to that? Um I

160appreciate that. Thank you for um those ideas. And I think um on the post-secary readiness, one of the areas number four is around successful completion of a career and technical pathway three or more courses in that same pathway. But we can also pull the the data as it relates to graduation. Um and then I wanted to just share a little bit more around um our multilingual learner um support systems that we're putting into place. Um so this year we've um really trying to implement our integrated ELD model which stands for integrated English language development. So previously um students receiving English language development services would be pulled out of classes. Now students are accessing language standards within the core English language arts classrooms. Um ensuring that they have the rigor of the English language arts arts

161class while also getting support for their English language development. This is uh a researchbased strategy and something we're implementing this year. Additionally, we're also providing um professional learning to educators around um supporting integrated EL. We're providing this over the course of three years and the opportunity to engage in what is considered SCOP training or sheltered instruction observation protocol. Um, and this has been a big focus and will continue to be a big focus um, as we're shifting this practice. I think that's great. Maybe we can consider Kapori. Hey, maybe we can consider next year for the legislative agenda, leaning in on um teacher education because I went to I got my masters in education in California. I wasn't allowed to get a teaching credential without having um a certificate demonstrating that I had had training

162and that was, you know, I'm 47. This was a long time ago that California was doing that and Oregon's still not. >> Same. I I had that in another state as well. >> Yeah. I have a question. Um, you're talking a lot about targeted supports, but we're making a lot of cuts. Are you really able to like do as many targeted supports this year as you did last year? And maybe we went down the last year because we had fewer than the year before. Do you think that's part of it? Um, and how are we going to keep these supports going? >> It's a very good question. So we are at the end of our high school success plan which is 22 to 26. We are going to ask high schools which have seen reductions

163to do more next year with fewer staff members. And so part of the process that we're going to have to do in this current spring and into next year is to say now that staffing is done at high schools. Who are the key players? How do we ensure that students are on track to graduate starting in nth grade? Because graduation is not just high school seniors. It's 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade. and who are the players that are going to be responsible for supporting that at the school level because we are going to see larger reductions. We're going might have to shift uh you know who's supporting students the ways we support students and high school principles will be really at the helm of designing what that looks like in next steps. >> So we're

164going to ask more of our teachers >> um and and teams. So there's a whole team. Yeah. >> Yeah. And then I thought I heard when we were down in Salem that measure 95 was having problems and we were losing some >> measure support. Is that measure? >> 98. Okay. >> Yeah. We actually have um >> Dr. Reich here. Um and actually if he can come on up for a minute um he's been here to support too and he can share a bit more around that. I think I quoted some stuff earlier and he has um he's closest to that information. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for the question. Um, we are receiving less money through measure 98 and at the same time our costs are increasing. So the cost of FD uh

165is uh has been going up. So what we have done is to take uh a long hard look at where we invest our measure 98 um allocation and have tried to provide as much as we can uh towards uh staffing to go to our high schools. We've had multiple conversations with uh building leaders and have also um made a decision to make sure that staffing allocations are made in uh relation to the um proportion of students who qualify for direct certification. In other words, uh students whose families qualify for for certain social services. uh to make sure that funds are directed to support students that we know are impacted by poverty. Uh and so those are some changes that we've made to measure 98 uh for next year. Those allocations uh support some of the

166nth grade on track work. They they support some of the CT and advanced coursework in some cases. Uh they support uh college um coordination or or counseling and support. Uh so measure 98 is a critical component of our high school success plan and um we can definitely see that they've it has contributed to the increase in graduation rates over the last seven eight years. >> But you have to make some cuts now. >> We have to make some cuts there as well. >> Yeah. Well, thank you. I mean not thank you for making the cut. Thank you for making do. I know it's really difficult. >> Have a I have a couple questions. Um, first one actually is actually adding to director Split's questions. Um, I love that Benson is demographically very diverse but has

167a very high graduation rate. So, y um um I was actually one way to maybe look at to find the questions or answer that director was looking at was um you know not in the recent past you know 5 10 years ago uh there were a lot there was a lot of move to expand CT in our high schools and I was wondering if there's any data that correlates in terms of like adding CT options in those high schools with graduation rates. Is that kind of a clear question or >> So what I what I would say is that's certainly something we could look into. I don't want to give you an answer sort of off the top of our heads, but it's certainly something we can look into and I think it would um

168it would makes I think it makes sense to to me for us to take that to the teaching and learning and enrollment committee and do sort of maybe a comprehensive look at CTE because I think you all might be interested in who is enrolled in CTE, which students are enrolled, um how they persist and things like that. We can certainly I don't mean to speak for you doc down there. We can certainly uh pull something together for you. >> Thank you. I think yeah I think I mean one of my main concerns is that because of the budget cuts in the last couple of years maybe there was a decline in CT enrollment and offerings that may correlate with some of the graduation reductions. That's just complete guess. I'm just that's a complete curiosity. Uh

169my second question is um now thank you for answering the questions about the multil- language learners. Um I'm also curious about how again I just thought of this so I would sorry I didn't email this to you earlier. Um where the DI programs fit in this especially like for example like in in Spanish. I know one of the originally founding purposes of DLI programs is that DLI programs, you know, when kids get to learn their especially in their first few years in schools in their native language do way better in term academically, especially in graduation rates and scores and things like that. So, I'm just kind of curious, is there any has there been any data or correlation between the DLI programs and how they have affected or not affected um eventual graduation rates? Again,

170this doesn't have to be answered here, but or even just, you know, the answer like is this even a possible thing to even find out. >> Do you want to >> we can definitely find out and and uh share that information and I would agree with Dr. Adams. Uh we can share that along with the CT uh information as well, >> right? Because one I think one of my concerns also is that you know sometimes we have DI programs that are also self- selective, right? like the parents that are more involved in their kids, you know, that has a high graduation, you know, those kids have a high graduation rate period. Um, and whether our DLIs are actually serving our English language learners or just, you know, acting as another focus option. I think that

171that's one of my curiosities. Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else? >> Director Lefort, >> I have a couple questions. Sorry for I'll go to you next. >> Um I was looking at the appendices and what I was noticing the difference. I'm looking at the all PPS students number. Um the percentage that were ready and there was quite a spread between the AP and IB. 27.3% for AP students 18.9% for IP IB students. Do you find that interesting? I was surprised >> in terms of percent of students who who've met that uh >> K. Uh the number is a little bit misleading. Okay. In in so far as um IB is only offered in two of our high schools. And so the percent you're seeing is of the overall graduating class, not of the students who are

172eligible for IB coursework. In other words, that percentage would be significantly higher. If we looked at how many of students who go to Lincoln and Cleveland met the IB college and career readiness benchmark, that number would be significantly higher because they have an IB for all approach. And what you're seeing here is the percent of the graduating class which um most of those students don't even have access to IB. >> Okay, that makes I'm glad I asked. Thank you. >> I should have pass. >> Yes, thank you. Um I'm multitasking so I apologize. Um there's a lot of data coming out of from the southern states about how they've improved. I mean, they were at the very bottom um >> in terms of outcomes, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. >> And I'm just curious to what

173extent we're following that. And I mean, they've got their different meth methods. They have somebody that knocks on the door uh if somebody doesn't show up to school. So, I don't know a system our size. That's one question. Um I'm curious how we're planning to drive, you know, these increased results, the graduation progress in light of our um the cuts that are going to be made at the not even just the building level, but the admin level. And then I also wanted to um hear about CTE and we could highlight how much those plumbers and electricians are making compared to some of their peer uh college graduates. >> Those those are great questions. We can look into that. Um two things I'd like to offer. one um I've been following some of those southern states

174because I'm interested in that kind of work um and and and seeing that kind of success. And what I know from especially um reading about Mississippi is a lot of their efforts around reading and literacy were state-led and state funded through literacy coaches that were deployed by the state department of education into all of the school districts. So it's a little bit of a different model than what we what we've seen in Oregon, at least over my time here. Um the other thing um I like to add is uh often people have had this misunderstanding that c career and technical education courses are easier, right? But the reading demands and the math demands of doing the work and learning the skills that students learn in those programs is often more technical than the things that

175we read every day. Um, and so I just want to make sure we all understand and know that. >> Absolutely. I I um actually as a volunteer taught algebra to uh kids, students that were formerly incarcerated and um I can I can guarantee it was just to get them into the pre-apprenticeship programs. And yeah, algebra is a pretty high level for they just to get into an apprenticeship program. So you have you have to do well in math. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then just to um speak a little bit more around um this concept of project graduation and doing essentially more with less. I think what we're trying to look at and what um folks within um Dr. Cardona's team and academics including Dr. Hree Stitch up here um have had the opportunity to go

176and visit um all high school high schools and work with the principles and talk about the data systems that they're using. what would be helpful and being really thinking about being really strategic with what we're supporting around and understanding the root cause um across the system and within individual buildings. And so that's the work that we're doing right now. Understanding that we are going to have to do keep keep the momentum going and keep doing more with essentially less. But how are we being really strategic about what we're doing and what supports we are providing um both at a system level and at an individual school level and how are we ensuring that Dr. Adams and his team supports the data systems that are needed. And so that's really what we're trying to do now.

177Um, I don't know if anyone wants to speak to any more of that, but that was I just wanted to make sure that you all understood that too. >> I'd say also the opportunity to share best practices. Um, getting a chance to hear from school leaders about their current school level systems, ways that they are tracking on time to graduation, how they utilize credit recovery, and then looking at the system alignment. So, you know, again, learning from each other to improve the system as a whole. But feel free to add on that. No, I I think that's the essential um that's the highest asset, the highest resource uh that we have. We we're short on uh money. Uh oftentimes we're short on time, but we're not short on talent and the skill that our leaders

178uh bring. Uh so part of the work that we'll be doing is really harnessing that collective um collective efficacy. Um, we had a chance to visit with uh virtually every high school and engage in deep conversations around what systems are in place, what are we doing to support 9th graders, how are you supporting uh transfer students, how are you building in credit recovery opportunities, uh what are the counselors doing? Uh what are the what are the communication systems with with families? Uh and there's a lot that's already in place that's a matter of really uh ensuring that everybody else is aware. And then uh being hyperfocused on uh the places that we need to uh improve. We know that um our transfer students oftentimes come to us with significant uh needs and gaps uh and

179we need to figure out how to bridge those gaps uh quickly. Dr. Adams spoke to certain members of our student population that we need to support uh more effectively. Um and at the same time, our kiddos are graduating. more of them are uh ready for uh have completed uh three or more years of CT. More of them are taking AP. More of them are finishing with dual credit. So both of those things are true. We need to do a better job of supporting students and our students are experiencing success as well. >> Director Englesman, >> thank you. Um, I was uh sort of sitting here because I wanted to I'm so glad you said that about the CTE program and um I think our comm's department has been doing such a phenomenal job of like

180getting short videos out there on all different topics. >> Go Candace. >> Yeah. Like really great. Um and so to Dr. Adam's point, I would love to see sort of showcasing and elevating CTE because, you know, you all heard me talk about all those moves I had to go through and I spent the majority of my childhood in Europe where Europe for generations has been doing exactly what we are doing, which is recognizing that not everybody has this one path and um letting kids feel great about all these alternative paths. and we're offering this and maybe when kids go and families go to high school, I don't have not been there yet, but maybe they learn all about it, but let's start talking about it like everywhere so people are like, "Yeah, I get to

181do this. I get to go and be a well-paid plumber. I get to go and do something other than, you know, a box, put everybody in a box." So, I don't know. It would be really cool to sort of do a learn about and learn how hard it is um CTE. Thank you. So, I have a few things. Um, number one, I would love to be having this conversation in a year where we have a $50 million budget surplus. Uh, cuz I have lots of ideas and all of them cost lots of money. Um, but that being said, there's a few things that I that I that I would look at. Uh, first of all, I went to Auckley Green Middle School. Um, and I'll tell you, everyone from Aley Green Middle School that went

182to high school with me, uh, in ninth grade, like, uh, all the ones that dropped out, I was like, I could have told you that, you know, I could have told you that in 8th grade. Um, it was very apparent to me, you know. Um, and it did not come as a surprise to me to see the kids that dropped out and the kids and the kids that didn't. Um I I would not be s I would not be surprised to find a link between between tutoring especially in middle school and success in high school. Um because I think that a lot of kids you know that during middle school because it is so similar to high school kids get it in their head whether or not they are a student who's good at school.

183You know if you get if you get bad grades you know uh in middle school if you're a C and a B student incredibly likely you're going to be you know a C and a B student um in high school. And if you're someone who's failing all your who's failing all your classes, you might just think, well, I guess school isn't for me. I'm not a very I'm just I'm not good at school. And that's the kind of thinking that leads someone that might lead someone to dropping out. I have no evidence for this. This is just me talking from experience. Um but that's just my observation. >> Um the second thing is in terms of demographic data, um I've seen some super some very convincing um evidence that there is a very large um

184gap in achievement by gender. um in a lot of school districts um the the statistic that that I read um I'm reading this book right now very great um is that the gap now uh is larger than it was in 1974 um in the opposite direction uh and so if a gap like that exists what uh yes and it's girls now who are significantly ahead um and so if a if a gap like that exists in PPS I mean that's that's an equity issue um but it's also it also provides an opportunity um for us to potentially target some of our efforts um if something like that exists. I don't know if it does, but it but it might be an interesting area to explore um in terms of data collection um to see if

185a gap like that exists um in numbers like graduation data. Uh so I think that's all I have. >> Great. Thank you. Very well said. Actually, um we're actually at time. >> One question. >> Okay, one last question. >> Um do you disagregate by racial and ethnic for each high school for graduation? We they they do have that data. Yes, they do. >> Do you notice differences? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Across the high schools. Absolutely. >> Can we see that data? >> Uh, sure. I can pull that together for you. We It It may take some time because what we do is we provide our high schools with a dashboard that they can just sort of click through. So, in order to give that data to you, I we need to transform that into

186some spreadsheets, but that that's something we can provide. Absolutely. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Awesome. Thank you. Great. Um, thank you again for your time. My only last comment is that with the countering trends of graduation and uh post-secondary readiness, I hope it's correlation and not causation. Only data people get that. Anyways, uh it's late. Uh, all right. Next up, we have our enterprise resource planning. I'll hand this over to Superintendent Armstrong. >> Yes. Exciting. We are excited to bring this update and I will turn it over to the team. Thank you. >> Good evening, board members. Uh, Chief of Integrated Operations, Tom Rogers. I am very thrilled to uh give you this briefing and introduce uh senior director of technology and digital transformation Russell Adamson um for the latest update on uh enterprise

187resource planning and digital transformation across PPS. >> Yeah, great to be here. Thank you so much. Um let's just go ahead. So we will go very quickly. I know I'm standing between you and a discussion about PERS, so I want to make sure we we spend the time there. Uh we do have quite an exciting update. Last time I was here was in November. So I wanted to make sure at a minimum come here quarterly talk about this very important program. So we'll talk a little bit about the that's okay the vendor selection and we'll talk a little bit about what we're doing from a program management and change management perspective. But I want to start all these conversations with basically the same slide similar to like what is our learning target. It's a reminder

188that this is a technology-led program. This is really about people and process. We are talking about how do we open up more time, resources and energy towards the student learning and success. This is about how we make better decisions that are better informed with meaningful data. A reminder this is fully funded from the 2020 and 25 B 25 bonds. This transformation again is technologyled but is really around people and process. Our current system, the core of that system is 25 years old. If you remember the iPhone came out seven years later. Our current systems simply do not have the capability or flexibility to serve a modern district and definitely do not have the ability to quickly answer any of the questions we've had here tonight or in other sessions. So from a scope perspective, very

189small font, what I want you to take away is anything having to do with money or people. That's essentially the way to remember this. If we're talking about people's leaves, if we're talking about people's pay, for talking about anything having to do with anything that's costing money, we are essentially going to move this onto a brand new platform over the next couple years. In the appendy, I uh describe an ERP as the digital backbone. So, this has often been described as like a heart replacement. This is actually like replacing somebody's backbone. We are going to be rewiring how things work across all of these different areas. That will require a significant amount of work to understand how it works today, what is tools are used today and how do we get it all into a

190single platform so that all this data that can work together. So we're talking about thousands of users, thousands of vendors, thousands of contractors. This will impact everybody in the district and it is going to flow through the $2 billion budget that we currently have. One thing to keep in mind though, this won't hold any student information. So what we do from student information will remain the way it is and that is uh that's a non-negotiable from this program perspective. Um so we are moving very fast. Um we issued the yes we issued the RFP uh I think four days before the last time I talked to you. We have uh given the notice of intent to award 12 days ago. So I want to be really clear. We are being very very aggressive on our

191timelines. We are in the first real week of contract negotiations. I would say that the vendor this the fastest they've ever done it is five weeks. And my comment to them was great. You've got five weeks. We plan to come back here at the end of March for the March 31st board work session. At this point, I'd say it's kind of 50/50, but we're going to march towards that date. Um and then get that on the consent agenda for April 14th. So we uh our intent to award was the tool of choice is workday. Um that has been used in hundreds if not thousands of K through2 situations. It's been used in many state agencies, many private agencies. The technical team that will do the implementation is Accenture and Meridian. A meridian is essentially the

192contract holder. They'll bring about a third of the resources to bear. Accenture will bring the rest. Um they are all experts in K through2. They're all experts in workday. Um, and if you want any details on how we did the RFP and how we did the scoring, happy to go through that at any point. Um, we also have an RFP which closed the exact day that we did the notice of intent to award and that was by design. I wanted people doing program management and change management that were technology agnostic. So, I wanted uh expert level people to come in, hold the imple accountable again, not waste time, not waste money. Um, so what I've listed here, I won't go through all this, is what do we mean when we say program management and change

193management. One thing I'd like to highlight, and I'm sure people on my team are tired of hearing this, change management is far and away the most important thing. If we don't have people effectively using the system, then we do not get all the benefit out of the cost. So I'm very focused on ensuring people know what to do, know how to do it the right way, and they're doing it the right way in the system. And if you al also remember from the last conversation we had, we are leaning heavily into standardization. So, we want out of the box processes, out of the box configuration because anything that we do custom is expensive and won't stand up the test of time. We're talking about a 10-year plus platform. Um, again, just how do we hold

194each other accountable? We issued the RFP on Jan 13 and as of earlier today, we have three finalists. We will interview the finalists next week. you'll be happy to know one of them is local and uh fe womenowned. Um so those interviews will happen next week. We will have a winner on Thursday which we will announce also on Thursday earlier than that March 12th. And then the contract negotiations for that are pretty straightforward. The hope is when I come back whenever that is hopefully the end of March beginning of April we'll have the conversation about both of them. Okay. So the way the contract with meridian/acenture will be to implement workday there's three parts to that contract. So I want to lay the foundation now. First part is the user license. So I guess so

195uh the fee we pay to use the system and the way we wrote the RFP and the ask from the vendor is either a five-year term or a 10-year term in the hopes we would get a good discount for a 10-year which we kind of did. So what we also a part of that contract is the implementation cost. It will be an 18 to 24month roadmap and then we are also asking for elevated support for 12 months after the go live because this is very very hard to do. We do not have the ability or the flexibility or the funds to scale up to support it as necessary. So that gives us time post go live to ensure we're giving the right level of support across the board and my team can ramp up to

196support long term um the program. Yes. Great. Keep going. Sorry. So classic we are here. Um lots of things going on, lots of activity. Um again we will do the intent to award for the other RFP here shortly uh as early as next week. Um, and then I'll be back here at the end of March, potentially the beginning of April. Any questions? >> Um, thank you for that. That's one of your You did answer one of my questions, which was um about the local p person. I have a question about um the use of minority womenowned um emerging small businesses. The last time that this went out for RFP, um there was some discussion back and forth with our procurement department chair head. Um and we ended up getting some language in about employing minority

197womenowned and we did find a local um vendor that was able to take on part of that $20 million, a small portion, maybe 10%. So I'm curious about that. I did um I was curious where workday is headquartered but then there this other change management consultant. Do you know that change uh management theory they're employing or is it a combination? Are they using a particular change management theory? >> Great question. I can go back I'm pretty sure well so two things on the change management. >> Siri thought I was talking to her. >> Siri's going to give my answer. Um, so what we asked for was specific certifications. Those were non-negotiables. If they didn't have those certifications, so for example, Prochi, >> forget what the other two. >> I was worried I was concerned about

198that. Not concerned, interested to know if it was >> that's in both RFPs, actually. Yeah. And we actually had one vendor self- select out because they did not have that certification. >> Okay. So, it sounds like one of the firms we're considering is is local. They're going to be interviewed. um you're not sure if there's any emerging small or minority womenowned um language and if there isn't it's that's okay because the scoring's already been determined and published but for next time I would hope that there would be some language that said something to the effect that a bidder would get an additional five points out of a 100red if they used a womanowned business a minority owned business it's important uh to us I think the last time we looked at this that entire contract

199was going out of date. >> Yeah. One thing I would um remind everyone is that unfortunately these ERP um companies are giant companies and there's really only like three choices globally, >> right? And that's true. >> And thanks to um many reasons, none of them are none of those businesses would think about locating and >> and I wanted my colleagues to hear this as well. So, um, that sometimes you do have to go outside of Portland. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> I have two, I think, relatively small questions, if I can remember the first one. I don't think I wrote it down. Dang. Okay, I'll just remember the second, I guess. Maybe it'll come to me. Um, speaking of random facts though. Um, I'm from Pleasanton, California, which is where Workday is headquartered,

200which is why I am suspicious that we currently use Peopleoft. Isn't workday people soft now under a new name or am I wrong or just both of them based in Pleasanton? So are we basically going from like the same one to like a new model under the company the same company but by a different name? >> So Peopleoft is Oracle. What you may be thinking of is the >> not Peopleoft. What is the one that >> what what you may be thinking of is the original founder of Peopleoft then founded Workday. That that may be the connection you're you're thinking of. They are both headquartered in Pleasanton then just in the same >> He probably didn't want to move. >> Yeah, it's a really nice little town where I went to high school. I'm from

201Chicago. So if you ever hear me talk about Chicago, that's both things are true. Um the other thing Yeah, I guess that was my question. It was like if we're going to the other shoot. Oh, I know what it was. It's a little spicy. I work for the state of Oregon. We had a pretty rough transition. So I just hope that you'll maybe consider talking to somebody at the state or something to just pick up those lessons learned. Thank you. >> Yep. We've we've already started that conversation. Yes. They had a $15 million class action lawsuit they just settled. >> I think I'm getting some money out of it. >> Um yeah. Um so the first thing I think of every morning is how we're going to do payroll testing. Absolutely. And I would say

202one of the things as we're going through the contract negotiation and one of the things that will extend the timeline is for the implementation we're going line item by line item to say what do we need, what do we not need, right? um because some of those services will be conducted by the other vendor. Some of those services we simply don't need. One of the things that is a hard line for me is uh business process analysis because again this isn't technology. This is literally how we work and testing and I will actually be trying to add testing payroll cycle testing as we go because that will be the thing that will get us. Absolutely. >> Thank you so much. Any other questions? Right. >> Well, thank you for your time. Thank you. >> Thank

203you. >> Good luck with all this. >> Yeah, that's a big task. Sorry, my mic's still on. Um, all right. Next up, we have our finance focus part where we're talking about pers. We'll hand this over to Superintendent Armstrong. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, we had planned to give an update on PERS, but if you recall, we asked an agenda setting to move that discussion to March 10th so we can talk more about our immediate uh concerns with our budget. And so, we have uh Chief Morrison here to provide a budget update on um finance. Thank you. And good evening, directors. Uh, Chair Wong, Michelle Morrison, chief financial officer for PPS. Uh, thank you for your time this evening. I have to say I was really looking forward to sharing information about PERS tonight. That's a

204big topic for us and I am looking forward to sharing that um with you on the 10th of March. So, um, I think that after the memo you received over the weekend and information that's gone out into the community about our current state for budget, you're probably going to have a lot of questions, but I want to go ahead and go through these slides and then, uh, take your questions and answer what I can. We'll move right through these. So, uh, tonight I'm going to talk about our current year budget assumptions. So, kind of a reflection on um where we were at adoption and then variations since we adopted the budget and what were um our update for our current year in projections and then the mitigation plans that we've uh developed and the potential

205impacts to schools. So, for our 2526 budget assumptions, there was a lot of um fragility in this budget. I think for those of you who were on uh the board at the time recognized that even though we were making a si a significant amount of reductions, the way that we were balancing this current year's budget, it really took out any flexibility for things to um be addressed as they came up through the year. And that was really centered around maximizing the amount of services we're providing to students. So that's always the very uh heart of our focus is we want to assume have the best assumptions we can around uh revenue and expenditures and we want to maximize what we can do in a school year period. Um so we uh had this is actually

206from the proposal um meeting where we proposed the budget and talked about contingencies and risks. Um so maintaining that minimal fund balance reserve we didn't uh increase that because that would have uh meant that we had further reductions to make. Um we're drawing from the our PERS stabilization fund and that had built up over many many many years um to address the uh PERS increase specifically that occurred uh this bienium uh implementing spending restrictions. So, we had went from like a spending freeze in the spring to spending controls that we issued um in August as we were coming into this year knowing that we are in a fragile state. Really monitoring our central office hiring um and again trying to shield the schools as much as possible from uh any uh issues that might come

207up over the course of the year. And just that note at the bottom, the budget is a spending plan. So is if our actuals are different than what we planned, then we have to adjust as we move through the cycle and I would invite Dr. Armstrong to jump in anytime as well. Um so here are some variances since budget adoption. So we developed, we proposed, uh it was adopted in June and implemented and so you think about the time frame of that um and the things that we assumed uh coming into this year. So we had a significant number of uh reductions in positions which I think is really playing out and that we're not seeing the same level of vacancy savings that we have seen historically because there just weren't as many positions. Um

208and so we are uh not projecting to realize all of the savings that we were using to balance the budget. We're experiencing higher maintenance and transportation costs than um what we assumed when we built the budget. Um so that's uh adding to the expenditure side of our equation. We have some unanticipated costs and an increased risk uh associated with multiple federal uh lawsuits that are active right now. Um we did restore some services this year with that weren't fully offset with reductions. And so uh again assuming that we would reduce the number of teacher set aside that we would typically see in a year in order to balance the 2526 budget. Uh we just didn't have the same flexibility. We also have um legal legal requirements to serve students in a certain way. And so

209those are just kind of automatic yeses. and there's not a true opportunity to create a direct offset in the same time period. I've shared with you um prior to this and there have been questions about this uh the $5 million shortfall in the local option levy. Um we had our u Multma County economist here to visit with you about that as well. that's um going to stay flat for probably the next 3 years and that has had a steady growth for many many years. And so that's just an area where um we're seeing less revenue and there's no other additional revenue that we are forecast to come in to offset that at this point. Um, and then we've had a lot of uh emergency facility declarations this year and those are um there's not a

210contingency in the budget for that this year. It comes right out of the facilities and maintenance budget and so it's creating a challenge for us. >> Can I ask a quick question about that? >> Are these from the past years and we're just now seeing or did this year we have seven emergency facility declarations? That's so far just this year. >> What What are they? >> I'm not aware. So I'm just curious >> that one of them was cooling. >> Yeah. The >> um and I could invite in invite >> Chief Oers if he's still here. He's not here. But we had uh pipes burst for example. I think we had a sewage issue at a school. Okay. >> So these are major health and safety issues that in order to keep the building >>

211Dr. Cardona seems to have awareness of these so he's on his way. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah, I'm just curious cuz I just don't think I've really heard anything other than the heat. >> As an as an example, uh about a week and a half ago, a pipe burst at Sabin and we had to close school for the entire day. And that's just one example of something maybe you haven't heard about, but it it impacted the entire school community as they worked to fix that emergency. >> Thanks. >> Read them all. >> Oh, wow. Thank you. I appreciate it telling us the story. >> You know, I have to say it >> for chief of staff. Um, okay. We had, um, Sitin had broken cafeteria roof trusses. Buckman had cracked gym and dance trusses. Uh,

212Will Cox had boiler failure. Cleveland had a steam link. Uh, Wrigler had a sewer line failure. Sabin had a broken pipe and flooding. And then we remember very all too well the big fans during the heat. >> There you go. Those are to date. >> Look at all the support that you have. >> I appreciate it so much. They stayed this late. >> All right. So, those are the variances since we adopted the budget and in the fragile state there's not room to absorb it. And past years, looking back, I would say 5 to seven years with fund balance and additional federal funding, there was flexibility to be responsive to these things and and we are just I think um student representative RTO said it very well. We just there's not flexibility and we're experiencing

213a challenge today because of that. >> Can I can I just say one thing? >> Oh, yes. Um, I feel like everyone on here is going to agree that this education stability fund that we just learned about feels like it could work on such unexpected emergencies as are listed on this slide. Just putting that out there. >> Yeah, it does. It does. It It's tied to economic stuff and not to that. Not to disagree. >> Yeah. I heard it met two of those um >> criteria that if they wanted to they could give it to us. >> There's a billion dollars and we don't even need that much. >> Okay, here's the money slide. uh our current year- end projections um we're experiencing a two and a half percent variance which when you think about

214a 100% of a budget that doesn't sound like very much but because of uh again the fragility of this budget it is um significant it's impactful equivalency of 22.5 million dollars between now and the end of the year um we are uh have have identified $12.5 million in more discretionary savings that we can kind of tighten up and um wrap around without too much of an impact to our operations. But there's still a $10 million gap remaining today. So our mitigation plan uh with the impact of schools, we have immediate spending controls to close this gap before June 30th. And remember, we started the year with spending controls in place. So, continuing those um holding as tight to those as we can legally um really limiting any discretionary substitute or use of overtime for staff.

215That's not a a huge savings, but that is an area of discretion in some cases. And so, we're asking our budget holders to be um very strict with that. conducting additional operational expenditure reviews, really making sure that everything that can be charged to a grant is charged to a grant and making sure that our um all of our tees are crossed and our eyes are dotted in terms of operations. Um evaluating other balancing strategies. We're having internal conversations every day about what that might look like. and uh we've decided to cancel the March 2nd professional development day. That was um an additional like a supplemental payday for teachers who attended that training. It was not a paid contract day um outright. So we are anticipating some savings from that change as well. The next couple

216slides just kind of refocus us on the budget engagement. We have you have seen these before. Um we're still staying the course in terms of uh our target for 26 27. Um we are going to have to continue to monitor our current situation to make sure that there's not going to be any type of overflow onto next year and uh we'll be reporting back to you on that. These slides should look really familiar. We added um a bit here for uh the budget update on March 10th. Um and then we will be meeting uh bringing our CDRC group up to speed as well. That is my presentation this evening. Um PERS would have been so much so much better. But I would like to invite again Dr. Armstrong to share her thoughts. Yeah, we definitely

217want to open for for question, comment, or discussion, but I want you to imagine for a minute um walking into a new home, if you will, that has infrastructure failures, um not all of the rooms meeting the needs of um kiddos out there. um classrooms either um significantly underfunded or overpop populated and not having anything that you can access in the savings account and then having reductions on top of that. You know, one of the comments or lines in there, we talk about how um while we made some reductions last year, we needed to go back and pull some of those funds back in because we continue to have need pop up. And this is the first year where the fund balance is at 5%. I think we were looking at the chart where there

218there is no 1% to access. there's no no extra thousands or millions or anything. And so when we're talking about the reductions that we have to make, the emergency of this moment, I can't overstate, and this isn't just a, you know, for um lights and cameras or to raise the pressure um down in Salem or to appeal to anyone in this room. It is me, superintendent, telling my board that we are um experiencing a financial hardship and to receive this information um at this time is um very troubling and we need to respond um quickly and I just wanted you all to know this information as we believe and early and often. Um, also wanted to share that I um had this emergency meeting with Michelle uh Chief Morrison um last week as she had

219um and her team had calculated the ending statement and brought rise to the fact that we were in this emergency situation. We had um I think that was Thursday. On Friday, we had an emergency um chief's meeting over the weekend. I sent you the uh board update with the information and now we're bringing this information to you. So, um when we think of this this 20 million and then now being reduced, this is all information that was brought to light in the organization in the last seven days. And so, I wish that we would have had time. I you know like some of the decisions that we've had to make over the last couple of months I wish that we had time to process and think of some other strategies but we are calling on

220our labor partners we're calling on our department heads we're looking across the organization to see how we can make sure that we balance the budget knowing that accessing the um fund balance or taking it below 5% which is all that's in there is not an option. So, I just wanted you all to hear that directly for me and the team and I would welcome any question, comment or um any other thing you'd like to add. >> I just I want to just appreciate the I think you know I've been on the board for a long time and just hearing this early is good and it's very dire and I think it kind of drives home the I the fact that there isn't money to pull from. I mean, our our reserves are lower than than

221they should be. Um, so it's pretty dire. So, when we're talking about, you know, like considering programming that, you know, we've been told we need to get move move along and pet projects and that type of thing. We we really actually this is just really disturbing and it's a really really tough year. Um, I can't I can't um I can't appreciate enough the the uh just the stress level of having walking into a home that's roof is failing and there's no money in the checking account and um having to address that still while our kids are in school. So, thank you for bringing it forward early. Um I guess I look forward to hearing more as we learn more. >> Yeah. And the only other thing I'll say is that as we know that if

222we access one-time um uh pots of money or we use strategies that are only good for one year then that means that um that 50 million could increase by another 101 15. So any and every action that we take this year that has a multi-year um impact will impact in the future year. So, we're still learning more. I'm still waiting to get more information. I mean, as you all know, we and you heard me say this since January. We have a new financial leadership team. There has not been a financial leadership team completely um hired without vacancies in the last 5 years until this last 12 months, if you will. And so as the team has come in and they're learning um they're all experienced in the state of Oregon and they're learning things about

223our budget and the state of it and cleaning up some things, some things are being made pretty clear. And even when we see some holes and some pockets that are super troubling, there is no other fund to pull from. And so we're going to continue to work and learn and understand. But I mean, I'm as um as the leader of this district, I am super concerned and know that like our primary commitment is to be good stewards of funds and there is no option where we don't make sure that this bal this budget is balanced by the end of June. So So that will mean some immediate actions that will be unpopular, uncomfortable, but necessary. >> Yep. I believe you. Um, >> Thank you so much, um, Chief Morrison for bringing this forward and Dr.

224Armstrong for making sure we understand the seriousness of this moment. Um, I feel like I'm going to say something and like it's almost like I imagine this like horror movie, everyone's like, "Don't say it." But I'm curious like I'm trying to think of how to ask it. like if we were to do a furlow day, how much money could that save the district? Are there options like that that could in one fell swoop save significant dollars? >> Yeah, that's that's a fair question. And and obviously there were or or union and labor and agreements and things like that. But to answer the question, um if everyone in the organization took one furlow day, that would be a $3 million um $3 million savings about. So obviously more days, you just keep doubling that number for

225instance. Yeah. And I want to be clear, I understand the impacts to our families would be really hard. Um but I also know that it's something that's you being used in other places um many more days than one. Um, but I just wanted to ask how much it would save, I guess, for now. Um, out of curiosity, I'm also curious. Um, I know you've got your full team on, and I'm really appreciative of the monthly and regular reporting on the budget. I've been trying to be like really good about always looking at it, even though I admit that looking at it is me just being like, I'm looking at numbers. Um, but I think it's important to look at because I really believe in the hard work and the bottom line is so important. Um

226can you tell me a little bit about the process by which this came to be understood? Um and maybe why like nine days like not not blame game but I'm just curious so that we can like know how it came to bear um for the future that we realize the situation that we're in last week. >> Yeah, thank you for that. So, we uh a couple things had to fall into place for us and and our financial system is a little opaque right now. It's it takes a long time for reconciliation to occur and then for data to be available for analysis. So, combination of things there. We were waiting to one close out our prior fiscal year and in case there were any additional funds that might be available in the fund balance from

227that time so that our beginning fund balance was maybe higher than what we had targeted that did not materialize. So that was one uh factor we were kind of holding out to see. Um and then the other part was this is based on uh second quarter data. So this is through December and we need that um time period for first quarter data really only has one full month of school and so in October we true up our student enrollment information which is a factor. Um November and December is when we re when we've received the bulk of our local revenue and so that is another you know factor in terms of what we know we can count on in the current year. So really that that second quarter I think had we been able to

228speed up the reconciliation of all of that we would have likely been able to surface this sooner. It sounds with our our new ERP system five weeks after we submit that notice to proceed >> that maybe it sounds like this kind of matrix so the systems will be able to talk to each other and then does that mean that we would get the information the projections would happen and the reconciliation would happen >> everything would happen more quickly ideally in my former district it was it was an instant close and visibility everyone had access to the same data and that's the system that we're looking at is a different system, but it has that same level of visibility. And so, uh, I think, um, senior director Adamson shared the teeny tiny font, but all of

229the squares and one of the lines was focus just on budget. So, developing, monitoring, reporting, um, all of those things based on the transactions as they happen. And that is really going to be critical in in our ability to be responsive. >> I had one other question. Sorry, I almost forgot. Um the that line we asked about with the emergencies and schools like the facilities issues. Um is any of that eligible to be paid for with bond money? >> It has to be bond compensible and part of a bond program. we are reviewing to make sure that um we are within that I mean is that if that's something that we can explore or you know connected to the bond program but the um the bond uh compensibility team are like very detailed in making

230sure that we get that right and so that is something that we'll explore to see like for instance what that could mean is you know if there was a a failed um uh part of a roof and the school needed to be re-roofed and part of the um program was, you know, the the um restoration or the improvement of that facility. Like, did that fit within the program? I'm also noting too that um I don't know if it's ever been practiced to send the emergency declarations to the board, but I'm noting that you all should receive those. So typically when there is a um facility failure, I get an emergency declaration and that that allows the team to you know like like state of emergency or you know to be able to access funds and

231move quickly and we've had seven this year as noted and I want to make sure that you all start getting those as well so that you know you'll sort of know how our facilities are doing and when they're failing too. So, I've noted that. But, but yes, we're we're we're looking at everything and making sure that we're within um the guidelines and the policy and the things that govern us to if there were any missed opportunities, but >> yeah, I'm I'm sure you're looking into insurance for those things. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. We're we're pretty speak to insurance uh specifically. It's not in my wheelhouse, but I do know that we do have a a very high deductible. And so for for the level of um repair that these these wouldn't have qualified. >> Yeah.

232>> But yes, >> director Englesman. >> Or do you want me to go? I can go first too if you want. Um I forgot my question. Um okay. No, I do my my question. Um but I had two and I only remember one. Uh so I guess my one of the questions I have was about unfunded mandates. As we saw in the early one, we excused as a you know, one of the things that we can do as a board is to write exception, you know, like grant um as long as we write exceptions, you know, certain division 22, whatever can be. Are there is it too much to ask if there's some possible preemptive cost savings that we could do in terms of the board writing an exception to certain requirements unfunded mandates preemptively

233to save I know it's probably legally dubious and probably force the governor to take over our district but you know >> I I don't know the answer. Oh, you're going to go ahead. We'll turn it over. >> No, I felt like somebody was looking for a legal answer, and the answer is I don't think I can't think of any, but I think we need to we can check. I Michelle, I don't or sorry, Director Chief Morrison, I can't think of any that we can that you have the authority to wave, but we can look at them. >> In other words, it's not the board's um option to have a declare a state of emergency. It's our chief executive. Is that correct? Oh, >> so when I think of unfunded mandates and and this is top

234of mind as I was when I was down in Salem and um one of the senators asked me when you talk about unfunded mandates like what give some examples and one of the examples I gave was um paid leave Oregon and um the cost of that which is probably higher on our list of unfunded mandates that cost money and we wouldn't be able to not comply to to that um so when I think of the list of things to the point that um Chief Tonrey is making I I don't know what those unfunded mandates would be that we would legally be able to sidestep if that answers the question >> but we can I'm sure there might be some things out there I don't know we can spend some time looking but I I um

235for some of the big ones um yeah we wouldn't be able to >> What about the um PE the >> the new PE requirement or the um addition of the um finance class, you know, things like that. >> Yeah. And so that so those already have teachers and FTE connected to it, right? And so um that that would have to be something different, but I don't I don't know if Chief Kapori or Chief Morrison had more thoughts on that as Deborah Kapori, chief of staff. Um, I think that by their very definition of being mandates, we don't really have an option. And the ones that you're referring to are probably um either we already have a way to put in for a variance or they're just not going to be enough. I mean, the big

236ticket items are the ones that um the current Senate President, for example, got passed or a influential member of the current sitting legislature was their pet bill. So, I don't I don't foresee that it right now. I do think that um the conversation that Dr. Armstrong is referring to um there will be some time over the interim before the next session starts to have a longer conversation. Um I think they're uh the I will say the advocacy that our students and you all and our parents have done is really paying off. It's making them annoyed. They're mad right now which is good because it means we're getting their attention. So I think there will be some opportunity not necessarily with dollars but potentially to roll back some of the unfunded mandates. >> Great. Thank you.

237>> Yeah. >> Um my other was just a clarifying question if I remember correctly. There was a discussion last year on the budget about you know number of days of the school year and I thought like the cost of one day of was like around closer to around 15 million instead of just 3 million. I could be misremembering, but that could be including everything like facilities and custodial and so um I could be wrong. >> I don't know if I heard that day or is that connected to professional learning or just one just adding one school day to the calendar year? >> Yes, that >> Oh, yeah. I don't I'd have to >> So the 3 million So I guess that's my clarifying question. 3 million was in talking about the professional learning day or

238I thought it was answering with the furlow. >> Yeah, it's answering the furlow. I I I can imagine that maybe adding to the school day um could be something that's a little more um intricate and um requires more pieces than what the financial team has allocated. Did you want to say more about the furlow days or did I make sure I I have that number accurate? Was that accurate? Um, Chief Morrison. >> Yeah, I will get with my team. We'll double check all of it and I don't know, you know, we were really focusing on general fund as well. So, let me look into that and I will provide a memo back. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> Um, can I just I just want to um sort of feed off what Chair Wong just

239said about the unfunded mandates. I would love to see a list of them and certainly there are some that like all of them. >> Oh, >> yeah. Because I had asked, sorry, thank you for I missed it because I had asked um >> 11 days ago for a list and so the answer I got didn't include a list and so I must have missed it. So please send it again because frankly there are some like paid leave Oregon that we neither legally can ignore nor would we want to. But there are some others maybe that we just say we recognize that we can't legally do it, but we're going to do it anyway. Um to get attention um because it is costing dollars and they're great ideas, but if they don't come with funding, then

240it means they're chipping away elsewhere. So, I will look for that. Um, maybe we can have a bigger conversation about I don't know what what we're willing to say and do to get attention and to >> any other question. >> I had one one other thought really quick so I don't forget. Um, just uh when I went to an OSBA conference not too long ago, we heard about Ashland who also had a pretty big shortfall. It was miraculously solved by a member of the community giving a bunch of money. But I know that they had to go through the process of figuring out how to deal with it. And there might be like I know you have a great network because you come to us from that network of people in similar positions. So if

241you haven't already thought to reach out to some of those colleagues and just ask what what you know avenues they've gone down just to like save yourself the time of doing the research. Somebody else might have already come up with ideas and vetted them. >> Thank you. >> Director Lefor. >> Yeah. What was the cost for the federal lawsuits? So, I'm gonna go ahead and let our uh chief >> concrete, that's what she said, >> answer this question. >> Um, so I don't I can't tell you an answer off the top of my head about each one of the fees associated with it. I think it's the um uncertainty and the high stakes associated with them as well um that makes them expensive. I think the four are the OCR the newest OCR complaint, the

242OCR complaint involving transgender, the funding lawsuit, and the lawsuit that involves all of y'all named individually, the complexity of that on a First Amendment basis. And then um in terms of mitigations, how how what how do you limit substitute and overtime use? What does that mean in practical terms? So, we're going to be issuing guidance that is is a a principal or budget holder has a certain amount of discretion of when they access substitute or overtime. So, giving them uh direction to be more controlled and when they use that. So, that's a process we're developing right now. It hasn't been implemented before. Um so, we can share that out with you when it's finalized. But for example, if um a principal has discretion on whether or not to call a substitute in or to offer

243period coverage to a teacher, that would be a a potential trade-off that could save the cost of a substitute. >> Yeah. And if you all remember uh if you were connected to schools back in 2020 and I was in a different state and I knew I know that Oregon and Washington um California all went through the same thing which was a significant shortage of staff whether it was admin or teachers and so you know we've talked about um what would it look like for us to tap on tap some folks here to go out into buildings um to sub to hope if if that makes a significant impact. So, we're we're looking um under every rock on ways that we can mobilize and ways to still support schools because schools has to be supported while

244reducing our um our expenditures. So, >> and then just to cut to the chase, is there any way we get out of this without any furlow days? Well, I will say this. Um the uh cabinet team and myself will um definitely be be taking some furlow days, but I will tell you that the percentage that we represent across the organization is significantly smaller. So I guess what I will say is that you know um some of us will take uh furlow days and um and the the hope is that um we're able to land on something that will be impactful um because otherwise the un the uncomfortable part of it is we're going to have to then explore u midyear layoffs. the only way to make the impact is personnel. And while we think of

245some of the reductions that we're working to identify, um, we're going to have to move sooner than we imagine so that we can try and recoup savings before June 30th. Deborah Goroy, chief of staff. I'd just like to add one more thing to try to um give us a little bit of potential although small hope and I want something planned off something that director split said that we do have the ability we're going there's going to be a kicker coming and it's going to be very lot of money and we've done it before in Portland where we've had a kick the kicker campaign and people can donate their kickers to public schools and I so I think that while as Dr. Armstrong said very clearly, "This conversation right now is not about politicizing a terrible

246moment. This is about bringing you information early and often. That doesn't mean that we can't let a good crisis go to waste." And I think we do have an opportunity to at least be telling people that it, you know, start with parents, but we can, it should be everyone in our community. We know how important a strong public school system is to the um strength of our entire community, our city, our our economy, our state. So, having people send their kicker dollars to PPS and to their schools if they're in other parts of the state is going to be um something that uh I'd like us all to work on together, at least give us um something that we can look forward to while we're also looking at these terrible cuts. I isn't Isn't it

247that you have to check a box on tax return and then it has you give it like all >> No, but there's like something you have to do, right? Like maybe comms could put a video out about >> you can also just send once once like when you get back to give your whole kicker and some people just want to maybe give a percentage of it or a half or three quarters or whatever. So, um having the the fund for PPS running a campaign that um has people um and comms >> yeah I as you know love this idea as you talk to Candace um I was getting a question on the side here and I'll just put it on tell everybody the same thing but the checking the box sends your entire kicker to

248the state school fund which is a lovely and noble thing to do more power to any Oregonians who want to do that you could also not check that box and you could send a percentage or even all of your kicker to your own favorite school district instead of to the state school fund where it then gets dist distributed on a per student basis equally across the state. >> Is that helpful? >> So that I think is super important because I bet a lot of people who maybe are thinking I'll send the kicker to PPS check the box and then don't realize it doesn't go to PPS. So it's good. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. We're um past time. Is there any last comments or questions before we move on? >> Godspeed. Thank you. Like all

249uplifting vibes and goodness is directed your way from me. Probably all of us. >> Same here. >> Yes. Second that. >> Thank you, Michie. >> Um last um on the agenda is our other business and future agenda items. topic as a the only thing I have is just a reminder if if you haven't checked out um our what is it called smart sheets with the agenda tracker it has the agenda tracker for all our committees for this um it's good resource to make sure you check I think we got majority of what board members have requested to be on agenda somewhere in the calendar uh the ones I haven't I think um we have either followed up with or we'll we'll follow up with um in terms of how to get that done. So um

250that's the only update I have. >> I just wanted to say thank you to the board and to staff for being responsive to a desire to hear from families and students today. I know it would have been easier not to do that in a lot of ways, but I think to me it gave us the opportunity to be held accountable and shine a light on the situation at the very least. Um, and so I just wanted to say thank you for the willingness to make it happen on short notice and the flexibility and everyone who did the organizing to make it happen. Um, I just wanted to give a shout out because I know it it was a really hard conversation, but I think it was really important that we sat here. um and had

251that experience. So, thank you everybody for for doing that on short notice. Um I also just wanted to put a quick um statistic into everybody's brain because every time I hear Mississippi now, I have to tell everybody it's now like a requirement that I remind everybody that Mississippi has a $725 minimum wage. They are not allowed to have unionized teachers. They have 20% fewer students than the state of Oregon and 8% more teachers. So, it is not a fair comparison. >> And so, I just want to make sure everybody hears it. So, every time anybody talks to you about Mississippi, you can let them know we have a really high minimum wage here. I support it. We have union teachers. I support that. We in Portland pay our teachers a lot. I support that. And

252this is what happens when we make when we do that without having more revenue to pay for it. So, thank you for listening to my Mississippi spiel. >> I also heard that adding on top of that, and I don't know, I haven't confirmed if it's true or not, but one of the one of the things that they implemented was also holding students back if they don't pass a grade. >> And then when they do their data, they include those kids that have already repeated that grade in the data. So I mean it doesn't necessarily I wouldn't say it counts for 100% of the up increase in scores but it's at least a fraction if it's true. Again I haven't confirmed this. So >> the methodology does matter. >> Well and it's they say it's the

253science of reading but it's probably that plus small classes. I mean if they've got more teachers and fewer students they obviously have smaller classes and we know that would help right? It's not apples to apples comparison. All right. If there's no other business, this meeting is adjourned, which is a smidgen before 10. So, thank you.