2025-12-11 Board of Education's Teaching, Learning, and Enrollment Committee

001All right. This public meeting of the board of education's teaching, learning, and enrollment committee for December 11th, 2025 is called to order. Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you all for being here. Today's agenda includes overview of our charter schools, report on talented and gifted or tag services, and some information about access academy, and an update on Jefferson High School academic programming. First, we'll begin with introductions. My name is Michelle Chase Miller. I am the committee chair. >> Um, Virginia Lefort, um, PPS board of directors from zone 5, Northeast Portland. >> Christina Howard, senior chief of academics. >> It's really loud. >> Mary Kane, senior legal counsel. >> All right. Next, we have public comment. Cara, do we have anyone signed up to speak? >> Yes. All right. Please make sure when you begin your comments

002that you clearly state your name and spell your last name. You will have two minutes to speak. We ask that once you hear the sound of the alarm go off, please wrap up your comments. I'm going to call them in two groups. Um, the first group will be Emily Brett, Emily Templan Fox, Michelle Deubberry. Um, it's Emily or is this on? Yeah. Emily Barrett and it's spelled B A R R E T. Hi, I'm Emily Barrett. I'm a parent of two students at Leond French immersion public charter school. Um, and it's the K through8 open lottery district-wide IB world school. I'm speaking on behalf of a working group of parents, some of whom are here, in asking for a single high school to be identified and approved as the pathway for these public school students.

003We want to support keeping kids in public school in PPS when heading to high school. Since 2021, Lam has been losing approximately 35% of their eighth graders to private school. um just under 5% was moving out of district. Most remain residing in PBS. Continuing French study was named as a priority when discussing the transition to high school by every parent at the monthly parent coffee hour just last week. This request does not preclude students from attending their neighborhood school if they prefer. It does provide an option for their continued study of French. We've met with the charter schools administration, some PPS high school staff, and the dual language immersion program staff. And each of those routes has suggested that we present our request to board committees. Um, and so we'll reach out following this public

004comment uh to you and to the multiple pathways to graduation directors um just to hear feedback and ideas. Currently five PPS high schools offer French classes and our request is for your approval of Lemon students to be routed if they choose to the school that offers up to French 910 which is um more than what the other four schools offer. We want to keep more students in PPS for high school and we want to provide them ongoing language study at the highest level that's currently available. And lastly, we want to contribute to the goals of PPS reimagined. There's part of that is uh increasing the number of students reaching at least one post-secary readiness benchmark and one of those is a seal of biiteracy. We want to be part of that goal. Excuse me. Um

005and these students are set up to achieve a seal of biiteracy if they can access ongoing language study um fulfilling our district's vision of students as influential and informed global stewards. So, thank you for your time and I look forward to connecting soon. Thank you. >> Thank you. Hi, I'm Emily Fox. Opportunity hoarding is a well-studied phenomenon in which wealthy and middle-class parents manipulate public education so that their kids receive the best academic opportunities, often in racially segregated environments. High school boundary drawing is a common avenue of opportunity hoarding, but I'm here to talk about another one. Access Academy. My house is on the dividing line between two underenrolled elementary schools, Sabin and Irvington. In my zip code alone, 31 kids went to Access last year. It was almost 10% of the whole school population.

006Every morning when I drop my child off at Sabin, I walk by groups of diverse kids walking into their neighborhood school. And then I passed by the taxpayer sponsored bus that is transporting kids to access. Last year PPS spent $1.2 million moving kids out of their neighborhoods to access. Generally, access admission is based on a lottery open to students who score in the 99th percentile on a standardized test given at school. But parents can also pay for uh their child to take any one of several alternative eligibility tests. and all access students are allowed to go to Grant High School. Hearing all that, can you guess the demographics of access? This past year, 75% of Access students came from Portland's 11 wealthiest zip codes. And it served a single student who identifies as black and

007zero who identify as Native American. While the percentage of white students at PPS has declined, it has markedly risen at access. I hope we can all agree that if there exists something like intellectual giftedness, it occurs at the same rates among different racial groups and different socioeconomic classes. How do you square that with access? No other district in Oregon meets its tag obligations in this way. PPS should audit access academy and assess whether an expensive standalone school with a population rep representing some of the most well-resourced families in our district is the best way to handle TAG. Please stop opportunity hoarding. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Michelle Dubberry, D U B A R R Y, and I'm the mom of two seventh graders at Olay Green Middle School. Um, I am one of

008a group of parents, including Emily, um, who circulated a petition advocating for PPS to close Access Academy and redirect $4 million in funding back to neighborhood schools. I want to address three common misperceptions about access. First is that access primarily serves children with disabilities. PPS's own data shows that access serves a smaller proportion of kids with disabilities than the district as a whole. Access also has a strikingly low sped staffing level, suggesting lower support needs than neighborhood schools such as Boise, Elliot, Woodlon, Lee, and Sabin, who have student populations that are roughly equivalent to access, but have three to four times as many sped FTE. The criteria for acceptance to access is a test score. There are there is a mountain of evidence showing that standardized test scores reflect opportunity, class, and racial privilege. Um,

009second, some claim gifted children cannot be served in their neighborhood schools because they are bored or not challenged. Students of all abilities are bored at school all the time, every day. Part of what school teaches children is how to be bored, how to be patient and respectful, and maybe even helpful when their classmates are struggling. Um, moreover, money spent on access could be used to provide resources to teachers and schools to meet the diverse needs of students in the classroom. Um, third, many access proponents say that the wait list for access points to a need to expand rather than close access. Access is only serving 8% of PPS's tag identified students, while the other 92% receive virtually no TAG programming. Expanding access would harm our neighborhood schools by perpetuating the existing racial and socioeconomic segregation.

010Um, we are asking the board to audit Access Academy. Um, we're interested in a research project comparing educational outcomes of children who attend access with children who were eligible or children who applied and didn't get in. And we think this could guide the board's decision-making in future years. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Jocelyn Haley Cambier. Good evening. I'm Jocelyn Haley Cambier, last name C A M B I E R. I am a parent from Rose City Park, the Vietnamese dual language immersion program. Uh, our first graders are still suffering and need a second teacher. But what I want to talk about tonight is the school continuous improvement plan. We recently went from a 21-page document with data and measurable metrics to a fourpage corporate word salad that amounts to thoughts, prayers, and vibes. And

011I want to know what happened to the data. Who approved the new school continuous improvement plan? Why isn't there a translated version available for our Vietnamese speaking families? Uh where is the transparency and accountability? the the new continuous improvement plan basically relies on internal assessments uh and a lot of three-letter acronyms that are unintelligible to most of the parent community. So, this is only going to aid in continuing our slide to the bottom of national literacy rates. How can we determine our shortcomings and progress if we don't use data and facts? On a personal note, my first grader not only is still in an overcrowded classroom uh with an overwhelmed teacher, she just got referred at the end of November for speech assessment and reading intervention, which means she's missed two months of this intervention.

012So, how many other students in this class are falling through the cracks? Also, our school climate plan states that there are supposed to be monthly climate team meetings that provide an opportunity for family involvement and feedback. How many have we had? Nobody knows. There have been zero announcements of any climate team meetings. There was a restorative justice circle for an incident in VDLI fourth and fifth grade. It did not include the school climate specialist, the counselors, or any of the affected students. We've asked the principal and the superintendent to move the climate specialist into the classroom, but the only response we have received is avoidance and silence. We desperately need a second teacher for the classroom. And at this point, the climate specialist position is just a promotion without any functional benefit for the student

013body. >> Thank you. Right. Thank you everyone for taking the time to provide your comments. Our first topic is an update on charter schools. Introducing this topic is Christina Howard, senior chief of teaching and learning. >> Thank you. Um I'm going to ask uh Dr. Isaac Cardona and team to come up and share this presentation and he will do introductions from there. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Isaac Cardona, the chief of schools, and I have with me today both Karina Wolf, the senior director of schools overseeing MPG, which is multiple pathways to graduation, and Tenita Sandos, the director of charter schools. And I'll hand it over to them. Um good afternoon uh board directors. We're excited to be here to um this afternoon to share with you um a general overview of uh charter schools

014in Portland public schools, the role of a uh PPS as the sponsor or authorizer of charter schools, how we provide support and accountability um within our charter school framework, how uh some share some information about funding and some information about student demographics, and then answer any questions you may have in Portland public schools. We have um within the boundaries of Portland public schools, we have seven charter schools. Five of those are Portland Public School Board sponsored and two of them are state sponsored charter schools. Of the five um that the Portland Public School Board has approved, we have three K5s. So we have the Emerson school um which centers a projectbased learning approach and positive discipline approach. We have Chyros PDX Learning Academy um which two of our uh five charter schools are title one.

015Chyros is one of our title one schools. Um and their focus um is on eliminating the racial achievement gap. We have Portland Arthur Academy which is also a title one uh K5 charter school that focuses on direct instruction. We uh we also have two K8 schools. So we have Lemon French Immersion and you heard from um some of the families earlier. Um and we also have uh Portland Village School which is a Waldorf inspired school. The two state sponsored charter schools are both um K8s. So it's the Cottonwood um school of civics and science which is focuses on placebased learning and the Ivy school which is a monastery model. And among the five um PPS sponsored schools currently we have 133 students. >> Good evening. I'm Sunni to Sandos and I'm going to speak a

016little bit about the role of the charter school sponsor or authorizer. As Karina mentioned, we have five schools in in um under the umbrella of Portland Public Schools in which the MPG uh charter schools office is sort of holding responsibility for those five schools. and what those responsibilities are. Uh, our job is to approve or deny annual applicants for the establishment of new PPS charter schools, conduct ongoing monitoring, oversight, and annual evaluation of PPS charter schools, pass through state school funding, and we'll talk a little bit more about funding in a few minutes. Um, and other funding sources, monitor the implementation of interventions for underperforming schools. provide resources, access to information and data systems, professional development and costneutral assistance, advocate and act as a liaison for the district in its role as a charter school

017authorizer and promote equity and learning for all students. Uh we put together a annual calendar of deliverables to sort of explain the oversight that the PPS charter schools office takes on in terms of support and accountability. Um when we're looking at our PPS charter schools, um we're looking in three main areas. Um academic, fiscal, and operational to assess the overall health of a charter school within PPS. Um for academic uh the charter schools all submit a performance plan to our office every October that we review and they have one academic, one fiscal and one operational goal uh in that performance plan. And then uh in the fall when report card data comes out, we do an analysis that helps us to create a performance framework in January that um is a about a 40-page document

018that goes takes a deep dive um into data for the past three years for each of our charter schools in regard to academic, fiscal, and operational health. Uh and then we look at local assessment data reporting back from the schools sharing information um to compare with um the report card and OSAS data that we received in the fall. And then we have a year-end report on charter schools to the PPS board committee in late spring which gives an an overall overview of the schools. Um in terms of fiscal, the schools are submitting quarterly financial reports to our office. They submit a draft budget for the upcoming school year in May and then a finalized budget in September and each year they're required to submit an annual municipal audit in the fall for the previous year.

019In regard to operations, our office uh is out at schools monthly doing site visits and then uh once a year in the spring we do a formal annual site visit with stakeholder stakeholders including teachers, families, uh community members, board members, etc. Uh and then uh charter school board meeting observation and review. We're also attending board meetings in the winter and spring uh since charter schools have their own independent board of directors that serve as their governing body. And um we're reviewing compliance submissions on a monthly basis. And then we wanted to detail a little bit more about support and accountability from our office and how there is or is not uh an overlap between um our responsibilities from a district perspective when something arises at a charter school. So, we just put together this little

020flowchart to explain uh an example of when a charter school family uh may have concerns with their school and they connect with their charter school administration and that family may determine that they need additional support. So, where do they go? So, first and foremost, they're going to go to the charter school uh administration if they are looking for information on how to sort of escalate their issue um and find out what the charter school's policies and procedures are um independent of what PPS policies might be. And then in addition, they may contact our office for more support. At that time, um, the family will follow the charter school policies and procedures, which may include communication with the charter school's independent board of directors who serve as the governing body. And then the multiple pathways graduation,

021mult multiple pathways to graduation charter schools office. Our office will work in tandem with the charter school and the administration at the charter school to ensure that family concerns are appropriately addressed in a timely manner. And then uh just to kind of close that out, we're also making sure from our office that um the school is following their own policies and procedures with fidelity. They're clear, they're accessible, and they're following those policies and procedures. And then at that point in time, families may also continue to seek support from our office if they're still struggling um to resolve their issue. Switching gears with regard to charter school funding. Uh we're sharing the funding that um we have for this current year. So Portland public schools any district serves as the pass through. Um and so we

022have approximately $19 million among the and I and I should say also we serve as a pass through agent for the state charter schools. Um, so we have $19 million um annually this year that's um going to our charter schools. Um, they submit monthly invoices and are and are um paid accordingly. Um, we have $1.3 million from the student investment account. Um, again, some of that information is set by OD. Um, and so that comes through our office. We have art tax for those students that are in K5. Uh Portland public school students that are in K5 receive arts funding. And um among our charter schools, we have an equity allocation this year of $275,000 for the schools that qualify for the equity allocation. And so that's a total of $20.8 million in funding. policies

023and uh board policies that um guide us in that framework is in 2020 PPS resolution 6069 the school board increased the pass through rate to 95% for charter schools serving populations of 50% or greater historically underserved by race and ethnicity. And resolution 6466 two years later in 2022 said that starting the following year in 2324 schools would have a 90% pass through rate for all students uh for schools serving um students less than 50% historically underserved by race and ethnicity. So those are two of the um funding policies that guide us in addition to um you know state statute and how charter pol uh charter funding is laid out. And then lastly, we just want to share some demographic information. Um, >> yeah, I um I don't know how detailed you want me to get

024with this, but you you're welcome to review it. Um we just wanted to give um some numbers uh as of October 1 to share a little bit about the demographics of each of our charter schools in terms of the student population and then included uh a comparison with PPS K5 schools and PPS middle schools since we have the three um K5 PPS charters and the two K8 PPS charters. that information is there for you to review. >> And that's kind of our that's kind of our general overview and then we're happy to answer any questions or comments. Thank you so much for that. Um I have a few questions. Um I'm curious about um the ongoing monitoring, oversight, and annual evaluation. Um and specifically um when charters are underperforming like what then? >> Yeah, we

025follow statute and we follow the contracts that we have in place with our charter schools. And so when we're uh creating the performance frameworks, which is a one-year look back, as we know, because we're we're assessing data um from last year at this point in time in this year. And so I'll be putting together those performance frameworks. Um and um a charter school um in order to be put on a plan of improvement from our office within MPG has to be underperforming as compared to the district in terms of those OSAS scores specifically uh for two years in a row to be put on a performance plan. So at this point in time, as of last year when we did our presentation to the board committee at the end of the year, we had no

026underperforming schools as compared apples to apples to district um in regard to those test score scores. If we do this year and moving forward, then we have to look at that over a two-year period and then that's when we would put a performance a plan of improvement, excuse me, in place for one of those charter schools. Um, and that's not to say that we wouldn't be having conversations along the way because we're all looking at the same data and we can we can see trends and get ahead of them as well. >> And I just want to say that process is outlined by in the state in state statute around the timelines for performance plans. So we we're following state guidance as we have that. I also just want to share to Sunnita's point. One

027of the things that happened um during COVID um is that we we met with chart as charter school leaders as a community of practice previously prior to COVID um periodically. What happened um during the COVID era was we went to a weekly charter school director meeting and the charter school directors um and our office have uh all kind of unanimously decided that they'd like to continue to meet weekly to talk about best practices um academic best practices um intervention best practices and so we have a meeting with them every Tuesday morning and we have a variety of they will bring problems of practice We will bring resources. Uh once a month we have a a a program administrator from special education who will come and provide. A couple months ago it was on dyslexia as

028an example. Um and so just really looking at what are the practices and how are how as leaders just like we provide professional development for our uh district leaders. What is the professional development? what are the resources that they have that they're sharing with one another. It's not necessarily always that that the district is providing the resource. Sometimes it's a community resource or a uh practice that they're working on um with regard to how they're supporting each other as a network of practice. Um, and then as as we mentioned, then we're also out to the schools every month just looking at what is what does practice look like um, and instruction look like in the variety of, you know, their specific school models. Um, but we're sharing kind of ongoing information. We're certainly sharing if

029and when and as we see concerns and as Sunnita mentioned earlier when we hear concerns from families directing them into um what that looks like and how and ensuring with leaders um you know supports that are available how are families getting their needs met and what are those opportunities um you know to problem solve along the way. Um, how would families know about kind of the I I appreciated the the framework for escalating problems? Um, how accessible is that to families? >> That information is accessible to families either via the school's website or everyone. Um, all of the schools also have to submit annually to us their family handbook. Um, so that information we're checking to make sure that the escalation process is readily available to families and at their fingertips. Okay. So, I'm a

030little new to the charter school thing. I'm excited to learn about it. I was really excited that it was on the agenda. I am I'm sort of for the funding structure. >> Can you kind of tell me like I'm five I'm seeing so the p the funding passed through for charter schools state school fund is 19 million. How is that part and parcelled out? Like how do you decide what to spend per student in a charter school? Does that make sense? >> Yeah. So this so the state outlines that the minimum uh fiscal return um reimbursement rate per student per pupil is 80% at the K8 level and 95% at the um high school level. And so and that's um of net operating expense. And so um every district every year has to determine um

031the average cost it costs per student to educate in that district. And so then the state gives guidelines for different types of contracted schools about what those percentages of passrough rates are. So the state says 80% for K8s and 95% for high school. and the board when looking at um other districts and looking at and hearing um hearing talking about this issue in years past um has made the uh has passed two board policies um that we went over that and so that that's what guides us is board policy. So, it's it's obviously in in accordance with the state. Um, but board policy is what guides how much um we get per each school gets per student um per month. >> And I guess one thing um and I appreciate you saying you're learning and

032that question is a great question. Um, one thing that I I am coming out of being a leader at a charter school for a number of years and one of the things um that I'd love to just share with um people who are learning about charter schools is that with that um 90% pass through rate, the charter school has to function essentially independently and autonomously. They're um not only purchasing their own curriculum and health insurance plans for their teachers, but they have to um secure a facility and pay market rate rent or one of our schools um um has purchased a facility. Uh but from that 90% of funds per pupil funds, they also have to pay for a facility and find that facility and pay for it themselves as well. >> Thank you. And

033>> I just want to clarify it's the percentage of the state school fund amount per pupil for schools. Yes. >> So the other the other the rest of the percentage comes from our the general fund. >> I mean the state school fund is the Okay. So I'm just >> so so it comes from that other to from it comes from the other amount that that difference between the the 80 and the 100 or the 95 and the the 80 and the 100% because it's all at K5 or K8 level. We don't currently have any charter high schools. Um, can you talk a little bit about um how we know that charters are compliant with um OD requirements? And I'm thinking specifically around um equity stuff and ensuring um like fair treatment and access for LGBTQ

034plus kids. um specifically. >> Yeah, I I mean I think Karina spoke a little bit to um the weekly meetings that we have where we're sharing resources and sharing information. at those meetings. I'm also always always sharing um with the link included in our agenda uh the um access to OD's charter school um office hours which happen on a monthly basis. and that um connection that we've made with the charter school specialist at OD. They have someone designated as a charter school specialist who's not only responsible for sort of the oversight in the same way that our office is responsible for our five schools, their office is responsible for the four state sponsored schools, two of which are in Portland. So we we work with those schools a lot as well. But that charter school

035specialist, aside from the oversight of those um four state sponsored schools, is also responsible for disseminating all of the information that helps keep all of our charter schools um meeting those um the the guidance that is coming being pushed out from OD and is ever evolving so that there is a like streamlined way that they're receiving information from OD through that office and then through our office to the schools and the school administration. >> Thank you. I think I I think I just have one more. Can you talk a little bit about um kids with disabilities in charters and um the way the district interfaces with the charter to support sped kids? >> Absolutely. I'll let you take that one. >> Sure. So, uh, uh, the only Portland public schools employees that are, uh, um,

036in our charter schools is our special educa or our special education teams. So, we have, um, a in the, um, assignment of staff um, from within our special education department, there is an assignment of staff of our school sites, our um, learning center teachers, our para educators, our speech and language pathologists. um at the same ratios that we have in our in all our schools. And so those are Portland Public Schools employees. And so they are charged um that they're they're performing in the same way that they're performing in um in other the expectations are the same as the expectations in in other schools. Um and so we also have that's where we do um and I referenced earlier there's where that's one of the areas that the uh charter school office or the MPG

037and the MP multiple pathways office has a lot of collaboration is with our charter with our special education department. Um and so as an example, Maria Geian is the um director uh assistant director of special education for elementary. And so she is a resource that we connect with quite often and she also is hearing from families. She's the one who's supervising the special educators that are in our charter schools. And she we we didn't mention this. We've mentioned these weekly meetings. Um they're um something that um we've really really focused on in these past few years. And um Maria has been a great collaborator with us and she pushes into those meetings once a month to provide um guidance and um charter specific PD for this the team of administrators who come to those meetings

038which has been great. I'll also just say one more thing which is when Sunnita and I are going out to the charter schools to meet with the charter school leaders and observe classrooms if there are um um challenging situations um we will collaborate and sometimes we will go together um and have some conversations family meetings uh staff uh you know uh case management meetings around uh supports and resources and planning for our um students um involved in enrolled in special education. >> Okay, I kind of lied. I have one more question, I think. Um, so, uh, when I asked about, um, performance, um, and you mentioned, um, that we look at how a a charter is doing, um, in comparison to the non-charter schools in the district. Um, what do we know about how kids

039who are historically underserved um, tend to perform in charter schools and what the outcomes are and if there's a disparity between um, their experiences in the charter versus um, in just regular PPS programming. >> Um, I'm we're looking at the disagregated data certainly when we're putting together the framework. So we'll be sharing those with you at the end of the year and you'll be able to unpack for each of the schools um in that regard and really dig into the data in that way which is is quite helpful. Um one of the things that I want to to like go back to just in terms of like thinking about an underperforming school another place in that we kind of lean into that I mentioned the performance plan. I'm just I digress for just a moment,

040but we uh the performance plan that a school is putting together at the beginning of a school year, we have access to embargo data at the beginning of the school year, even when it hasn't gone um out for public consumption later in the fall. And so that is an opportunity in very early on for our office to say to a school, hey, you're getting ready to put together that performance plan for September 30th due date to our office. Probably you should be looking at the data, this particular data set, in regard to your academic goal for the year. And so I just wanted to kind of bring that up that that we have that opportunity as well to sort of help move the process along. But you were it sounds >> every school also has

041localized assessments. So we're also having conversations around um what assessment data looks like um overall and then um with regard to individual um racial and ethnic groups and different uh communities of learners. So we're we are continuing to have those conversations and um and talk about again from a coaching stance and from a data review stance um around what are the resources, what is you know each school given their individual um school model. Not every school is going to do it the same because it's they're going to do it in the framework of their school model. But so our conversations are in your respecting your school model. you know, what does that look like to um you know, to serve the for math instruction for third graders? What does it look like for you know,

042uh first grade um literacy? So, we're having specific conversations around specific groups of community of learners with each school as we go as we go through and so and the overall answer to your question is it varies, right? is that um it it varies from year to year and it varies from school to school and that's where we're doing the ongoing work. Our job is to do the ongoing work throughout the school year like actually on a 12-month calendar with schools and then we have kind of the state guides us in their framework around when we put people on formal performance plans and what that looks like. Um but just like any other of our schools, we don't want to get to that place. So, we want to do as much proactive um as we

043can. >> I should never say that's my last question. I always have more questions. Um do charter does charter school like test data roll up with the rest of the district? >> Yes. Yes. Um so given that are charter schools um like I know they purchase their own curriculum and some have their own philosophies and pedagogy and whatnot but um do charter schools have to do things like science of reading for example >> they do not ha go ahead no go no go please they do not have to do the things that we because they are their own organizations they have latitude and autonomy around um around things such as the science of reading. So there are times when they ask and we work to see if it is if it's possible to include um

044teachers. One of the things just is in statute is charter schools. The reason for charter schools in part is for them to be learning labs for districts. And so um we also want to look at the expertise that charter schools have in a particular area and how we can learn kind of that the learning can go in all directions. Um I will also say that when we uh that some schools will request um and look at how can they utilize or participate with a variety of kind of different materials that we have. So that and that is also what one of the things that we are able because when we pass bonds we talk about um services and and supports in in in we they vary from bond to bond but we talk about them

045specifically available to all PPS students. Um and so that might vary depending on the school model and the school and the kind of our level of resource as well. the questions. >> Thank you. Okay, I think I'm really done this time. >> Thank you so much. That was great. >> We appreciate the questions. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, next is a presentation on tag services and access academy. Christina, would you like to introduce this item? >> Sure. We have um Dr. Emily Glasco here who's the senior director of PK core five at core academics and Darcy Sodto who is our director of learning acceleration. Um we will end with uh Dr. Cardona. >> Hi I'd like to I'm also going to like to welcome Aaron Ferguson the principal of Access Academy. Uh,

046and so we'll be able to answer questions at the school level or the district level for tag or about access. >> Give us one second to adjust. I'm sorry. Okay. Good afternoon. I think we're still afternoon. Maybe good evening. Um, I'm Emily Glasco. So, I'm the senior director for PreK5 academics, um, which includes overseeing K12 talented and gifted programming. We're going to, um, we've already introduced who's here. Um, we're going to talk today about the identification of TAG students, programs and services for TAG students, rights of families of TAG students. Our director of learning acceleration who oversees TAG, Darcy Sodto, will talk about those three buckets. and then we'll pass to Access Principal Erin Ferguson to talk about Access Academy, which is related to but not the same as talented and gifted programs. So, I'm

047going to pass to Darcy and she's going to get into the meet with you. Thanks. Thanks, Emily. Um, good afternoon, directors. the organization of the contents of the presentation is um organized in terms of the division 22 requirements that are um associated with talented and gifted services for the district. So um I have a summary here of we're going to start with identification um sort of as a natural start to our presentation. Um, and the piece that I want to highlight here is that our division 22 requirements. Um, these are the Oregon administrative rules that really dictate how tag services are provided, including tag identification. And an important note is that several years ago, just around pandemic time, 2020, 2021, um, these organ administrative rules were modified. Um, and so there's a real shift in

048terms of tag identification. Previously, tag identification was really tightly um associated with a percentile score on a nationally normed assessment. Um and the new um OARS really shifted that focus um to a more holistic look at a student um and that we have two requirements in order to identify students um for TAG services. they are that a student demonstrates exceptional performance when compared to um applicable developmental learning progressions i.e. their peers. Um, and that they require differentiated instructional services or programs. And so I I want to underscore that because it's really the crux of TAG identification. Um, sometimes we get confused about um a student being identified for TAG because they have a high score on an assessment. And if that student is showing, you know, really typical growth and thriving in the classroom without

049additional needs, that student should not be identified for TAG services. So, it's a it's a dual requirement and it's important that we meet that requirement of our division 22. So, we are in corrective action and have been for the past several years um with the Oregon Department of Education and we work closely with them to meet the requirements of that corrective action. That corrective action will continue through the fall of 2027. So as part of that corrective action in terms of identification for students, we are required to provide an annual training for all licensed staff. That includes administrators, counselors, and all teachers. Um those who have um responsibilities for identifying students for TAG services. So we're talking about all licensed staff in our school buildings that provide TAG services. um and that we keep and

050track that data and um provide it in an annual report. Um as far as what our procedures are for identification of tag students, we start with the universal screener. It's applied to all first grade students. This year that was a shift. Um it was for second grade students and so we've moved that down to first grade to hopefully identify students earlier who may not be otherwise identified. um that universal screener is a non-verbal assessment that is administered to all first graders. This year it's administered to all first and second graders to catch that um so there's no gap. In addition um we administer that uh screener to all newcomer ELD students who um are speakers of other languages and are coming into the district and into the country within the last three years. um those

051two those two types of screeners um can trigger a referral process and a referral may be submitted by staff, family or the student themsself. Um, and so that identification process that's linked on the slide and I'll have it um there's a visual in the next slide um provides um all of the new require all of the requirements of division 22 and also meets the requirements of the new um legislation that was passed during the last legislative session. Um and uh includes a couple of different elements. Emily, if you could back one that one. >> Yep. >> We're out of order. Sorry. >> Okay. uh infographic. This is available on our publicly on our website um and on our tag posters in all of our schools. Um so this is a new process this year to

052meet the new requirements based on that legislation. So it's an 8-week process and can happen anytime from the start of the school year until April 15th, which is about eight weeks from the end of the school year. Any referrals that were received in that time um they they may be completed in the new year. Um it includes a request for that evaluation that happens either um from the family or that referral um is initiated through the universal screener and then families get notified and they get um uh a request for a reflection on their students um progress and um needs. A reflection also goes to the teacher and then um there's data that's gathered and the school team who is the tag facilitator and the principal makes the determination and we as the tag office

053provide that notification to the family including a notice of their rights and um information on personalized education plans. Um and then we support teachers and TAG facilitators with developing those plans. Yep. Um this is our 2526 um data that we can provide. As of today, we have um on that requirement to provide training to all of our licensed staff, we're at about 75 76%. Um and then the information in the tables below are um populations of current TAG identified students um by demographics and then also by areas that they are identified. Many of our students are identified in all three areas. Those being reading, math, and intellectual giftedness. So there are a total of 7,675 students in the district who are TAG identified, which is about 19% of our overall population. There we go. Moving

054on to programs and services for TAG students. Uh again, I want to highlight that um our division 22 requirements and or administrative rules really help help spell out what tag services should be. And it's a really different look than what you and I may remember from when we were in school. I was a TAG student. I went to a special class. It was very fun. That would be great for all students. um and our um you know our department of education and our um Oregon school board have when we changed these Oregon administrative rules it was really a focus of the needs of students. So TAG services is more akin to a 504 plan or an IEP addressing the needs of students with differentiated instruction than it is to a special program or a special

055class. So I just want to sort of like underline that tag services ideally a student is not even aware that they are receiving tag services because that differentiation is happening in the classroom and their needs are being met without them needing something additional. So as part of our corrective action we're providing annual training that is embedded with the annual training on identification. So those things happen at the same time. We also um as part of that corrective action have to have um opportunities for district office administrators. It's myself and my team to observe rate and level instructional practices within our schools. And that is a thing that we do and as part of our instructional walks um and that we keep data on um the licensed staff who have been trained and posted in our

056annual report. One thing we've been working on this year in terms of procedures for TAG services are personalized education plans. All families of tech students have a right to request a personalized education plan. And we have this year really um put in some time and effort on providing robust training for TAG facilitators and teachers on how to write a personalized education plan and how that serves students. Um so that's part of our efforts that are also reflected in the narrative of the corrective action plan. As I mentioned, TAG services are largely provided in the classroom through differentiation and at the secondary level through course selection into AP um IB and dual credit courses. I've included here a few slides that are part of our um licensed staff training that help um provide teachers with opportunities

057to practice um how to plan for TAG students. um that we're thinking about the content area that we're teaching, the specific needs of the TAG students and how to understand those needs um and then implementing and providing continual monitoring and support. These are some examples of TAG services in our district um both in the classroom and then we do have district and school processes and programs. Um they are not limited to TAG students. It's important to note that any student um can go through uh what is called whole grade or single subject acceleration. Any student is um able to of course take advanced coursework and access academy. Although it is mostly TAG students, it's not a requirement to be a TAG student, tag identified student. Again, this is the information about personalized education plans and

058our program administrator, Diana Krueger, has done a lot of work in going out to schools and providing um an in-person training for staff on how to write those plans and support students. Finally, u part of our division 22 requirements for TAG is um to ensure that families of TAG students um know their rights and that we're meeting those rights, those requirements. Um we inform parents of the identification decision. They are able to opt out. They are able to provide input. Um again, we're really encouraging that personalized education plan. Um, people are probably getting sick of me saying personalized education plan in almost every meeting, but um, it's really important that we get that information out there to our licensed staff and so that they can provide those services in a way that is aligned with

059the students needs and goals and also that we're documenting that really well and ensuring that that that um, plan follows the student through their K12 experience. So as part of the corrective action, we provide a slide deck that is um created by central office staff and then um implemented during back to school nights. Um we also as a team have gone out and provided that training ourselves um at the request of schools. Um and then also developing a plan for communicating with families which is part of our um tag plan that's posted on the website. You can I think you can move to the next slide. >> Oh, that's it. >> All right, >> I'm gonna hand it off to Aaron. >> Okay. Um, my name is Aaron Ferguson. I'm the principal of Access Academy.

060Um, Access Academy is a program that's part of Portland Public Schools that's designed to be flexible in a way that allows us to meet the specific educational needs of highly gifted students. Um, we serve students in grades 2 through 8. One of the best ways to kind of illustrate what that looks like is with the way that we serve our students needs around math. So when we're making the schedule for access, when we're, you know, sitting down in the spring to create the schedule for the the new year, we start with math. So the middle school schedule, the elementary school schedule, the special schedule, the lunch schedule, all revolves around making sure that all of our students are able to take the math that is right for them. Um, so it's it's pretty typical at

061a PPS middle school or a PPS K8 for there to be, you know, one section at least of algebra for students in 8th grade who are ready to take algebra. At Access, we have three sections of algebra. We have two section sections of geometry. This year we have one section of advanced algebra. Some years we go up higher than that in terms of the sections that we offer based on the specific needs that we're projecting for our students for the coming year. And then our entire schedule is built so that regardless of what grade you're in, you can go to the class that you need. So that means that we have, you know, regularly elementary school students who are taking middle school math, middle school students taking high school math, and often we have at

062least a few elementary school students who are taking high school math. 86% of our students are accelerated by at least one year in math. a little bit more than half are accelerated by more than that, meaning that they are more than two years above their grade level in math. And having that flexibility, having that schedule that is designed in that way, allows them to go and be in a math class with, you know, a mixed age group of people, often folks who are their same grade, who are in their same math level, um, and to be able to learn the math that's right for them along with their peers. Math, that's just one example with math. There are other ways in which we do acceleration with the the other course areas but math is is

063the clearest example. Um do you want to go to the next slide? We serve 325 students uh more or less. I think we're a little bit above that right now in grades 2 through 8. Um enrollment is by uh lottery process. uh we offer uh a enrollment preference to siblings of current students and economically disadvantaged students. The application window opens in midFebruary and closes in March and then we offer students spots uh in the spring. We do information sessions for families that are considering applying and then uh visits for students who have been offered a spot. Our students come from all over the city. If you look at the heat map of of where our kids are are coming from, it's it's well represented across the city. There are 62 different uh homeschools that our

064our kids are coming from. This year we enrolled 75 new students and there are 415 kids who were put on the wait list. >> So I think that's all that we have to present. We know you probably have questions, so we'll open up to those now. Okay, thank you. Um I thanks for putting this on the agenda. Um I used to sit on the tag advisory council. So this is this one is in my wheelhouse unlike charter charter schools. So it has changed a little bit since you know back in the day in my world. So in terms of identification I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly. Every first grader and I understand it's first grade and second grade this year but every first grader is screened. >> Yes. But in

065order to um be designated tag, it's not just the screener, it's also working with the educator in the room to actually make that referral. >> Is that correct? Okay. So, I'm understanding that correct. Okay. >> By Oregon statute, um a tag identification cannot be based solely on >> Okay, great. >> That second part isn't required though to be eligible for the access lottery. Do you know so that referral is happening with the educators? So we've we've correct it would be by the educator. I'm just wondering if the breakdown you know we were talking a little bit you know we had some public comment about demographics um for access in particular. um is it possible that um we haven't that the the root cause is what's happening in the referral process in terms of missing students.

066So I want to be clear to separate these two items um because tag tag services and tag identification is part of our division 22 requirements as part of our student civil rights. Access Academy is a program that meets the needs of students who meet eligibility criteria and it is based solely eligibility is based solely on a test score which is the exact opposite of tag identification. Um, and so I I just I want to be clear on that point that um our data for the number of tag identified students that we have and disagregated by race and ethnicity um is is closer to what you might expect um in terms of the number of students in each of those groups that um are identified. Um giftedness is a trait that is uh that that shows

067up equally among all demographic groups. Um and what we see in our data is that um we have over identification is is is a larger um issue than under identification. Um giftedness shows up in about five to at a really high end 15% of students. it's really around like 5 to 11%. Um, and so when we look at these demographics, what we see is that um, we are overidentifying certain groups of students and underfying by a small percentage other groups of students. When we talk about access academy, because the assessments that um a student can qualify for for the lottery eligibility on does not only include the assessment that is around intellectual intellectual giftedness, but also includes assessments that are specific to reading and math. A student may qualify and have that 99th percentile score.

068um for for reasons other than intellectual giftedness, if that makes sense. Um so they you know they may be exceptionally um skilled in a particular area and that shows up on a 99th percentile score on a MAP test for example. >> That was really helpful. Um is there and I just thought of this while you were talking differentiation. Is there data that's available? I'm not saying that you would have it right this second, but data available on the effectiveness of differentiation in classrooms for tax students >> at sort of the national research level. >> Yeah. Like how would you how do you know it's working? >> Yeah. >> Having been the parent of a kid in a class where you know it's >> I mean yes that that data is available and and and through

069a large sort of like national research base we can certainly provide some resources. What I would say is that how do you know it's working is that students are growing and and meeting typical growth and meeting and and exceeding that growth. Students who um students who experience giftedness, if they are not receiving their uh if they're not receiving instruction at their rate and level of learning, which is the language that's embedded in our statutes, um they're not going to be making growth, right? They they they um they end up staying in one place. They they stagnant, right? and and um so that is our best measure of success is growth. >> Um one of the questions I I asked the email I just wanted to bring up because it came up during the public comment

070um the the opportunity for for access specifically for families or parents to pay for other tests to qualify. And it looks like that 93% of our access students are coming to access via PPS administered tests, not outside sources. Does that sound? >> Yeah. Let me um just to and certainly Erin if you have a comment. Um but the uh the entry into access is managed by three departments or three areas. Um the TAG department uh identifies the criteria and also notifies families who are determined to be eligible for the lottery based on district adopted assessments. Um and then our enrollment and transfer department runs the lottery. And then um at the school level, Aaron assists with where where there are openings and um you know the the sort of onboarding process for students. Um access

071eligibility is for all students within PPS boundaries which includes students who do not attend PPS schools. So, I want to be clear that um parents of families who live in our boundaries are eligible for access and they don't have access to district adopted assessments because they do not attend a PPS school. So, those families would need to provide outside um assessments. Those assessments just need to meet the national um the nationally normed criteria and be on the list of assessments that we provide. Um and some families um some families have their students assessed through other means through you know identification and evaluation by outside professionals as well but it is a small percentage >> that's that's really eliminated. Thank you. Can I add as well and you can you can tell me if I'm talking

072out of turn here, but I think that you know also, you know, in my time at Access, I've seen the tech department making moves specifically to you just like create more uh equity around that testing. Like I think that the move from second grade to first grade for NNAT, you know, provides a lot more uh equitable access to that kind of testing for our first grade students who, you know, might be considering coming to access for second grade. also proactively notifying all families of students with a qualifying score in the entire you know PPS system who would be eligible to enroll at access are you know both things that you know we're doing specifically to to make sure that you know the folks who can pay for a test don't have an advantage over any

073other PPS student >> I have another question I have a question for you I was just thinking so um when we talk about um highly gifted students. We talk a lot about math because it is the easiest for anyone to kind of understand like how that would, you know, be uh be implemented. >> Can you talk a little bit maybe about science or reading? Like how because I've had the experience of seeing students come into, you know, my son's high school that are taking sophomore, junior level classes in science, you know, for example, like how how does that happen for a student at Access? >> Sure. Um and Dr. Garcia is here if you want to ask him more about it later. Uh at Access, I what we found worked best for our population is

074that we do the science curriculum for the grade above uh the grade that our our student is is in. Um and then, you know, provide the same kind of differentiation and scaffolding that we would, you know, for for anything else to be able to make sure that every kid in the classroom can be successful in that. The vast majority of our our students take uh high school physics in 8th grade and finish middle school with a with a physics credit. In the humanities, it looks a little bit different. You know, in the humanities, the the standards are a little bit different. The progression of the standards are are different. And so, in the humanities, we're really looking more at how can we how can we supplement that curriculum? How can we go deeper? How can

075we push the rigor around it? you know, if if you want to see what that looks like at the end of 8th grade, I would I would love to have you come and and visit when we do our National History Day presentations and you can see, you know, kind of where all that that uh that additional work that we do in the humanities shows up in those projects at the at the end of 8th grade. >> I will take you up on that. I just think it's important to point out that a lot of the students in access are uh accelerating. they're going above their grade level, you know, another grade or two, not just in math, but in reading, in science, in all of the areas. And um and you know, I'm not sure

076how you could, >> you know, I know we can do compacted math, you know, in our our neighborhood schools, but I'm not sure how you would do that if it would even be possible um otherwise. And I just think of, you know, um tag students and I'm asking for some more data, but you know, we look at like 97 percentile, 98 percentile, 99 percentile. It's important in my mind to think of it. It's not it's it's not an equal distribution. It's like climbing a hill where you're like 97 98 but like the 99 is like the steepest part of the hill. And uh there is a real difference for those students in relationship to their their peers. >> Yeah. >> So I just want to point that out. >> And it makes a difference when

077you're a sixth grader in algebra to have other sixth graders in your classroom who are developmentally in the same place and ready for that math. Um V uh Virginia some of my questions. Um so some of these might piggy back. Um do we what student groups do we have who are under represented in tag identification? the the the data on the slide that's up now um shows race race and ethnicity data. I would have to if we're looking for additional um student groups, I need to pull that and and get it to you. >> I guess my question is like just off the top of my head, I don't know what percent of our student population is black or Latino or whatever to compare it up against. You see what I'm saying? >> We can

078provide that. >> Yes. Okay. >> Yes, we can supplement this table. Okay. Um, I'm curious about how we're IDing kids in ways that are linguistically appropriate or culturally responsive or um responsive to kids who have um disabilities. Um, given that for access ID is solely test based and uh for tag it is not solely test based but that is a part of it. So, how are we um working to catch kids who um we know may not perform um in a way on standardized tests that's reflective of what their skills are. >> Yeah. Our So, the universal screener is a really big part of that process. The universal screener is a nonverbal assessment. Um it looks kind of fun. It's puzzles and um it it doesn't include any language at all. um students are working

079to solve logic puzzles and um and um move pieces around. Um and so it's a it's a reasoning and um logic based assessment that um is nationally normed and and widely used to assess students for intellectual ability. And the administration of that assessment for all students in one grade every year helps us get to that. we um automatically submit referrals for students who are at the 97th percentile or above. So the TAG department submits those referrals. Then the parent is notified and the school is notified and the process continues. For students who score between the 80th and the 96th percentile inclusive of those two ends, we I we notify schools and tag facilitators and encourage them to use another series of um sort of like guiding questions to um look at additional data points to

080consider a referral for those students as well. Um, in addition to screening first graders, um, three years ago, we started screening all new ELD newcomer students. So, these are students who would not have been in first grade here um, and may not be identified for TAG services or identified for their intellectual giftedness because of the language barrier. And so those um we we send proctors out to to administer those that same non-verbal assessment to all students in grades 2 through 12. And in the winter we start with first graders who came to our schools late and may have missed the non-verbal assessment. So, so that that's a big driver of um how we are trying to capture additional students who may not otherwise be found for that identification or that evaluation process. Um, and what

081I'll say about the rest of the referral process is that the new legislation that passed um requires school districts to accept referrals year round. And I think that's a really great move by our state legislators to um keep that open so that we're not creating barriers to access for students based on a timeline. Um and again a reminder that a tag identification doesn't require any assessment to be at any score. Um, we always look at assessment data as part of a tag of identification, but it may in fact be that a student has really strong performance in the classroom and really low scores on assessments. And that is also an a a key piece of information, right? Um, or a student is disengaged and has high scores. There's all kinds of different um ways that

082we use tools and checklists and sort of rubrics to help understand how a student may be performing and whether or not their performance and behavior and how they show up in the world may be associated with giftedness. >> Thank you. That makes a ton of sense. So now I'm curious about the access piece of that. Um, I was really struck by the demographic numbers um and uh curious about the under reppresentation for girls and kids of color. Uh, can you speak to that a little bit? >> Yeah, I mean I think that there's like clearly a lot of work to do in that area, you know, and and it has to do with our eligibility criteria and our admissions process. And I think that it's something that I I I know that it's something that

083my predecessor was was working with the district on and that I continue to work with the the TAG office on. You know, as uh you know, as has already been said, you know, giftedness is something that that cuts equally across all groups. You know, we should have proportional representation to the rest of PPS at access. And so, you know, that is an that is an ongoing project and something that that we need to continue to work on. I'll just just to chime in on that. Um part of the work that we're doing um in that direction is um we have an administrative directive that we're drafting for all tag services that includes um the how on uh so the tag department is responsible for determining that eligibility criteria and we don't have a lot of

084codified guidance on how to do that. So what has um what that amounts to is a continuation of you know of a process that has been established many years ago that is continuing to to have um similar results. And so, um, we're writing into that administrative directive a process that includes, um, community voice and, um, professional, um, voice from our staff at Access to help us, help us, um, understand that eligibility criteria and how we may need to shift that to, um, toward those goals that we have jointly. Just going to piggy back on that because I was wondering about the same thing as far as the proportional representation goes. Do you know and I do try to send my questions in advance. I did not send this one in advance. I apologize. But for

085the proportional representation for all the kids that do score, since it's just since it's specifically a test score, the 99th percentile within those test scores of those who qualify, is there proportional representation? Do we know? I don't know >> a proportional representation of >> of our de student demographics like our black students, our white students, our Asian students. >> Yeah, we would have to do further digging. >> We would and um we'd have to do some you know some additional um data work on that. that also um just as a note that the eligibility criteria that's available at that link there there's a long list of assessments um and they are all with different purposes and um so it would be it it would be challenging to do an apples to apples comparison on that

086um and we can get more into that. I was curious um bear with me as I try and ask this question. Um of families that do private testing to test into access, do we know if there's proportional representation there to families that are not in PPS schools right now? >> Does that make sense? like do we know how many of those families that are using private testing are doing it because they don't have access to the testing we do in PPS and how many of them are already in PPS and are choosing to go a private route um for whatever reason >> that is data that we that we could um that we that we that is available it's not data that we currently have but we could provide that yeah I want to say

087we could provide that for the current here. Yeah, I don't know if you know this um but do you know whether the new OARS um have resulted in an increase of kids who are considered historically underserved in TAG ID >> N PBS specific specifically. >> Sure. >> If you knew for the state, that would be cool, too. I don't know. >> I don't think the answer to that question matters about my response, which is um again, I think that we we could provide you with that data. We don't have it today. Um but I think what you're talking about is a a comparison of the number of students who are newly tag identified in each year following the change to the OARS. Is that accurate? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Um that's certainly something that could

088be provided. Um we would just need some support from our colleagues. Yeah. >> Do you have any more questions? >> Two two more. I think they're quick. So um for Okay, so access is an academic program. Can you give some examples of you know it's it's not a focus option which is why I try to explain that to that to people like it's not the same thing as an academic program. Can you give um an example of what another academic program might be within PPS? >> Pioneer. >> A pioneer school would be another uh academic program. And so it uh students from there are district students, but they go physically to that school building. And then would it be fair to say you know when I so talking about the acceleration that a lot of

089these students have across you know multiple subjects that you know I think of you know I'm older you know when I was younger you know kids you know they skipped grades right >> is would you say this is sort of similar like a lot of students you know in access are grade skippers >> not bad I'm just saying like it feels like that because I've seen them come into like I said into the high schools where they're they're coming in you having taken high school physics, you know, they're they're way ahead of math. They're, >> you know, their writing skills. Like, it's >> part of part of why Access works is that allows us to have students access the the academic curriculum that is right for them in a way that is the right mix

090for them. You for most students, you know, they aren't going to be in the same place in math. they aren't even going to be in the same place in the different parts of reading. You know, and you know, part of what the design of Access allows us to do is it lets us get students instruction at the appropriate rate and level in all those different places. And it allows them to do it in a way that also, you know, I think supports their social development. Um, and being able to, you know, connect with, you know, other kids that have, you know, similar similar stuff going on that are the same age. Uh, and that they can, you know, move through those things together and they could be they could be in algebra at 9:00 in

091the morning and then they can be a third grader at recess. And we do also have policies and practices for students not at access who may need either whole grade or single subject and math acceleration. >> I think it's what you're point you're pointing out in terms of like being with your peers like you know these students often there are issues with you know social isolation you know perfectionism um you know sensory processing disorders all those things. Sometimes those things are often not identified till much later for these students and it gets them in an environment um where they you know the the peer group >> can be really really important. It's always important. >> Yeah. >> But it can be the difference between >> you know. >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> Okay. I think that's

092it for us. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Next on our agenda is an update on academic programming at Jefferson High School. On Monday night, the board had a listening session at Jefferson High School to hear reactions to Dr. Armstrong's proposal for an enrollment scenario for Jefferson. One theme that kept coming up was a desire to know more about what academic offerings students can expect when they start their high school careers at Jefferson. Uh Chief Howard, would you like to introduce this topic? >> Sure. We have um Margaret Kelbert coming up and Dr. Philipe uh Reese Stitch uh coming up to present Uh good afternoon um chair committee um chair um Chase Miller and uh director Ford. My name is Philip Pistach and I'm proud to serve as the senior director for secondary academics.

093Uh I'm pleased to be here today to share uh some initial ideas for expanding academic programming at Jefferson High School. As Jefferson prepares for modernization and a potential shift to neighborhoodbased enrollment model, we have a historic opportunity to honor its legacy while designing a coherent college and career preparatory academic program. Um what we are presenting uh today reflects early concepts. We will continue deep engagement with students, families, staff, alum al alumni, and community partners uh to shape a shared vision for Jefferson's academic future. Jefferson has a long and proud history of academic success and community partnerships. Last year, 85% of Jefferson's graduates earned three or more advanced credits, well above the district average, and the school's graduation rate exceeds both the district and the state. This strong foundation gives us the opportunity to build on

094what's already working and expand access to rigorous, engaging learning experiences for all students. Beginning in 2026, Jefferson will undergo a major modernization. At the same time, PPS is considering sunsetting dual assignment, which will stabilize enrollment and allow Jefferson to operate as a comprehensive neighborhood high school. These two forces, modernization and the sun setting of dual enrollment, create the conditions for Jefferson not to only match what other comprehensive high schools offer, but to expand beyond it. This work will be shaped collaboratively with students, families, staff, and other essential stakeholders. This slide highlights four key pillars supporting this emerging vision of academic programming for Jefferson High School. Each pillar is rooted in Jefferson's identity, its arts legacy, history of partnerships, and successful dual credit while preparing students for future opportunities. First, our aim is to offer a

095coherent sequenced college preparatory experience beginning in 9th grade. Instead of simply adding AP courses, uh we want to build a pathway that prepares all students for college level work and experience. This may include universal pre-AP experience for all ninth graders, AP seminar, AP human geography, or AP African-American studies as core 10th grade options, and a robust menu of AP and dual credit courses in 11th and 12th graders. 11th and 12th grade. We're also exploring senior capstone experiences on the PCC campus to support a smooth transition into post-secary learning for our seniors. Second, modernization presents an opportunity to design CT pathways aligned to Oregon's high wage, high growth, and high innovation sectors. Pathways will be co-designed with educators and students of course as well as industry partners and higher education institutions to ensure coursework reflects real

096skills and real opportunities. Students would engage in hands-on learning, dual credit workbased learning and internship as well as mentorships. Our goal is to prepare Jefferson students not only for jobs, but to be innovators, problem solvers, and contributors to Oregon's future workforce. Jefferson's art legacy is one of the strongest in PPS as hopefully we all know and we have an opportunity to build a visual and performing arts program that honors this history while expanding into contemporary creative fields alongside dance, music, theater, and visual arts. We're exploring technical theater, audio engineering, media arts and film, costume and apparel design. digital design, just to name a few. These are aligned with Portland's creative economy and with post-secondary programs at PCC, PSU, and PNCA. Last but not least, um pillar four is about developing partner supported learning ecosystem. Jefferson

097has a long-standing partnership with uh PCC, PSU, OSU, SEI, and other community- based organizations. The opportunity now is to move from multiple individual partnerships to a coordinated learning ecosystem. Partners would support mentorship, applied learning projects, research and field experiences, industry exposure, dual credit coursework, and work-based learning internships. This approach positions Jefferson not only as a school with strong partnerships, but as a regional hub where students move seamlessly between school, college, community organizations, and industry. We've already heard a great deal from students, families, and staff leading up to this point. Uh this slide outlines the next phase of engagement and planning running from December 25 to summer of 26. Our engagement uh will our engagement efforts will include student focus groups and feedback sessions, staff engagement through the instructional leadership team, departments and all staff meetings,

098family engagement through the PTSA and site council as well as ongoing conversations with uh various partners. This phase will also include some key technical work. Uh we want to establish a CT design team, analyze uh you science data to understand students strengths and interests, review modernization implications for academic programming, and finalize next year's course catalog so that students can forecast accurately next year. Our engagement priorities include uh ensuring families understand um whatever new offerings and supports might be in place, providing clear communication to students about pathways and uh other options. Uh we want to gather early feedback to make adjustments and clarify partner roles for mentorships, internships, and dual credit. Uh next January we will be forecasting for the 2728 school year and by that point students and families will have a clear understanding of

099available APCT visual and performing arts and other elective courses. Uh I want to close by saying that Jefferson has always been a place where excellence and possibility live side by side. As we move into this next chapter, we have a chance to honor that history while designing new opportunities worthy of the students who will walk through Jefferson's doors in the years to come. Uh, thank you for being part of this journey and I'm happy uh we're happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Ken, um, can you say a little bit more about advanced coursework uh, for everybody? >> Sure. Um, I can start by saying that all of our high schools offer uh some combination of uh either AP and dual credit courses or IB and dual credit courses. AP stands for advanced

100placement. Uh these are courses that are uh facilitated by the college board. um they provide a particular uh syllabus, a particular set of standards or learning outcomes. All of those courses have an exam associated with the course typically in the spring. And students who uh earn a three, four or five on that exam uh are eligible to earn college credit. Uh different colleges have different expectations in terms of uh what cut score they accept for for college credit. Uh IB on the other hand is international bal balora program. Um it's a slightly different approach to providing college level or college preparatory coursework and two of our high schools Cleveland High School and Lincoln High School have the IB program um fully developed in those in those schools. >> Can I add can I add something?

101Yeah. just I think this is going to be really important for uh for Jefferson families when we talk about the AP curriculum, how this is this is how a weighted GPA works. In order to you know be above a four point um you have to get an A in an AP class that's worth five points, but there are dual credit classes are not like that. So, in order for Jefferson students to have like academic parody with other high schools, we have to have those AP offerings for them um in order to, you know, be competitive with, you know, their peers, with, you know, peers, you know, other kids they're applying to colleges with, you know, all those things. Um, how important that AP pathway is. Um, I didn't hear mention. I I suspect I'm curious

102how that AP roll in is going to work because like the AP human go and those classes are the the AP classes that the younger the younger students take. But once we start getting into like AP Calc or AP Lang or a you know um AP Lit, how will that work for the juniors and seniors that are there as this new class rolls in? Will they have AP classes added? Will they have that added opportunity or will those opportunities only start rolling in for the the new freshmen as they cycle through? Does that make am I making sense? >> Sure. There are a few questions. Do you want to add? >> I just want to I just want to address the the question about weighted GPA unless that was where you were going to go

103first. >> Yeah, I was. But >> go ahead. I'll let you go ahead and then I'll chime in and as to the nature of weighted GPA. What I wanted to offer is that we believe that adding AP courses to Jefferson High School as it expands is is an important addition and we also I would want to emphasize that our dual credit courses are also very important and also college preparatory and carry a certain set of benefits that AP courses uh don't. So, I think it's it's an important addition. And I also uh wouldn't want to deemphasize the dual credit courses that are already at Jefferson and and that have allow that have prepared students to be very successful um uh after graduating from from Jefferson High School. And I would I would just add that

104um when we look at weighted GPA, this has been an ongoing discussion with the high school uh principles and a group that is uh that looks at policies and practices for the district as a whole. There are implications for weighted GPA for a variety of reasons. Um I uh Dr. Husich is on that team that uh is looking at what that looks like and what does that mean? The decision to wait GPA in PPS came probably um 15 years ago and and at the time the conversation was solely about AP and IB. That's an internal decision that we made as a district. So that's that is we currently that's just I'm just going to say that's a policy that we framed. Um but it is part of the policies and practices group that includes counselors

105from across um all the high schools and vice principles and principles across excuse me across the high schools. What is different about dual credit is that this is a college transcript. So what students get when they are taking dual credit courses whether it's through PCC, PSU, OIT is that you actually have a college transcript and when you apply to colleges you apply with a high school transcript as well as a college transcript. So it is um where where there anyway there's a longer conversation about weighted GPA that I think you know that's something that the academic team certainly can bring forward and have a conversation about how that impacts various pieces. What does that look like? Where where are weighted GPA looked at? Where are they not? I mean, I think that's part of a

106larger conversation. Um, I would just say overall the advanced coursework and what does that look like? Um, the other piece that's different about dual credit versus pieces with AP or IB is that a large portion of AP and IB is based on testing. And dual credit is performance over time. So, it is not attendancebased. It is academic performancebased. and it's tied to um external uh validators such as um they're called common course uh outcomes that happen with either PSU, you know, with other with with a higher ed education institution. So there's there's differences amongst what it what we look at with advanced placement, what does that mean? I think that it's a rich conversation to have with families to help understand sort of what does that look like and what does that mean as you

107move out of high school? like so there's in high school experience and then what does that look like beyond high school? What we um do know and and working with the University of Oregon and the Oregon University system as a whole is that students that complete dual credit courses in things called the transfer module actually persist and complete at uh Oregon universities at a much higher rate than other students. >> And then director Le Ford, I think you also asked about how the courses would be sequenced or or introduced. Um >> yeah, like once it's once we we make the switch, are we making the switch for the first year of freshman or is it for all of the students? Are we going to make the switch to a comp? Does that make sense? It's

108sort of like half middle college, half comprehensive >> high school as we're rolling through this transition. >> Yeah. Um that's that's a great question and I'll just try to articulate some things that we're we're wanting to that we're paying attention to. So, one is we want to make sure that stakeholders are engaged and that we're having conversations with students who are both at Jefferson now and who will be at Jefferson to get to get a better sense of their their interests, their passions, their curiosities. Uh we also want to continue having conversations with staff and and other partners. And so, right now, Principal Shelton is going through a process with his staff to get ready for forecasting that students will do after winter break. And this is something that's happening in all of our high

109schools. They're finalizing their course catalog which will include the list of courses that students will be uh choosing from and are they're already having conversations about what courses may be introduced next year uh that that are new. And again, this is typical to what's happening in other high schools uh as well. One of the ideas that we're interested in exploring is the possibility of instead of treating advanced coursework as an optional pathway for some students who choose to engage in that pathway to make that the core experience at Jefferson High School. to say that starting in ninth grade, we have intentional pre-AP work built into all of our core classes and that starting in 10th grade, advanced placement work is integrated in core social studies andor language arts so that by junior year students are

110taking multiple college level courses, combination of AP and and dual credit. Um so that's a conversation that we we're going to continue having with different stakeholders and also to then to ask well if that is the direction that we want to move in what might be the right course uh to to introduce uh we have some examples in some of our other high schools uh that are doing similar work. So for example at Grant High School all of the sophomores all of the 10th graders take AP human geography as their core social studies class. that is the course that everybody takes and there's intentional preparatory work that happens starting in 9th grade to make sure that all students are are um ready for that level of work. At McDaniel High School, all sophomores take AP

111seminar as the core English class and in 9th grade all nth graders take preap to get ready for that level of work. And so what we have found from uh looking at data is that at schools that identify AP or IB for all, we have great examples at Lincoln and at Cleveland as well starting junior year where um all juniors take IB courses at Lincoln and and Cleveland is that that racial disproportionality that exists throughout the country and in many of our schools simply disappears when college level coursework is uh is part of the core. or coursework. Um, so just to identify those two examples as potential courses that may become part of the core Jefferson program. We're also looking into AP African-American history as perhaps being part of the core uh social studies course

112at Jefferson High School. >> And that builds on what is currently there at Jefferson. So currently um all juniors uh their English language arts classes uh reading and writing 115 which is aligned with PCC their senior language arts class and uh government and econ is connected to Portland State University. So it's uh a combination of those pieces and what you'll see at any school that is offering a core class that is for all that is in addition to sort of the interestbased pieces around advanced course work that you see. So um whether it's uh grant also offers um uh like NGSS biology that is a dual credit class for all juniors. So there's this combination of pieces that is like is there something that every student in the in a school is going to have

113access to and then where are the places that they can pursue interest and passions. >> Has there been any conversation you you mentioned that the PPS policy is what weights the AP scoring. Has there been any conversation about waiting the dual credit coursework? >> There's been a a lot of conversations about why some of the advanced course is weighted and has and is not weighted. the decision about what to do about waiting is it's been a I don't know Fleet probably knows excuse me Dr. reached it probably don'ts um it more readily now but this is an ongoing conversation not only in PPS but nationally about what is the role of uh waiting GPA and class rankings both are of topics of um they're very uh high energy topics right now across the nation I

114would say >> I would love to come back and and talk more about that if there's interest >> we would love to have you come back and talk about that Um I think I can't say it's the final question. Learned that lesson. Um I've heard some chatter in the community um when the idea of AP for all is raised. Um that seem the way that it lands with me is like if everybody has AP, nobody has AP almost. Um, and in hearing you talk about what Jefferson already offers, it's pretty clear to me that Jefferson already has some pretty robust academics. Um, can you speak a little bit to that idea about um, all kids being able to engage with coursework at this level and be successful? >> Sure. I'm happy to start and then

115Margaret, please, please jump in. Um, we believe that all kids can engage in that level of work. We we believe that all of our students are uh college ready uh and and college capable and uh should they choose to move in that direction after high school, we want to make sure that all of them have had the experience of what it's like to be a college level student. And so to um Margaret's earlier point, dual credit for our students who take senior inquiry for example as their senior level English and government and econ class. The these are students at Jefferson, McDaniel, and Roosevelt. They enroll in PSU uh as part of that class. They have a transcript from PSU. They go to PSU. They spend time in the library at PSU. They interact with the

116students at PSU. they have the experience of what it's like to be a student at PSU and that class is co-taught by a professor from from PSU, right? Uh and so we know that um students can do that at the at the senior level. We know that students can engage in college level coursework at the junior level and we have examples from at least two of our high schools that our students can engage in uh college level coursework as sophomores as well. So, um we believe I believe um that um Jefferson High School students uh can engage in college level coursework um as sophomores as well if we do a good job starting in 9th grade. If we do a good job in our feeder programs and I know that our feeder principles are very

117eager to uh to make sure that their kiddos are prepared for that level of work and if we have a collective belief that our students can uh perform at that level as well. So, um, it is kind of a brazen idea, but there are plenty of examples, I think, throughout the country, uh, of of schools that are unapologetically committed to making sure that, uh, all students, not as an optional kind of sidetrack, not as an optional space for some kiddos, but that this is the expectation for all of our students. And so, that's the idea that in in many ways uh, or in more ways than one has already been present at Jefferson High School. And now as we're expanding, adding programming, we want to make sure that we're not adding kind of peacemeal thing

118things, but that there's a coherent set of beliefs that that is continuing to to guide that um development of the academic program. >> I would say um I would just add one one piece to it as well. And I think that there has to be a commitment to saying um there are concrete uh skills and thinking processes that we want students to engage in. What is the critical thinking that we want every student to engage in? And so when we look at what is the course that is for all, it's really important to look at what is what what is the makeup of that syllabus. What are the types of thinking that are being asked? What is the reading and writing as it may be where students are demonstrating their understanding? Then you build the

119structures that support that development in time so that students are are entering with a high likelihood of success that it's not about access. It's literally about success. Um and then when students are in it in the courses, you have to really be thoughtful about what are the um uh in the- moment real-time supports that are going to be needed in order to um keep students engaged in moving uh towards the credit. And I think that it's both. So you have to do it prior and you have to do it in the midst of and I think that it takes um a lot of collaboration amongst teachers and working with students and building um and families and building an understanding of what the expectation is as well as um what the supports will be. And I

120think that this I mean I remember when we made this decision um at Jefferson to do senior inquiry for all um in the senior year. It took um we we really spent quite a bit of time laying out what the supports would be prior. What were the key writing um outcomes that we were looking in the senior year and were we threading them through in freshman, sophomore, junior so that students were developing the skills and they weren't seeing it for the first time in the senior year. So this is part of a cohesive plan that you would have at a school and that you would build out and that's uh the work that I think principal Shelton is doing and it's not only at Jefferson. So I'm just saying like this when you look at

121these trajectories what is it that we want all students to demonstrate as seniors and then you're like backwards planning to say where are those opportunities for students to do that. So I think that that is um it's very consistent across our district about where that happens but you have it's not like that you're doing it in every area. there's specific trajectories that you're looking for um when you're when you're introducing um an for all class. >> That was really helpful. Thank you. And um I'm I'm really excited that we have uh belief in the competence and capabilities of all of our students and that we're going forward with really high expectations. You any more questions? All right. Well, I think that's a wrap. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. >> As a reminder, the

122whole board will discuss the recommended proposal at the December 16th full board work session. We are planning for a board vote in January of 2026. Our next meeting of the teaching, learning, and enrollment committee is scheduled for January 8th. The meeting will focus on CTE, college, and career readiness and attendance. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.