2025-11-13 Board of Education’s Teaching, Learning, and Enrollment Committee

001Right. Good afternoon. This public meeting of the board of education's teaching, learning, and enrollment committee for November 13, 2025 is called to order. Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you all for being here. Today's agenda includes an update on required instructional minutes, a presentation on reading instruction and dyslexia, and a Jefferson is rise is rising enrollment update. First, we'll begin with introductions. I am Michelle Chase Miller, uh, board chair. >> I'm Christie, >> not board chair. My bad. Committee chair. [laughter] I'm >> getting a little big for my britches over here. >> Um, I'm Christy Split. I'm um the board member for zone one, which encompasses Southwest Portland. >> I'm Virginia Lefort, um, board representative from zone 5, which is northeast Portland. >> Hello, I'm Christina Howard. I'm the senior chief of academics. >> And I'm

002Mary Kane, senior legal counsel. [laughter] [gasps] >> Next, we have public comment. Cara, do we have anyone signed up to speak? >> We do. Okay. Please make sure that when you begin your comments, you clearly state your name and spell your last name. and you will have two minutes to speak. I'm going to call them up in group two groups. So, the first group will be um Michelle White, Laura Wetwood, Christopher Boyce. missing one. >> Uh, we ask that once you hear the sound of the alarm go off, uh, please wrap wrap up your comments and, uh, it's up to you who wants to go first. >> I guess I'll go first. >> Anytime. All right. Hello. Thank you. My name is Chris Boyce. Last names B O Y C. I'm a parent of a

003Sabin fourth grader and Tubman uh Tubman seventh grader who is deeply concerned about the proposed Jefferson boundary changes and the process behind them. Many of you received a letter yesterday signed by over 200 people, mostly Sabin families who also share my concerns. All three presented scenarios remove Sabin from the Grant High School pathway. Sabin has always been a Grant community which has provided stability and belonging. We fully support Jefferson's modernization and growth. We want Jefferson's plan to succeed. Increasing enrollment at Jefferson and maintaining stability at Grant are not opposing goals. Jefferson success should come through partnership, not coercion. Our concerns are one, a lack of transparency and engagement. PPS has not held any engagement sessions in schools like Sabin and Irvington. Many elementary families were unaware of the proposal until neighbors began spreading the word.

004Two, a rushed process. decisions are being made a full year and a half before the June 2027 deadline set by board resolution 6627. Three, a lack of data. There are significant discrepancies in PSU and PPS data, especially when projected beyond 203031. Families have repeated repeatedly asked for clarity. Very little has been shared. Equitable education during transition. PPS has not shared plans about the curriculum at Jefferson before it reaches the enrollment necessary to be a comprehensive school. This is an equity issue for all students attending Jefferson during the transition years. We are asking PPS to provide additional modeling that goes beyond 203031. Consider an additional scenario that keeps Sabin and Irvington aligned with grant and engage communities intentionally before making recommendations to the board. Thank you for your work and your dedication to the project. Thank

005you. >> Thank you. >> Should I go? >> Okay. Uh Laura Westwood, WT WOD. Uh good afternoon. My name is Laura Westwood, a PPS parent, grant alumni, and lifelong Northeast Portland resident. I share the goal of Jefferson thriving as a cornerstone of the community. As parents in the Grant Jefferson cluster, we've spent the fall studying the proposals, listening to one another, and searching for the most constructive path forward. We found what we found is that the district's current scenarios move toward important goals, but some also risk deepening division and may not hold up longer term. That's why a few of us met with Assistant Superintendent Calvert yesterday to share what we call scenario F, a refinement that better serves PPS's stated goals compared to scenarios A, B, and C, while minimizing disruption. Scenario F achieves

006the same enrollment outcomes as scenario C, every high school above above 1100 [clears throat] students by 2030. Yet, it does so by maintaining sta uh stable K12 pathways, preserving community cohesion, and keeping stronger representation for black and native students at both Jefferson and Grant. In short, it meets the numbers and protects the neighborhoods relationships and diversity that make those numbers meaningful. It builds steady, consistent enrollment for Jefferson past 2030, and it softens the steady enrollment decline at Grant driven by the aging neighborhood. We respectfully ask that scenario F be reviewed as part of the upcoming deliberations not as a replacement but as a responsible evolution of this work. Finally, in regards to Irvington specifically, the Jefferson is Rising FAQ states students should not have to leave their community to access robust programs. I completely agree.

007Irvington is the heart of the Grant neighborhood and I request to remain with our neighborhood high school. Geographically, we have some students only blocks away from Grant and others for whom Jefferson would be their fourth closest PPS high school who live down in Sullivan's Gulch. Thank you for your time and dedication to our to our schools and students. >> Thank you. >> And Rachel White is virtual. So I'm gonna Rachel, are you ready? >> Yeah, sure. Uh I'm Rachel White. Whiti T. and that's she her. I am not in Sabin but I am in dual assignment. I uh want to say thank you to the board for your work. Um I know from personal experience that volunteering in uh school governance can be both rewarding and deeply challenging. I appreciate the intention behind Jefferson Rising

008and I recognize the value in long-term investment for our district. That said, I'm not comfortable with my family being required to attend a school that was never part of our educational trajectory. I'm a newcomer to Portland and I may lack certain historical context, but it has become very clear uh from many community discussions that the issues of race and equity are central to this process. I just want it to be very clear uh that my family chose Portland precisely because of its reputation for diversity and and inclusion and we would be delighted to consider attending Jefferson once construction is complete and once the school offers comparable amenities, academic programs, sports, and other opportunities to the other schools included in our dual choice pathway. I understand the board has referred to this also as the Lincoln

009plan, but that comparison is misleading. Lincoln students were largely engaged in virtual learning during the construction, an entirely different experience from what is being proposed. My priority for my family is continuity, stability, and well-being, the well-being of my children. Our high school pathway has shaped our decisions about, like I said, sports, summer programs, enrichment, and community involvement. These choices were intentional and they were designed to give our children a sense of rootedness after the enormous disruptions of CO. I cannot support a plan that undermines that foundation. I would ask the board to consider a three to four-year gap plan. One where school construction has begun in good faith opposed to eliminating dual choice in order to justify the already excessive cost to rehab or add programs. I urge you to elim eliminate wasteful spending on

010outside counsel to shape this narrative and instead send letters to the people in charge of construction. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Okay, we have Stella Parker and Steve Bueller. P A R K E R. I live in the SA district along with my husband and two boys who are in sixth and third grade. I am a Portland native and PPS graduate. I am here today to plead with you to slow down the process of ending the dual enrollment boundary between Grant and Jefferson to allow time to meaningfully engage the Saven community and avoid forcing our kids to attend Jefferson before it is ready for them. The three options that are on the table, A, B, and C, are all the same with respect to Sabin and represent a huge change for our community.

011The fact that they were developed without our input and are now being presented as the only options tells us their input doesn't matter and is not not being meaningfully considered. SA has always fed into Grant and many of us moved to the neighborhood specifically to be part of the Grant community. I have talked to many parents that are just now learning about this from other parents and are very frustrated at the lack of engagement. You have seen our saving community letter signed by over 200 people indicating this very frustration and significant opposition. We ask that you meaningfully engage with us to get accurate data on our preferences and provide a legitimate opportunity to affect the result. Additionally, we ask that you commit to not forcing our children to attend Jefferson before construction is complete and

012full programming is in place. The plan to have current sixth and seventh graders attend Jefferson before construction is complete does not account for the enormous sacrifices that you are asking these students to make. I recognize the benefits to Jefferson of increasing enrollment earlier, but the effect of these students on these students is too much to bear in pursuit of that goal. These students are not magnets on a chalkboard that you can move around at will. Furthermore, this decision will lead to many sixth and seventh graders leaving PPS, which undercuts the rationale for doing it and would cause significant emotional distress and financial expenses for these families. Personally, as a mom, I am I cannot in good conscience send my sixth grader to Jefferson under these circumstances. So, count us as one family that PPS will

013lose if you go through with this decision. Thank you. >> Thank you. My name is Steve Buell. Buel [clears throat] and this committee is the education committee. That's why I came here today because I haven't been able to talk to anybody in the district about educational things inside the schools. All the stuff that's going on is so important and it kind of takes you away. It's a two-hour conversation which I have put into now two minutes minute and 45 seconds. Now the u I started this committee as a education committee. They never had it for 40 years and then this is the most important committee in the district. It's what is important in education is what takes place in the classroom in the end and you are the people in charge of that. They can

014talk all they want about hiring the superintendent and so forth, but you under the state law are in charge of what goes on in the school district within the laws. So, here's some things he could do to improve it. You know, Malcolm Gladwell has a term that is called overstory. What's the overstory? Well, the reading overstory for the last 15 or so years has been basically Lucy Caulkins and they forgot about phonics. So Portland's starting to move back that way. But you've got all sorts of teachers running around there who have not been trained. And you don't need hours and hours and hours of training to get them the information they need. What you need is to give them the information so they can begin to use it themselves. Period. So you give them how

015does phonics work? What's first? What do you do? And so forth and so forth. And that would make a huge difference because you've got people who don't have any idea how to teach phonics out there. I taught for 43 years. I taught elementary school. I went to the number two uh the number two well number one really uh college in America. They didn't teach you how to teach reading. There's a number two number one education college in America. They didn't teach you how to teach reading there. That my time? >> Okay. No problem. We have about 10 more things. If anybody's interested, you have my phone number. If you'd like to talk, I'll be glad to share this with you. The superintendent won't answer any of my emails. Just won't even acknowledge them, which I

016find odd. Nobody in the entire Portland public schools will acknowledge those emails of any of the several people that I've talked to. Correct. Thank you. You have a nice day. >> Thank you. And thank you to everyone who took the time to provide comment. Our first topic is an update on required instructional minutes. Introducing this topic is Christina Howard, senior chief of teaching and learning. >> Oh, we're doing dyslexia first. Uh let's see who's presenting dyslexia. agreed to switch. >> Yes. Yeah, totally fine. >> Okay. Good evening. Um, I would like to introduce Dr. Emily Glasco who is our senior director over PK5 core academics, early learners, learning acceleration and talented and gifted and Elizabeth Martin who is our assistant director of academic intervention and they will be um sharing the presentation for tonight. Hello.

017>> Uh, sorry, I'm just getting myself here. Okay. Um, hello. Thanks for having us. Um, I'm Emily Glasco. I'm the senior director for PreK5 academics. >> I'm Elizabeth Martin and I support the academic intervention as well as dyslexia. >> And Mr. Bule, you were not a plant, but you might as well have been. You gave us a really nice segue into this conversation. and I hope you'll be pleased um with what you hear. Um >> be great to talk to you. >> We've talked. We'll talk again. Um so, we're going to talk about reading instruction and um the dyslexia state requirements and how uh we align our practices with those. Um can you guys see the whole thing? Okay. So, as we like to, we're going to start with learning targets and success criteria just

018like we do in our classrooms. Um, so our first learning target is I'm learning how PPS supports all students with highquality instructional materials aligned to the science of reading as well as aligned core supports for students who show dyslexia risk. And we hope at the end of this presentation, you'll be able to describe how PPS's high quality instructional materials and core supports align to best practices for dyslexia and early literacy instruction. Do you want to read the second one, Elizabeth? Sure. Okay. I am learning how PPS meets Oregon Department of Education's requirement to screen students for risk factors of dyslexia and train teachers in dyslexia. And so hopefully at the end of our time together, you will be able to explain how PPS exceeds the Oregon Department of Education's requirement for both dyslexia screening and

019teacher training. Okay. Is this So I'm advancing. There we go. Uh we just wanted to locate this for you in our district continuous improvement plan. You've been well verssed in that, so we're not going to go deep into it, but this sits within the literacy bucket, which is one of our four big goals that we're working on as a system. Before we dive into the actual state requirements around dyslexia, we did want to just couch what we do universally for all students to prevent and um get ahead of potential reading difficulties that students may experience. Um, just to flash back um, a decade or so in the 201s, our dyslexia advocacy community um, was pushing us rightfully very hard to make sure that we had universal instruction aligned with the science of reading in all

020of our classrooms. And we didn't at that time. We have come to a place where we absolutely do um, and where the resources that are in our K5 classrooms are aligned with the science of reading. They're aligned with the research on how students brains learn to read and write and speak and listen. Um, those are universal every day for every child. And to Mr. Beiel's point, we are also engaging, as I think you guys know, we've talked about this before, in a district-wide effort to make sure that all of our elementary school teachers are highly trained in the research behind the resources that they have so that they know how to use them. Well, this is just a visual that shows you more specifically what that looks like. This is called Scarboro's rope. It's one

021of the primary visuals we use when we're talking about science of reading. It basically lays out all of the components of reading that young children need to learn explicitly as they're becoming um readers in pre-K, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and then by about third and fourth grade, those things start to braid together um so that we can focus more on just comprehension um because the other pieces become more automatic. So what you can see on the left side of the slide in sort of the rainbow font are the curricular resources that we now have that align with all of those different components of scar bro's rope. So we feel really good about the universal package we have in place. Um and then I'm going to pass to Elizabeth to talk more specifically about what

022the state requires us to do um in terms of monitoring for and supporting students who may be at risk of dyslexia. >> Thank you Emily. All right. So, the first area um of the required dyslexia legislation that we have in um Oregon is that every school um K5 and K8 school um screens students for risk factors of dyslexia when a child is either in kindergarten or if they're new to our district as we do have students that do join in first grade. Um so that is a requirement that we follow. And on the next slide, the tool we use is map reading fluency. Um, we have to use a screening tool on the OD list. All right. So, map reading fluency when students are in kindergarten or for those new first graders that just join

023us, they take a measure called the dyslexia screener. The dyslexia screener measures um foundational skills such as that phmic awareness that you saw on the scarbo rope as well as phonics. And it also has a rapid automatic naming measure. Um, one of the pieces about dyslexia when you when you look at um kind of a battery of assessments for a student that does um have it is that rapid retrieval of of information can be slower. So that rapid naming measure is part of that screener. As students move into first and then second grade, we continue screening. We still utilize MAP reading fluency. Instead, we use a measure called adaptive oral reading. And the reason is it will still test those foundational skills that we talked about on the dyslexia screener, but once a student starts

024reading connected text, it will actually measure their oral reading fluency as well as comprehension. This tool provides a flagging. So if a student in any of the areas that are measured falls below the 10th percentile compared to their peers, which are same- aged peers across the nation, it will give a flag. One thing to note about that flag, though, is that it's not identifying dyslexia, but it could be identifying a potential reading difficulty. So, we take that flag pretty seriously. And what do we do about it? Well, another area where we're exceeding is that we actually look at students below the 40th percentile. So, we don't just look at those 10 percentile flags. We obviously look at that and really support that, but we look at kids that are just not yet at benchmark. We

025know early intervention is the best thing we need to do to keep kids towards that trajectory of reading proficiency. So in the classroom or through high impact tutoring, kids can get reteing. If they're kind of closer to grade level, but they still haven't mastered all the skills, they might have a small group instruction reteing those same skills from foundations or heard as well as high impact tutoring that can be provided. And I think we talked to you all about a month ago about the high impact tutoring that we have in almost every single one of our K5 and K schools. Now when a student is at that 10th percentile or even below 20th percentile compared to their peers, we have academic interventionists. Okay? And that's more of a tier three we call it intensive need

026because a student is pretty far behind sometimes more than a year. Those interventionists are specialized educators that have specialized training and certification oftentimes and they work with a student five times a week between 30 and 45 minutes a day depending on the grade level of the student. We also have a student intervention team in our buildings that monitor that data. That team or the SIT team as we call it could be calling in a teacher, talking with a teacher, talking with families, screening families for a family history of dyslexia to determine should an additional eligibility be put into place because the student is not making the progress we'd like to see over the time we've provided it. The other great thing that we have in PPS is we have continued screening. Uh, map growth is

027our reading screener that we do um up through 8th grade. And if a student again falls in that lower cortile, that below 20th percentile, then we're going to administer some literacy diagnostics and we're going to provide additional intervention at a K5 level. a third, fourth, or fifth grade um student who shows those intensive needs and it's confirmed through additional testing will probably get an intervention instruction again during that win block time. A student in our middle schools could have an intervention course during the day also provided by that interventionist. And then once again, we have tier three monitoring systems. We actually put data into our synergy system from a grading aspect or an MTSS aspect and we monitor that data over time to again determine if we need to add more eligibility and supports for

028a student. Okay, that was a lot. The second area of the screening is teacher training. So each school district that has K5 students must have a K5 teacher on staff that has been trained in dyslexia. That's the second area. And in PPS at this point in time, we have over 350 educators that have taken that training. It has to be from the Oregon Department of Education list as well. And it covers three key areas. It covers understanding and recognizing dyslexia. It covers utilizing foundational best practices to teach kids to read. And then it covers an area around intensifying instruction to meet the needs of students who might have some severe difficulties. I want to loop it back to what Emily shared that our students um are really benefiting from having teachers that are trained in

029the science of reading and trained in tools that align to the science of reading. So it loops it back to build way more than 350 educators that have training. This is our second core 20 schools. So almost 40 schools have that training around the science of reading that's being implemented right now that aligns to this exact same instruction. And then it aligns to those tools that we know meet the needs of students all students including students who may have dyslexia. Great. >> I think that's everything [laughter] we have to present. Do you have any questions for us? I have some hopefully simple ones or maybe well maybe a mix. Um, I saw the 350 teachers and then unfortunately, this is not a complaint, Cara. The like closed caption kind of covered a little bit and

030I'm now like trying to find it what was covered. But, um, the I know we're working through doing science of reading training for all of our teachers. And am I reading correctly that as they're going through that science of reading training, they are getting this teacher training related to dyslexia or I I'm just trying to It's I I was kind of missing what it said. So it's it's aligned but not necessarily checking that box. >> Correct. Okay. >> So how are the 350 like and and who else will come next like how are they getting that training? >> Yeah, I can answer that. So in the very beginning of the legislation, it actually was funded by the state and we could submit reimbursement. So we actually trained two teachers in every K5 K8 building. Um,

031again, we only had to train one, but we know PPS can be mobile is is even at the teacher level, right? And >> um, and then that was a specific training on the list. Um, part of it was free because the reimbursement wasn't super high. >> After about 2019, I want to say in the fall, they no longer reimburse and so it's continu continued to be an unfounded mandate um, from the state unfortunately, but we budget every year for training. So, if you've heard of letters, um later language essentials, teachers of reading and spelling training, a large majority of that 350 have done that letters training. Um we also utilize a program called um reading expert training from Ashlock Consulting. It's an online digitized um program, but it gives the same kind of tests that

032letters provided. Um and it takes about 30 hours or so to do the training. And so teachers have been paid subtime and or extended hours and that's something that Emily and I budget for >> every year. Um, and I can speak to, you know, the the difficulty we have is that the department now has a list of dyslexia training and a list of science or reading training. I would love them to be one list. At this point in time, they are not one list. And so we're trying to work with our vendors to make it kind of connect. I've gone through letters. I've gone through reading expert. I've gone through about five of the different trainings and I've also done the science of reading and I would say that the second bullet point and the

033third bullet point are well covered in our science of reading training. >> The understanding and recognizing dyslexia is an area that is not necessarily covered in that. However, I have a presentation that I have available and make available every year during October during dyslexia um recognition month um that really covers what is dyslexia and and how do we screen for it and how do we know if a student may have it. So, I feel pretty confident that combined with that we could say that even more teachers are above that 350 number. >> Okay, great. >> Um I have two other questions. Sorry. Um the other uh I was lucky enough to have several parents of kids with dyslexia reach out to me like sometime when I was a new school board member and got together

034with them and one of their big concerns was what we're doing outside of elementary schools with kids that are in middle school and high school and have kind of made it through without getting caught as being dyslexic or just generally are behind in reading. Um, so I'm just curious what we're doing um outside of elementary schools where we were just kind of focused on this conversation for those kids that are um even six, seven, eight is kind of covered here, but into high school as well where there's still kids that are not Yeah. >> reading for learning. >> So those intervention classes I talked about that happen at the middle school, they use tools that are science or reading aligned. Um but they're really kind of packaged in an older student version. Um, what that

035means is it will still teach kind of the decoding aspect, but it also teaches Greek and Latin roots and it also teaches, you know, beyond that the vocabulary and it provides them with connected texts that feels a little bit more like their grade level, right? >> Um, so it's a nice kind of like segue between. It also provides really about three or four key strategies to students consistently that they can then bring back into their reading class, their ELA class, their science class if they've been assigned some reading. Um, and so we do have those intervention classrooms. Um, one thing to note is that when kids have a reading difficulty, it may not be dyslexia and it may not be intensive enough to qualify for services. uh a large majority of people with dyslexia aren't

036at that real intensive level um and they need accommodations and so we do have a lot of universal design tools in PPS um HMH our curriculum in middle school for example there's an audio version of every text that teachers you know present to students and so that's a great accommodation to support a student so hey I'm really struggling with the reading I'm going to listen to it and then that's going to help me participate in my Socratic seminar that's coming up or support me in whatever writing assignment I've been given. >> Great. >> And then we do have some intervention at high school. It looks a little bit different. Um but we're trying to really support with the same kind of tools that are aligned to science. >> And then my last question is pretty

037similar to one I asked uh Dr. Bruno last time I was here. So we have all these um things that happen for kindergarteners when they're new to school. At the same time, we have a new batch of kids, many of whom are not properly placed in a kindergarten classroom or need extra support for behaviors. How are we like helping those classrooms where we need to get all these diagnos diagnoses done, but the teachers are spending most of their days just dealing with behaviors, which I know happens all over the district because they hear about it all the time. Um, so this is kind of the perfect world where the teachers are able to do this, but I think we all know there's places where it's really hard. So, how do how can the district like

038lean in to help those classrooms that are struggling to get that work done? >> Um, yeah, I mean, I would say we we actually have full completion on these largely the the map fluency is an automated digital assessment that's given whole class at the same time. It can also be given in small groups. So, we have moved away from that one-on-one screening and assessment that we used to do in kindergarten, which is very timeconuming and sometimes challenging for kindergarten teachers. So, I I we're not struggling so much with completion of of getting this data in and getting these assessments completed. >> I think I actually helped some kids at my neighborhood school get this test done. Was there a deadline? >> I think I I came in the day before the deadline with some kids

039[laughter] that had a hard time sitting still to get it done. three times a year and usually it kind of falls, you know, September, January and then May. Yep. >> Great. Thanks so much. Appreciate the answers. >> Yeah. Thank you for your time. >> It's great. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Now, we have an update on required instructional minutes with uh Christina Howard. >> Great. Joanna, >> yes, we are going to welcome Joanna Tobin, the senior director for instructional excellence and improvement. Um, and she will share the presentation for tonight. >> Thank you, Senior Chief Howard, and it's a pleasure to be back here tonight um with you to talk a bit more about the required instructional minutes. Um we had some time together on this on October 14th when we

040reviewed the um district's compliance toward meeting the division 22 standards. So just a reminder the required instructional minutes sit within Oh, thank you Cara. Um sit within um the division 22 compliance um and the asurances that we need to make as a school district um also u meeting the requirements set forth by the Oregon Department of Education and in statute. And so tonight we're basically going to go back through what we talked through really briefly and have the opportunity to pause on some of the key components within the required instructional minutes. Um and so we'll talk a little bit about the requirements um per grade band. We'll talk about this 80% rule that we touched on before and then also dive into the state approved exemptions. And so our learning target and success criteria for

041tonight um we're really going to focus on learning to analyze and interpret the state's requirements around instructional time um the required uh uh minimum required um hours and the standards of compliance and also those exemptions as mentioned. And so hopefully by the end of our time together tonight um we all will be able to identify those minimum standards to explain that 80% rule and then analyze and describe the specific conditions around those provisions. And really that last one is is really truly I want to emphasize thisformational. As a board there are certain things throughout the year. One one example would be approving the calendar. And so we want for you to have this background just as these things come up um in the natural cadence of the school year. And so with that, um, let's

042dive in a little bit more into the required instructional minutes. As you'll recall from our previous conversation, the minutes are really outlined, um, by gradeband. And so starting with the first um grade 12 requires 9966 hours, grades 9 through 11 require 990 hours, and grades K through 8 require 900 hours of actual instructional time. So this is really the time that students are are in classrooms in front of students or in front of teachers, excuse me. and and we really look at um we subtract things such as passing time, we subtract things such as recess, lunch, and and these sorts of things. Um and and this really in the standards um in the definitions for the statute is explained and then is incorporated into the way that we calculate and really just simply put the

043methodology around the instructional minutes is really looking at the schedule that the school has and the calendar and really looking at those calculations subtracting some of the things that do not count for instructional minutes. And then really the third tier to that would be any exemptions that the that are state approved that a board might entertain. Again, this is just for awareness only. We're not leaning in or asking the board to approve any of those exemptions. Oh, sorry about that. That's the slide I was talking about. Okay. Okay. And so then diving in a little bit more per grade band. We talked about this before. Um this just shows the visual um broken out by grade band. Uh again for the division 22s that was a backwards glance for the 2425 school year. We did

044meet in all of these grade band areas. Um sometimes there's a question that comes up around why aren't we reporting out by each grade? And we just want to note um with this that each grade really is receiving those hours unless we had some very significant event that happened just to one particular grade which I really I can't think of a a circumstance where that might be um within say 1 through 5th. If the board wanted to see this more specifically broken out by grade um over time that is something we could do. Just wanted to emphasize that that really wouldn't be a very typical scenario um because the schedules the way that that works and the calendar the way that that works as well. Um and an example of say um a field trip

045or something along those lines. If one particular grade experienced a field trip, that would likely be an educational field trip which does count for the required instructional minutes. So that's just a little bit more about the mechanics around this. Okay, so moving on to the 80% rule. Um, this is again something that we talked about um back in October. And so this really requires us as a district to ensure that at least 92% of all students in the district meet at least 80% um so each um school meets 80% of all students accessing those required instructional minutes. So this is at the the school level that this is required. Um and so we talked about that a little bit before. Questions that often come up around this are um kind of digging into the individual

046student schedule. This is really at a broad um school level, not at the individual student level level that we're reporting out on. And some reasons for that are because a student's individual schedule really um reflects their four-year plan. There are also um nuances within that four-year plan where we we are meeting a student's needs. Let's say even within a section 504 plan or within an individualized education plan, things of this nature that do really influence um scheduling. And that's really student, family, school decisions around um each individual students schedule. And so that's part of the reason why um we are not reporting out at an individual level. were really reporting out broadly um on if um our students within each school have had the opportunity to access that 80% rule. We talked a little bit

047back in October about how our high school schedule does allow um more opportunities um the 32 opportunities um really to to meet um the graduation uh requirements. And so that is a bit of a a factor just to name within um our current baseline for how we we are meeting these instructional hours um specific to the 80% rule for students being scheduled at each school. So just to to go back over this um we had one school um I'm just making sure I'm on the October one. Yep. We had one school um last year that did not meet uh the 80% rule just shy of meeting and that was Cleveland at 79.4% uh for um having students 80% of the students scheduled um to meet that rule. And we're pleased to report that now um

048we actually for this year are in compliance. Um here's a snapshot as of today, November um 13th. It's the 13th, right? Um [clears throat] and so you can see we are all over 80% there. We also are engaging as we mentioned back in October, we are engaging with our high school leaders. Um Dr. Cardona sent out a communication today to our high school leaders. um we'll communicate and engage in this um next week and then through the scheduling process also to we will continue to communicate um with our high school uh leaders have conversation around this um gather their perspectives and um in partnership really ensure that we're we're meeting this 80% rule. Um just to talk a little bit about the division 22 report. We did again name that we're out of compliance um

049for this specific rule. Again, we're in compliance this year and want to maintain being in compliance. And so as we were so close, we want to just continue to uplift that conversation and be in partnership um with our our um high school principles. And so now um let's shift a little bit into the allowable exemptions and what this means here. Um and so really the state provided exemptions are listed here. And this is really to say I just want to kind of back up and go to the methodology. The methodology for meeting the instructional minutes is really um a mathematical problem of looking at the minutes provided within a schedule with within each grade band. the amount of days or opportunities within the calendar, calculating that, subtracting any emergencies, things along those lines, weather related

050emergencies would count. Um except for every now and then the state will give some provisions around that um as noted here um occurred in 2015 16. And so really this methodology is one that school boards leaders really grapple with. How will we meet um that mathematical equation in our district? And so just to name the function of the state provided exemptions is to provide some other ways to count hours. It's not intended in the scenario that we're in right now. It's not intended to remove any opportunities instructionally. And this is just to name so that everyone is aware. Um, and I think there were some questions around the exemption specifically. And so the only exemption that we currently have built in is 18 hours for conferences. And that'll come back to you as a board

051when we approve the calendar for the future. Um, so that is something that's currently built in. That is the only exemption um that we utilize currently. And so in our calculations, these other um pieces up here, as you can see, are not built into the calculations. Um so we just wanted to provide a little bit of awareness around that. Um there's no intention to remove instructional opportunities. Um, part of the function of this that sometimes comes up, um, and I've experienced in other districts is if there is a a weather event or something of that nature, um, there there is sometimes this um, perspective of um, you know, what are what are the options available to us? Um, and what what can we feasibly um, do make sure that we're in compliance or to name

052that we're not in compliance and then in the future year have a corrective action plan. um or long-term plan to come into compliance. So, that's just a little bit of the function um of the state provided exemptions and why why they exist. Um and so with that, that's it. I would be glad to welcome any questions. Back to you, Senior Chief Howard. Any questions? >> I have a couple. Thank you so much for uh this presentation. So, um, the I've noticed, listen, this kindergarten programs offering less than 900 hours of instructional time. We can count up to 30 hours of recess as instructional time. And did you say that we do that when we adopt the calendar at the beginning of the year? >> We we currently do not um count that time. The only

053exemption that we currently count as you can see on there, conferences e up to 30 hours for parent teacher conferences. We have 18 hours currently built into our schoolwide calendars. Okay. I think I might count. Yeah. No, thank you for the clarification. That's the only piece. And for past practices, if we dig too deep, I think I have over my right shoulder here, assistant superintendent um Calvert as well. So, um that that calendar piece will come in front of you again. And so if the board, let's say just as a scenario, wish to not do that, then the methodology, we would have to find a different way to ensure that we're in compliance with the minutes, okay, >> within schedules, within days, so on so forth. >> Um, okay. And I just had one other

054question. Um for the slide that has um the instructional hours where it's that you know the yellow, green, and red coded um we actually have like another um like a second page that breaks it down by high school. >> And in the when you get to 12th grade, like I'm just looking at um I'm looking at 2024. This is 2425, but it's Hold on. If you want to give me a second, I'll just pull it up. >> Well, she's pulling it up. Just to be clear for anybody listening, we're talking I think you're looking at the October 14th, 2025 staff report to get that >> to get that page. Is that right? >> Sorry, I'm scrolling scrolling scrolling included in the board pack for that meeting. Yes. >> And there was an additional page that

055has a breakdown by grade level >> um that was included. So when I so look at let's say Cleveland for example um that for 12th grade 28% of the students are fully scheduled. Franklin has 31% fully scheduled. Grant has 27% fully scheduled. Jefferson is 46%. Lincoln's 50%. Roosevelt's 33%. McDaniel's 50%. IDW Wells 34%. Um Benson's 18%. So those are the percentages of seniors who are fully scheduled which means about twothirds are not. Um I understand that there are a number of exemptions for those students. Um but also that they require board approval and I was I've asked the question I actually haven't heard back yet. I'm wondering um that the board has to approve those exemptions. >> So this is where it gets it gets tricky. So what I'll here's how I'll explain it. 80%

056of the students within the school need to have the opportunity to be fully scheduled. And so mathematically with those seniors not being fully scheduled, we still are meeting the 80% with the exception of Cleveland with that 79.4. And so um it is a function of a lot of things for your plans. Some of our students do opt to work or have internships or have additional opportunities. um API, we named that in the previous conversation as well where sometimes students do have such a full schedule up until that time they do have some flexibility. Um we do have a currently have an A period day in our high school that provides 32 opportunities to receive credits and so these are all factors and functions and it does still mean that with those calculations we are above

057that 80%. >> Right? But I'm I'm wondering, it's my understanding that the board needs to approve the exemptions that are allowing students not to be fully scheduled. >> So that would be the function of a student schedule. So the decision um the decision making around the approval for a schedule would be the student, family, and site level. That wouldn't be a a high school schedule would not typically come in front of the board. But the the reason you would be allowed to not fully schedule the student would be because of the exemptions and it was my understanding that those exemptions need to be approved by the board. So only so we as a system if we are below um the 80% thanks Phipe um Dr. Hich for joining me um senior director over 912. Um

058so I'll finish this thought and then turn it over you to you to add to so if the student um there is the opportunity uh to not be fully scheduled still meet the 80% rule and we would not be coming to you for exemptions. The exemptions are additional allowable ways to meet um the instructional minutes and or to meet the 80% rule. Let's say we are coming to you with um more significant dips below the 80. that might be something we would either be looking we we would likely be looking to resolve um why but also maybe coming to you if we didn't have a clear resolution to say let's entertain um more deeply those um allowable exemptions specifically within the 80% rule. >> Anything you want to add? >> Yeah, just a couple of

059things to add in case it's helpful. When our students forecast for classes, as they're going to do in the next couple of weeks, all of them have the opportunity to forecast for a classes, including our seniors. So, our rising our current juniors when they're forecasting for their classes for next school year, when they receive their forecasting sheet, they have a chance to forecast for eight classes. Students who are on track have the ability if they're rising seniors to choose an early release or late start, for example. And so in some cases, the students that you see who don't have a full schedule might have one period that's an early release or a late start because as uh CN Director Tobin mentioned, some of them have already fulfilled virtually all of their graduation requirements. Many of

060them have jobs, some of them have internships. They're choosing not to take a full eight period schedule as is typically not the case when they go on to college. When they are in college, they're not taking eight classes. So only our seniors have the ability to take less than eight periods. And it's only the seniors who are on track to graduate. if that's helpful. Should they choose to take a classes, they certainly can. Um, and uh, their counselors review the forecasting sheets, uh, as senior director Tobin mentioned, their four-year plans are reviewed. And so for the vast majority of the kiddos that you see who are not fully scheduled, it's really a matter of having one, possibly two early release late starts. >> So, I'm lucky. I've definitely close to that. I've got a son

061who graduated from PPS a couple years ago and a son that's currently in high school. >> So 80% rule aside, if we look at required instructional minutes for our seniors, is it 900? >> 966. >> 96. Okay. 966 for seniors >> that they're required to take those instructional hours unless they are exempted for the reasons outlined in our state statutes which are, you know, an internship that might be similar to or you know, something they could take in class or um you know, there there was a pretty specific list of reasons a senior could be exempted from their required instructional time. So my concern is the document that we have that says only you know about twothirds of our I'm sorry onethird of our seniors are meeting that inequality. Now I don't know obviously what

062those reasons are but it was my understanding that the board would need to approve those exemptions for those students to not have the required instructional minutes. Am I understanding that correctly? >> I would say it's slightly differently. We are required to ensure that our seniors have the opportunity to have 966 minutes in the course of the school year. And we do and that number exceeds 9 966 and we're required to ensure that at least 80% of them meet that requirement and for the most part we do. And if we don't then we need to make adjustments. >> I'm just going back to the exemptions. I believe those exemptions are required to come to the board for approval and I just haven't seen that that we that this at the school level you can't just exempt

063students from their minimum. >> The only exemption that we're using are conferences. >> Okay. So, but there would have to be exemptions in place in order for students to not be >> No, it Yeah, I mean this this is where and I I really appreciate the questions and the grapple. I think this is one of the most I think this is one of a really complicated topic top topic um and really as as was just explained it's sort of two two key things on the instructional minutes we need to as a district provide that opportunity we are providing that opportunity that methodology is schedules and calendar that is in place the 80% rule is we do also need to ensure at each site level students have have had that opportunity to be scheduled at the

06480% % and then separate conversation of exemptions. Those also would be allowable exemptions for you to approve. Say for example, we wanted to see these numbers even higher. Um when we remove API as potential exemptions for you, those numbers actually are very high in the 90s. So if that were a goal of the board, that could be that you're approving the exemptions, allowable exemptions for the 80% rule. Um but the exemptions do not come into play for meeting the rule around the instructional minutes being that methodology around schedule calendar and then the 80% rule for site level. Can can I just >> sorry can I clarify um can you go to the slide that has the OAR please? I just want to make sure that we're clarifying again. I don't know which slide that is.

065See if I can get it there. So each school district shall ensure that at least 92% of all students in the district and at least 80% of all students who are not exempted from the calculation at each school operated by the district are scheduled to receive annually the following hours of instructional time. So that is the report that we shared. What happened as a result of Cleveland is that we have to notify the board that this is the case. We're not approving exemptions. it's moving us into a state where we're going to have to monitor and look at that. And as of right now, we are currently in compliance. So that's we've we've fulfilled those those areas. So I'm not sure if that's helpful, but it goes back to the OAR. It goes back to

066the statement that's on here about the language and we're not required to approve any exemptions at the board level >> except for the ones that are on that last slide. >> So those are options. Oh, sorry. >> Okay. So those are options available to you as a board. So um one example would be we could have rather than um being out of compliance. Say last year we predicted this last year we could have come to you and said we may be under the 80% rule. We'd like for you to approve and actually it's noted on here because it's specific to the 80% rule. But just to finish this thought for with the 80% rule you could as a board approve exemptions for AP and IB because those students are on track then we would not

067have been below the 80. But we did not ask for that exemption. Um likewise as we head into calendar discussions and those kinds of things. Um the example just to stick with one that's concrete would be the parent teacher conferences as one that we have include. That's the only one that we have included. >> And we did approve that exemption when we adopted the calendar. Got it. Thanks. >> So couldn't stay away. [clears throat] [laughter] >> I was wondering when you were getting the poll. So um I think that there's uh I want to there's a [snorts] distinction between uh what is happening across the district and what is happening with an individual student. Individual student decisions are made at this building level to build schedules and make graduation plans. That is that process as

068uh Dr. Fitz shared is done through forecasting and in consultation with families and counselors. our responsibility as a district is to ensure that at least 80% of our students have met that. So it's a it's a district level review as opposed to every individual student. That decision at is a building level decision for each student. There's a variety of reasons. We've talked about it multiple times. So there's a difference between our responsibility as a district to report how excuse me how we're doing across the district. The decision about whether or not to have a reduced schedule is made at the local and that does not require board uh review. So, um, to clarify, if I have a senior and he is on track for graduation, he's got all the credits he needs and he has

069an afterchool job, um, or he has an internship or he just likes to sleep in. Those categories of reasons why he could have a lighter course work clo course load are not anything that come to the board. Those are not exemptions. Those are student level decisions that are made in concert with a student and their family and their counselor. >> Correct. And that ends up there's a um ideally I'm going to speak in an ideal manner is that that is a that is a conversation in in concert with a family member a senior and if you had a senior engaging with a senior can be you know that that partnership can be strong and can be strained at the same time. So um and then it is like what is the rationale and what does

070that look like and that should be reviewed with a counselor and a graduation plan and what are the implications there should be a larger conversation about what that means for an individual student and I think that that is at the at the at the schoolbased level that is where that those conversations and that um parent uh student school partnership really comes to fruition in these decisions and it's very tied to graduation plans and I'm just going to also say what happens post-secary right so there not only our goal is not to just get to students to graduate but then to give them an on-ramp to um post-secary as well so there should be a variety of things there should be a robust conversation there should be um it you know partnership with school family student

071thank you um so last month when we talked about this um the exemptions got some press and generated some buzz which why we brought it back for this month. Um can you please clarify uh why we discussed the exemptions last month, why it's important that we know them um and whether there are any um desires or plans for us to uh utilize any of these exemptions in the near future? >> Sure, I'm happy to. And I wonder if um Chief Howard would like to add to that as well. Um yeah, I mean I think within the division 22s, I'll say from my perspective, I think this is the the or one of the most complex topics. It's one that comes in front of you in a lot of different ways. Um it impacts staffing, impacts

072calendar, impacts instruction um from the standpoint of our student of our um schoolwide schedules. And so it's one that um that is important to unpack and have conversation around. Um we are not bringing forward any any decisions, any plans, anything around that. Um when we dip below when we're not in compliance, that's that's a piece where we have to grapple with how do we come back into compliance? We wouldn't want to be in this space for future multiple years. That's where um uh my experience with the Oregon Department of Education has been a very friendly one when coming back into compliance and working together to meet um standards. And it's one where if we do not come back into compliance, they will lean in and provide um more expectations or support. And so um we

073want from my perspective, we want to stay in that zone where we are we are making our local decisions and um coming back into compliance. So, we want to make sure that the board is well informed of all of these pieces. Um, it is not an interest uh in an effort to say let's take away instructional time. Um, but it goes back to that methodology and math mathematical problem um that we have to solve for around minutes and how do we do that and for each district that's a little bit different um and and very much reflects you know the values of the district as well. So, um it's really with that interest I think I've answered most of your questions. Um I think I'll turn it over to senior chief to uh Howard to

074add to that. >> Yeah, I'll just uh reiterate the part around we want to just bring it to your awareness, right? It's not asking you for anything. It's just making you aware of this is the process and this is how these are the exemptions that exist. >> How come we didn't use or discuss using any exemptions uh for Cleveland's last year? So the division 22s are a backwards glance at the year prior and part of that mechanism and part of why it's timed um as such is to be able to authentically review did we meet did we not meet now over time year-over-year if we have some predictions we we might need to say let's let's really grapple with this um and uh we were you know I think very close on track and so

075um I wasn't I I can't speak to that in depth, but um I can say the the function of the timing of the Division 22s is to authentically have all of the data to report back to you and say, did we make it? Did did we not? >> Do you have anything else? >> Um so two more I think two more things. So for I'm just going to use Roosevelt as an example. With 33% of their seniors fully scheduled, what what number of periods equals fully scheduled for our high schools? >> Eight. Eight out of eight. >> Okay. So if they have seven, they're considered not fully scheduled. >> Correct. >> And then I'd heard that if you're an athlete, you can be five and not fully scheduled. Is that true? >> It's the bare

076minimum. >> Okay. So, if you're a PPS athlete and you want to take five periods of class, that's allowable. >> Only if you're a senior >> and only if you're in track and only if your parents approve. >> Only track, not other sports. >> Sorry. If you're on track on track, I thought you said you're in track. >> My apologies. [laughter] I should have been more clear. >> Yes. >> Okay. And then I'm still looking. This would make sense to me. I know I keep coming back to board approval because I'm reading that the board would approve have to approve all exemptions and you know that drop below required instructional time at the grade level and um which would make sense to me because that would be very transparent. We would be able to see

077if we were having you know if we have a situation in our schools where we're not we don't have enough staff to actually fully schedule what looks like our seniors. So that's kind of where I'm going with this. So I'm not seeing where I'm misunderstanding that it would come to the board for approval so that we could see how many exemptions we're allowing for you know AP for you know internship opportunities for uh students who may leave you know work or might have personal reasons they need to leave early that it would make sense that those would come to the board not as each individual student but perhaps as groups from each high school. So, I couldn't find any case where that had happened, but I keep reading that it should. And um so I

078just want to flag that. Maybe it'd be helpful to check in with other districts and see if your interpretation is different than other if like everybody if every district is kind of doing it like we are. Would that give you comfort that we're doing it right? I think it would be a legal question if we are supposed to be like I said it would make it makes sense when I read it because it would be very transparent and we would see if there were any um issues in terms of staffing. >> We have been uh consulting with OD that is who uh Joanna has been reaching out to and meeting with regularly and has worked through um this and I know in the past that has been the case as well. Um, and so that

079is who we we consult with. >> And for the fully scheduled, I think this is going to be my last question, I promise. For fully scheduled, seven of eight periods though of of those seven that each student is left with, um, can one of those be counted as a study hall count as instruction? So if you could >> So study hall in of itself is one that we um there there are some standards around and so um if a student is taking a study hall class and um they are um that is a course that they're taking. It c it could be a scenario that it is a course that they're taking. Um that's an area that we're really reviewing and um looking at our practices this year as well. Does it have to do

080with if it's a um like what type of instructor it is with the study halls? >> So study hall is a very common practice in high schools. >> Oh, sure. Yeah. I I took it. >> Yeah. Yeah. And so it it does need to have a a teacher assigned. Sometimes that is actually a principal um assigned and so there are a few mechanical pieces that need to accompany that and so we're we're reviewing and ensuring consistency around that. >> And this year we did review and ensure consistency. We looked at study hall um by school and we also met with high school principles. Phipe could also Dr. Heath can also speak to that if you want to share some of that. >> Study hall currently counts those instructional minutes. Uh we're looking into potentially making

081changes for next school year. We're also differentiating between academic support, so intervention classes and also kind of kind of more traditional uh study hall uh experiences. So, uh, we can we can follow up with some more information, but for the data that you looked at and we provided, study hall was counted as part of the instructional minutes, which is in alignment with what OD also allows. >> So, study hall was counted as instructional minutes. >> Correct. >> Okay. And is that because there was a certain type of instructor in the room? Like, I'm just trying to understand how that would count as instructional minutes. Well, students were supervised, students were attendance was taken. Uh students were working on academic uh materials. Um that is some of the language that OD uses when [snorts] differentiating between

082what what types of experiences do and do not uh count. >> There was also course syllabus and um at uh some campuses there was also parent involvement in that course work and in approval of taking that course. So, um, we did that, uh, for this year prior to school starting and we're also looking holistically at study hall as a practice in PPS and what that looks like. >> It's it's also something that we typically do not allow 9th or 10th graders to participate in. It's it's a it's a class that students intentionally select. Um, as you probably know, when in 11th grade in particular, 12th grade, uh, as well, students are taking multiple AP classes, dual credit classes, college level courses. Having a period during the school day when they can have a focus space

083to engage in some work, receive some additional supports is something that a lot of students are are seeking for. >> Definitely. I was just thought it was uh interesting that it counted as an instructional time. >> Yeah. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next on our agenda is an update on Jefferson is Rising, which represents an important and inspiring chapter in the future of Jefferson High School and the broader North and Northeast community. Tonight we will hear an overview of the community engagement analysis, what we've been hearing from families, students, staff, alumni, and neighbors. And I really want to recognize how much thought and care have gone into this outreach process. As someone who is personally invested in this project, and as a parent whose son will be attending

084Jefferson, I am especially excited to hear tonight's presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to staff to walk us through the community engagement findings and updated project timelines. >> Great. And I want to welcome U. Margaret Calvert, assistant superintendent to the space. >> Good evening. Um, it's going to give me to give me one minute to I'm working through to get the presentation up. Just give me one second and thanks for having us back. I think I'm on the right version now. Okay, one more. Sorry, I had too many tabs open. Okay, there should be I should do a tap dance here as I'm doing this. Sorry about that. can't be easy in a Google suite life. You know, it's the going between I'm just going to be honest, going between Zoom and Google is

085rough. [laughter] So, thanks for bearing with me. Okay. Here we go. Um, good evening, uh, directors. Thanks for having us back. My name is Margaret Kell. I'm an assistant superintendent here um in Portland public schools and school planning and modernization. First of all, I want to thank all of you for joining us in one or another of these engagement sessions over a three-week period um and spending some time with us and and listening with our community. So for today, we're going to talk through um uh the timeline for the proposal, the analysis of the data and engagement that we have done to date. And um I'm going to preview a little bit about right sizing as an overall conversation at the as a teaser at the end. So that will be part of uh what

086we do today. Um for today, our learning targets and success criteria. Um on the left are their learning targets. Um the first bullet really focuses on where are we in the timeline uh to sunset dual assignment leading up to a board vote. The second bullet I really would read last but um is around describing right sizing process. How is this like how will these two sort of feather together? Um the third is around um uh what are the district goals for equitable access enrollment balance and facility use and as part of this process and um then it's going we'll have a discussion about how the proposal may impact schools students and families. So at the end hopefully we can meet these success criteria that you're able to describe the engagement opportunities that many of you

087as I said have participated in you can have a clear sense of timeline about the decision-m and next steps and um connect dual the sun setting and dual assignment to how is that feed into some of these other conversations around right sizing modernization and school planning across the district overall. So, we started out in June in a conversation with um the board and shared uh the an initial timeline. Um this was from the June presentation. Uh we said that we would end up in a um uh discussion in the fall and that we'd study and analyze and get some feedback and send a recommendation to you in uh the winter. We also just want to just emphasize that gold arrow at the bottom that this is part of a larger enrollment increasing enrollment effort at

088Jefferson. So this is not the only process. It's one of many. You heard from um uh Chief Gross quite a bit about some of our other enrollment processes and um and that we're working on and we'd said that in September. So we came to you also in September and shared on September 16th and shared a timeline. So there are a couple changes to this timeline that I want to share just highlight today. Um when in October we uh identified a total of five engagement section sessions in October and the beginning of November. Um four of them were uh in-person sessions. They were located at each of the middle schools or uh middle grades that would be initially impacted by um the dual assignment um suns setting. And so we intentionally put spaces where we where

089the students um who are going to be most impacted or first impacted um would be uh in the space. And so trying to make sure that we were in in those spaces. We also had a virtual meeting. Many of you I think were on the virtual meeting. Um we had a large turnout that night about 100 families joined us and various folks. And then the piece that I just want to add is that as we went through the process um we wanted to be intentional about uh reaching out to our families of color, we added um a night in partnership with Self-Enhancement Incorporated and we had um another night there. Uh so we ended up with six total public engagement sessions with this um piece. I just want to uh take a moment to really

090acknowledge that this is a collaborative process that happened across many teams here in Portland public schools. And in particular, I want to shout out our our FACE team, which is our family and community engagement team that is led by senior director Nicole Watson, our comm's team for their development of materials, our enrollment and transfer team and staff from um our academics and office of school performance for people that staffed the evenings that were facilitators and that helped in um during the engagement process. It was truly collaborative piece. Uh we are here today as I mentioned um for a third time. So, we met in June, we gave an update in September. This is our third time working with the board um about this topic. And um with the next board sessions, they're in light blue

091that are not showing up very well up here. So, um, if you look in December, the goal is to have a recommendation and an open house at Jefferson, um, which is a Saturday, uh, December 6th is a Saturday, and that then there would be an opportunity for public comment again at Jefferson on Monday, uh, December the 8th. What we discovered in the in the um engagement sessions is that this is complicated information and um the the opportunity for people to engage with materials and ask questions um is helpful to be in person to do that. Uh so we that's why we added an open house on the Saturday so that we will be available to ask for people to look through the materials, ask questions. um it is it is really um an opportunity for

092people to interact with the information um prior to the Monday night meeting. In addition, we there's uh uh tenatively I think it's scheduled to be at a board works session in December and then moving towards um um a board vote in early 2026. Whoops. Um, as I said, many of you uh joined us in our uh Jefferson Rising over uh engagement sessions. I'm just going to give a brief overview. You all of you have seen the slide presentation, so I won't spend very much time on the slides, but there are a couple things I want to highlight that we did during the sessions. Um, so we spent quite a bit of time talking about why now and why uh are we looking at this. So there were three major pieces that we were looking at

093and it's the confluence of these three things that really brought this to the for brought brought it forward and um that we said that this was critical time to do it for um Jefferson in this and the community in these particular moments. So the first was around modernization um and we laid out um that Jefferson is the last of the schools in northnortheast Portland to be modernized. um that this demonstrates a commitment to um to the neighborhood as well as the neighborhoods that we at Benson um McDaniel Grant Alliance and Roosevelt. Uh the goal again is to build on the strengths of the current academic programming at Jefferson that is college uh preparatory and is in partnership with colleges. Um that includes programs such as the health science biotech program, the worldrenowned Jefferson dancers and

094dance program um and as well as the partnership with Portland Community College. Second piece was we're talking about enrollment changes and this is going to be something that we are going to be talking about for quite some time in the next few months and potentially years. So wanted just be cognizant that we're looking at that as well. And then as uh we've said there was board direction in December of 2022 that directed the superintendent to um address Jefferson's enrollment and um to develop a plan to increase and stabilize Jefferson's enrollment in particular as part of this presentation. And again, I'm not going to spend a lot of time. You've seen many of you have seen this, but I wanted to just share that as we went through and looked at which of the scenarios, how

095we were determining scenarios, there were two, it was a two-prong analysis. And the first was around um uh looking at each of the scenarios through an equity lens. So, the equity lens asks us to really look at what is the impact of a policy, who does it impact and how. And what we looked at was um how does this decision to sunset the dual assignment disrupt barriers in the short-term and long term? How might it worsen inequities or create unintended consequences for historically underserved students? Who is being most impacted? And then the last question was how are we ensuring that students historically underserved students, families, and educators most impacted by a decision have access and power in the decision-making process? One of the things that came through when we looked at this with our internal

096um PPS team is that and you guys have heard me say this multiple times um that we need to pay attention to Roosevelt's population in particular because they serve a significant number of black and Native American students and multilingual learners and that this the largest differences that we're seeing in um the makeup of students is at Jefferson and how do we support the students there to currently maintain the culture of the school and what is that going to look like. So these were two things that came through that our equity lens analysis and that's how we ended up with going from a broader set of scenarios to focusing on three that we wanted community engagement with. The other thing I just want to take a moment to highlight and this is um I'm going to

097practice getting clearer and clearer on this so you'll tell me if I'm getting better at it. But um part of why we picked um so there's a we did a racial uh racial impact analysis through our the use of our equity lens. We also do a racial impact analysis as part of the what we call key performance indicators. These key performance indicators are tied to board policy. So I want to like I I just want to make sure that we're really clear that part of the way we built the indicators was to be connected so that you had information that you'd be able to say how are these um impacted what and when we're asked to look at there's six different criteria that we're asked to look at. How do we measure that? How do

098we make that visible to you? Part of what we did with the scenarios was try to highlight where the trade-offs are. it is hard to meet all six criteria at the same time in all the areas um in the in for all the schools and so which ones are highlighted what are what are people valuing what are we hearing and you were receiving a number of emails that are sharing what some of those pieces are so when we look at this it's really up top here the key performance indicators the first indicator uh is around the size of the schools that we're looking at at the high schools we are looking at schools at around 1100 the Reason for that is stability of programming that's connected to um one of the uh so in in

099the board policy it is point E which is program and enrollment stability in the surrounding schools and so this is part of how we are measuring that impact not only at Jefferson but for the adjoining high schools. The next two indicators show it's an impact analysis on who is impacted. So this gets to not only the overall across the schools, but the school demographics vary. And so are we meeting the needs of the students and and we as I mentioned before, we looked at black and n um multilingual learners because it's tied to our both both the board goals and our district continuous improvement plan. The third um actually the fourth column up here around high school enrollment um differential of being around uh less than 350 from the um highest enrolled to the lowest

100enrolled high school is around equity of programming. So when you're fairly similar size you are able to to provide fairly similar programming. So that is also tied to um uh one of the six criteria. The last one here is the middle school feeders moving to the same high school. This has been um a source of quite a bit of a conversation about what does that mean? Um it is uh what we're asked to to review and what you're asked to the criteria that we're trying to provide you information about is a feeder pattern that allows as many students as possible to continue together from one school level to the next. So this is a measure of what you will hear in high or middle schools is it a split feeder pattern. So do you have

101students at the same middle school going to two different high schools? Um there has been a time at various points in time in um PPS history where that has been stronger that alignment from kindergarten through high school has been stronger. There are times where it is um not as as strong. And I think the desire right now where Jefferson is is at 0%. Every middle grade experience is a split feeder at in the Jefferson dual assignment area. So the that column says how close do we get can we get to a and we c we were not able in these um in these scenarios to get to 100%. I'm looking to see if there was any other key piece in here. Um the other thing that I just want to point out and this has

102come up in some of the questions is in the upper left corner you'll see the school capacity size and like there's a piece around utilization. Are we using our facilities um at the at a at an appropriate rate? The numbers for the high schools are slightly different. ranges when we build. So the ranges for new high schools are somewhere in the 1700s except with the exception of Roosevelt that was built at around400. The number that you see up here at Grant is 1935. [clears throat] It is not that the building was built for 1935. It's that Grant right now is using Hollywood for additional classrooms to accommodate the number of students that are enroll that grant. So I just want to make that clear. There's been some confusion around that particular piece. Then when we

103were in the public scenarios, we went into groups. We broke down each of the scenarios. We went through a variety of things. We gave sort of the big summary and then we went into the details and went really looked at various pieces um for each of the scenarios. Uh all those materials are posted online as well. So we went back through we've had a um a there are a number of ways that people were able to give us feedback and the the our our listening sessions and our goal was to again to be in the spaces where we have middle school students that are going to be impacted. So we were looking at we were at Oley Green on the October 20th, Harriet Tubman on the 23rd, Fabian on the 27th, Vernon on the 29th,

104we did a virtual one on November 5th and ended at self-enhancement on November 6th. We asked our RAA team to um look at the information that was gathered both from the notes that at the sessions and then the feedback form. you're gonna this the next slide I'll show you sort of what the responses is uh at the magnitude of those responses this presentation synthesizes the notes during those those spaces and then is it preliminary because we're still gathering information so I just want to be clear that this is a mid like uh it's a little past midpoint but we're still analyzing information as it's coming in. So in these engagement sessions, we were able to um work with over 400 participants across the six evenings. Um and again, this was one of the pieces that

105it's it's uh we're welcoming over 400 families into into conversations and and and offering opportunities for feedback. Um this was completed, as I said, over a 3-week period. Um some we had some families that were able to come to multiple and as I said the uh virtual was very well attended at just over right about a hundred participants. So this is um we submitted the slide deck a little bit ago. So this is this is where I there's a I have a little smile on my face about the number of feedback forms that we now have. So the when we did this on November 7th the uh we had 146 responses today that before I came down um or up here was that we have well over 221 responses. So we our strategy around looking

106at this information is to compile from all these spaces whether it's table talk notes feedback forms we did a slide out or emails we're looking at questions what are the issues that are being raised we're trying to compile and coate them into some themes we are posting these every Friday where we're trying to say here's some updated information um and that it's coming through and what what are we noticing and frequently asked questions. The reason that we're doing that is that we want to make sure that we are sharing publicly the variety of questions that people are having and that we want to make sure everybody has access to information. And so we're that's part of the reason why we are um um gathering these and we'll continue to do that up those updates weekly.

107So this again is is is not fully this is when the data was pulled. So this is not to the end of the this situation. What we did ask is some questions about what was the what were the um experiences of people. There are a number of folks that have responded that never attended a session. There are folks that and this shows the variety of of responses based on the um engagement event. uh and then we at the time of uh sharing this we were just in the midst of wrapping up at uh the SEI event. So that event is not yet on here. So there slightly different experiences and sort of responses based on where people were about um the uh listening session um and sort of the balance of uh how much information

108is presented and how much people were able to engage and ask questions. So that was uh consistent across One of the other questions that we asked was what was >> Can I ask a question on the last side just for clarification? >> Yep. >> I'm so confused. Why did we ask people who did not attend a session to rate their overall experience at a session? >> It was part of in the in the questions overall. It was not we didn't have a in the form a way to skip skip it. So, it's the way we set up. So people just got frustrated by that question being there that they couldn't answer properly and just put poor. >> Could be. >> Makes sense. >> Could be. [laughter] >> Yes. Yes. >> So um thank you for

109the question. The So again this is a a snapshot point in time. So one of the things that we asked were do you have enough information to say that you have a preference? Is there one of the scenarios that's standing out to you? And so again, this was as of November 7th. These graphs I I look at them daily at this point to see, oh, had they changed or what are we seeing? So this is part of what we saw was that there was one of the scenarios, scenario C um and scenario B are showing up differently than scenario A. and that there were still a large number of people that said they needed more information about over a quarter of the people at the time um that they needed more information to to provide

110feedback. Similarly, if we look at this, we also broke it down by what were the scenario pieces by uh engagement site. We're able to look at that. Um, so if people there, again, this is back to your question, director split, you know, like there are people that did not attend, but we wanted to know like did they engage in the materials and what were they thinking and what did they see. So you can see that that depending on the sites, um, we're seeing slightly different responses to what is the scenarios and what do they look like. overall uh the engagement themes that surfaced as we went through the process. And so we're really thinking about the implications of these one. We know that when we go into um into engagements and we're sharing information, we

111try to be cognizant of how do we show that we're hearing and adjusting from people's feedback. What is what is part of we what we've heard is that there was a sense that the district tends to bring things out and when I say the district that means me in this scenario um that we bring information out that we have our minds made up and that we're checking a box. So I think that this is um you know that what we're trying to do with the FAQs and showing is that we're hearing we're trying to be responsive to the questions that are surfacing um and then sharing information. We're also trying to uh take in information from folks as as we go. I think another theme that there is um that has surfaced is there there

112wants to be a lot of clarity before commitment. Um what does that look like? Can we have more details about what what will happen during construction? What does that mean in transition? What does that mean as population is growing? Um those are some of the things that we have heard. And the piece around like how do like what does it mean? I think one of the pieces that we've heard quite a bit is like how do you build from where you are from being a focused school to a comprehensive like that we've done it the other way but like how does that look and can we be provide more clarity around that. Uh there's we we've heard concern about the proposed timeline in two different ways. Um, one is that uh uh is around doing

113it while the school is still under construction and and an active construction site. And uh the other is around um sort of um the pieces around uh where when and and what level of understanding was engaged in around like what does it mean? So we heard around Jefferson Rising some people thought that we're really talking about the modernization and just the tag of what that is. So how can we be clear about what we're talking about as opposed to dual assignment sunsetting with so that's some of the pieces that we've heard back from. Um I think another um piece that came through is that um there's a lot of conversation about what does it mean for Northn Northeast Portland and gentrification and this is particularly true in the dual assignment portion. Uh we uh when

114we look back at all the schools in um the dual assignment area, the racial demographics in particular have changed quite a bit in the last 10 years in particular. Um so and what are what are the implications and what does that mean for um students at Jefferson and for the community as a whole. So, I think that that has been um it was interesting uh talking the other day with um some families that had been at Irvington um a while ago and that's it it feels like that that the gentrification and some of the pieces in all parts of the dual assignment have changed quite a bit for example. And then the last piece and and it's going to get caught by our uh closed captioning here a little bit is there there's also a

115sense of hope that people are saying. So we hear pieces around um there is opportunity here and can it be realized? There's a desire to want things to be realized in that way. Um I think this this shows up in a number of things. There's some statements and some um like let's do it, let's go, everybody in. I see we see some of those statements um and also even this evening as people are saying you know we want this we want um sun the sun sending of dual assignment to work and we want Jefferson to work how that happens I think is where a lot of the conversation has been so those are some of the themes that we have talked through finally and here the questions that we have for engagement is as and

116and I've touched on these already some of them the uh availability of academic and extracurricular programming, what does that mean as the population is growing, the timeline of the process um around construction and what does that look like and and the students experience attending school while construction is ongoing. So, we are in the midst of actively building out um some uh uh structures and um answers to these questions from the engagement. As I said, we post question uh a series of materials every Friday. So, we're actively doing these and hopefully we'll um be able to update you guys uh with some more information tomorrow. Finally, as we went through the um the the pieces around um I'm going to go back one second here. Sorry. So with this around availability of academic and extracurricular programming

117um there is a statement about like what is going to so there's an understanding of what middle college is at some level but then what does that mean in concert with other advanced courses so what does that mean for advanced placement or when would if or I or international balorate for example when would those be introduced how do you make this transition from a focus to a broader piece so that's one of the things that we're really attending too. Um, we talked about the timeline a little bit and then the questions about student experience and when being on an ongoing construction site as as we as and that is true for I mean it this Jefferson students will be in a construction site. The question of how many students will be there is part of

118what the sun setting is about in the discussion. Uh, as we work with our RA team, there were a couple of recommendations. One is that they would uh said that we should continue to offer multimodal multilingual options for community to share feedback. The feedback forms are translated. Um I think the opportunity, this is an area with reaching out and connecting with our multilingual families. Um it is a tough environment to uh say that we're going to do something specifically for specific language families. Um so we're we will we're working through how do we make sure that we're connecting with families. We didn't we need more um input from our multilingual families. Uh we'll continue to translate and make uh easily accessible the materials in all five languages. Um we're collecting number about the um the

119number of participants in community engagement sessions and we want some additional information if they're willing. It's voluntary for them to give this but I think this will help us shape some of the things in future engagement. So these were areas that we could improve. Um we are continuing to look at the data collection and the and the instruments to make sure that we're able to compile across sites and spaces that we can draw some um larger conclusions as we go through. So um we appreciate the the partnership with both our phase team and our RAA team and then thinking about how do we uh continue to share out the information. So, finally with this um there's some Whoops, I went too far. Sorry. Oh, it's lagging. Sorry about that. There we go. Um so, here's

120sort of the next steps. So, as I said, we're in the midst of um it's in November and December. We're continuing to um engage students. We've had our first student engagement at uh Oley Green last week. We are at Fabian tomorrow. We'll be at Tubman on Tuesday. Uh we have we're have we're have tenative date at Vernon um and at Jefferson we have um we have been asked to push it out a little bit further based on some of their pieces that they're working on. We will bring the student engagement information back as well. What I would say more overwhelmingly in talking with students they want to provide their feedback. So they were very excited that we were coming and that there was going to be an ongoing process to have some conversations with them.

121So this is an initiation of that process. This is not a complete it's not a one and done. This so this is going to be ongoing as we go. Um as I said we'll be back in December for an open house um public meeting um in December 8th work session etc. So we're going to we're continuing to coate and respond to questions. We do it every Friday. We share it out. We're going to talk more explicitly about expanding academic and extracurricular programming and what does that look like in a timeline and as I said we're engaging students and that ultimately we're going to syn synthesize this information develop a recommendation and uh bring that forward. So those are sort of the next steps for this. So, I'm going to say this is going to feed

122into the next phase, right, of like we've had a lot of questions about what about dual language immersion and where it is located in the city or what about elementary boundaries or various other things. So, this is to help connect and sort of dovetail into what is going to come next around right sizing. So, we're in the midst of working through, as we said before, reviewing some of the outcomes from the Southeast Guiding Coalition process, compiling our current state of where we are, not only in um northnortheast Portland with the Jefferson dual assignment, but then across the city. Uh we're going to be forming an advisory committee this winter as we finish the current state analysis. We'll be looking at some of the um the outcomes, start to examine, develop our decision-m framework, and then

123go into another process of like what does that look like? I would look forward to the opportunity of saying, hey, this this is framing it up a in a little more detail as we get through um looking at the outcomes from the Southeast Guiding Coalition. With that said, I just want to say one last time that I think that the the process of um of the level of engagement and sort of the thinking through what are how are we addressing and trying to adopt policy, make policy decisions that address localized needs and then also something that we can apply across a number of schools has been a very vibrant conversation. And so I know you guys have have u received a number of emails and you've been present in spaces and just want to appreciate

124um all of the folks that have uh leaned in into this uh discussion. With that I have one question for you and then I'm going to take lots of questions. So here's my question for you which is um what as you have been to I think all of you have been to a um a engagement session what did you find most compelling and um a second part of it is have you been able to hear multiple perspectives those are the two questions that I would say and what did you find compelling and then were there uh opportunities to hear multiple perspectives. And with that, then I'll answer as many questions as needed. So, thank you for the time. >> It's like a tradition of me going first. I don't know what it is, but >>

125um I I'm going to answer your questions. I do I've called them Christiey's clarifications in my notes. >> Okay. >> Um we've gotten a lot of emails. >> A lot of emails. And there's some things in those emails that I just want to like set straight for the record that you can like nod your head and say [clears throat] yes so that everybody can know for the emails we've gotten. Okay. Um, did we tell Portland Maps to change the boundaries for the high schools or is that just a weird fluke? >> We did not tell Portland Maps to change the boundaries for the high schools. So, thank you for the question and it gives me an opportunity to point people back to the FAQs because we did see that as a question that came up.

126We did we create these graphics. They're up online. We updated it last Friday and it is one of the questions that we answered last Friday. So, yes, thank you for the question and we're going to keep putting people back to the uh >> I just wanted to also make sure it was here um in a meeting too. Um, and also it just looks to me because I looked at it right away when I first saw it and it looks to me like, >> oddly enough, at my work, we do this thing where we have like two utilities listed sometimes and sometimes it'll forget to grab the second utility when we do like changes or updates. So, I don't know if that's what happened or not, but since both high schools serve it, it kind of

127[clears throat] makes sense that it would have said one or the other in some sort of fluke. So, I just wanted to make sure people didn't think that. I have seen a lot of emails accusing us of like already deciding and look, Portland maps already says it as proof that we already decided and I also just want to put out there that no decision has been made. >> Correct. >> Um and that we're all listening and open-minded and want to come to a solution together. But it's really hard when you like see things like that. You just want to make sure people know. Um, I also wanted to flag that um I've seen people sort of accuse us of um like intentionally placing kids in harm by having them on a construction site. Um, sometimes

128it's been softer, sometimes it's been just that direct. I want to put it on the record that my child is most likely going to start high school um on on a on a construction site. also she will go to IDW Wells where those kids will be on site during construction. I've like heard very few concerns about safety from my community about that. It's just like how it's going to be and they're going to be right next to each other. So those kids will be very close to a construction site and I don't think it should be interpreted as something we're doing that's like meant to short change kids that are attending Jefferson. Um Lincoln was the same way. Somebody earlier said like you and it was actually someone I exchanged emails with like the one

129in 10,000 emails I replied to one of them happened to testify today. I try with the emails y'all. It's not working. Um but um >> Roosevelt also >> Roosevelt was was the same way. And then with Lincoln someone said well they were out of out of school. Well that wasn't the plan. Like we weren't planning for a pandemic and we were like ph like thank goodness we had a reason for these kids to be online so they'd be off site. So I just want to make sure people know that was the plan there. It wasn't that we decided to do the construction on site because they were gone. That was already the plan. So, I just want to make sure people knew that this is very typical when you have a site that's large enough

130and building a new school. I looked into it and did a little bit of research on other states and other places. It's very common when there's space because it's less disruptive to families and kids so they don't have to go to a swing site. So, I just kind of wanted to make sure that people heard that here tonight, too. The other thing is I've heard a lot about there's been no engagement process. This is the engagement process and we are listening and we do take it seriously. So I just wanted to make sure people heard from us that it's not I'm actually pretty proud to see the district turning the page in a lot of ways and I hope that this is one that I can hold the district accountable but I think the district

131is there too on really wanting to make sure we meaningfully engage and meaningfully response to respond to community. I've also heard people saying um that there won't be um course offerings that you know it'll still be the same course offerings. I want to make sure everybody knows and it sounds like one of the changes that you've made is to start talking more about those course offerings, figuring them out sooner so that that can be part of the conversation. Thank you for making that kind of alteration to the plan based on feedback. And then finally, the district can make a decision, publicize that decision, hear from community, and pivot. I just saw it happen on the farmers market at the IDW Wells site. So, I just want to make sure people know that like the district

132that has been so rigid in the past and caused us to have that fear of that happening. Um, I just want to put it out there that I just saw the district show flexibility when community input came in and figure out a way around for which I'm grateful. So, I just kind of wanted to make sure people hear from me, hear from us that we all kind of agree and are getting those same emails just to make sure we all kind of like are on the same page. Um, because when I see things like this in emails, it makes me feel a little bit like defensive and I want to be like open-minded and like collaborative. So, I just wanted to put those things out there. What did I find most compelling? Um, I was

133lucky enough to have the superintendent in my breakout group and I thought it was great that instead of just saying we're collecting questions, she was just answering questions and I thought that was so helpful. And I know she can't be in every breakout group, but I think like um it's really to me compelling and connective when we can actually answer questions in those breakouts and have th that dialogue be a two-way street. So, I thought that was really great. And in my group I did hear multiple perspectives. My inbox has no multiple perspectives. So it was really nice to hear from families particularly at um Tubman U middle school who actually like want to see Tubman families stay together all the way through for example which is quite different from what we're hearing. So I

134think it was a good oper um in our inboxes. So it was nice to like you say hear multiple perspectives which I would not have heard if I had not gone to that event. Thank you. Thank you for asking and thank you for sitting through Christiey's clarifications. [laughter] >> I think we have a a video spot ready for you. [laughter] I've got the got the look. Okay. So, what was most compelling? So, the questions were what was most compelling and did I hear multiple multiple multiple perspectives? Okay. Most compelling for me. So, I went to um the listening session at Tubman and I did the virtual listing session. And what I found most compelling is the concern about the academic opportunities and electives and sports and extracurriculars, all those things. Right out of the gate,

135across the white families who were there and the black families were there, it was all the same. Um so that that concern is real in terms of what that looks like. bringing students that currently have those opport you know these students already have those opportunities a McDaniel Roosevelt grant and bringing them into a school that hasn't shown a plan. So that was definitely uh consistent across the board. Um and is in our inboxes as well. Um did I hear multiple perspectives? Yes, I did. Um >> would you mind including the Irvington engagement in your assessment? Yes, I did a um P the PTA asked Michelle to pass and I to do a listening session which I was able to attend and that was you know I mean that was not wasn't one of my questions

136in terms of what was most compelling. I think it's really the answer would be exactly the same though in terms of what it looks like when you go in transportation, you know, is coming up as an issue in certain areas. Um but I don't know if this is really the space to get in the weeds. Well, I just mean when you um as as you're you're comparing the two sessions that you attended, you kind [clears throat] of attended three because you had another listen. >> I was I think that that Margaret was asking about the PPS like the Jefferson is rising listening sessions. >> Yeah, but I'm asking like like >> was it any different? No, it was no different. >> We weren't all. And so I'm just getting a lens on what different communities

137are sharing. >> It was the same. >> Thank you. Did you have any questions? >> Did you have any comments on the Margaret's question? >> I I wasn't sure if we were >> I thought I thought Sorry, I thought we were still on the the compelling >> or are we answering Margaret's questions and then we're all asking our questions after that. >> I don't really have any questions at this particular second other than answering yours and making my statement although I reserve the right to change my mind. >> Of course. Of course. Um, what I found compelling, it's actually a little bit different than what Director Lefort just noted um because I did go to uh listening sessions um that presented different perspectives and uh were made up of different demographics and um what I

138heard in those two spaces was different. Um, one space was uh, which one did you go to? >> Oh, I sorry. I went to Vernon and I went to SEI. Um, so the the tone at Vernon, at least in the breakout room that I was in, uh, was like what I would characterize as objectively negative. Um, but I did hear that that wasn't the case in all of the breakout rooms, which is great. Um, the tone at SEI was very different. um was really positive and enthusiastic. Um and I think the other thing that I found compelling um particularly in the SEI session um was kind of just the openness and inclusivity uh that the community expressed in terms of um the the very real changes that this project would bring to their community. and

139um the ability to balance um valid concerns with optimism. Um that was it was heartwarming kind of evening. Um what was the other part of the question? >> That was it. You got them both. Thank you. >> Got it. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Ready for our >> Let's go. Let's Let's get the questions. Yep. >> All right. Um and you're good, Christie? >> Yeah. I did think of one, but Okay. Um, are you still formulating or can I >> can I cook? Okay. Um, so actually nice segue from uh my remarks just now. Um, what type of feedback are we hearing from current Jefferson students and their families um both about their current experience as the Jefferson community um and their thoughts and feelings about this plan. So part of what um I uh

140we're working through we haven't we haven't we've engaged with the students in a variety over in a variety of ways over time. So some of this has come up through the modernization conversation recognizing sort of what the pieces are the explicit work with students at this point we we are working towards and we're working with principal Shelton we had we started with a particular space um of thinking like how broad do we want to go we started with a fairly like almost a focus group and then it was like nope everybody we want to get to every you know there was a desire to get to everybody so we're we have not done that breadth yet I think that There is um um two things have surfaced that that principal Shelton has shared in public.

141One was at Vernon and one was during the a modernization meeting in October was there was a question about how do you sustain culture and what does that look like? Um and so I think there's uh this is a piece of being very active with the students in the community to say what does that mean and you we need to do more work with that to really build out what how do you sustain the sense of what it means to to s to really feel um the pride of the and in of a of the black community and the e and black excellence and how does that centered it has been centered and I think that that is um at Jefferson And so I think that is really sort of the question what I would

142say and I think the the sense is um there there is it's about welcoming right and I think that this is the vibrancy and the richness of the community is in um the variety of people that come through the door and so I think that there is an interest in making sure that it's welcoming and also um that there is some education about what does that mean uh and what is the history of Jefferson to different people and so I know that we've had some conversations about that like like is it an Albina tour is it a you know are there some readings are there some pieces that help people understand and connect to culture um is it you know parent meetings and and bringing families together and and really saying you know what are

143your hopes and and dreams as we go through connecting those things. So some of it is um I would say what we hear is excitement right and with a statement about like we we need to get into how do we welcome and how do how do we talk with each other that is um supportive and positive. I think that the um the challenge, right, is um is how we talk about each other and I and and how we what what does that look like when we talk about schools and schools are filled with people, right? And so it's not Jefferson a building, it's Jefferson the people. And I think that that is there's concerted effort to really address that and that will be ongoing like this is going that is going to be an ongoing

144process that that will last for quite some time. >> I'm uh deeply appreciative of that last point. Thank you. Mhm. >> Um I have a question about um timelines and [sighs and gasps] kind of what what the sequence of events was and like what lag [clears throat] time if any existed between um you all doing the work of you know looking at at the pie and doing the slicing to get to the three scenarios >> and when that was shared with community. Uh so we worked um in beginning and initiating with the conversation in June with the board. We worked in earnest to say what are some ways that we consider that. That happened quite a bit with internal teams over the summer. Um we started to vet that um in July, build out some

145scenarios, continue that in August um and and looked through um the criteria and various other pieces um through September. And then when we then from getting to that those pieces and going through as I said thinking through the KPIs, the key performance indicators and racial equity piece, it took some iterations with our internal team and then from that decision to to saying here here in October, I mean it was really from working up through the analysis through September to share that information in October. Okay, that sounds like a pretty tight turnaround in terms >> it was a focused um effort. >> Yes. >> And all all stakeholders, all invested communities received that information at the same time. >> We um we posted so there are a couple things we the the we went through the

146internal scenario development. We wanted the reason we brought out scenarios plural is that we wanted to highlight what the different scenarios would be relative to the indica the policy right so how do you balance these things in the policy the key performance indicators are connected to those six things in the policy [snorts] so when we look through the scenarios that's really what we were trying to do is can we surface and highlight ones that will show some of the tradeoffs that are going to happen that you guys are going to wrestle with that we'll bring you know that the superintendent will bring a proposal forward but this is that's some of what we were working through. I think the other piece that I would say around um the the the once we had those we

147posted the information we put it on the web so we sent emails out to families about sort of the engagement. We did an initial sort of hey we're going to have this conversation at all the back to school nights. So in person and in verbally we did that when people that were in front of us. We sent out the mailer to folks in the addresses in the catchment. So it is not that are in Portland public schools. So that was the outreach at least to say we're going to have the series of meetings and then we posted the materials online prior to the first meeting. So that was sort of the sequencing. So we wanted people to have information to prior to coming to the meeting and and then we were going from there. So

148that's the general order of operations of what we followed. >> Okay. So just for my own clarification [clears throat] um any family, excuse me, any family with kids in PPS that lives in the dual enrollment zone received communication about >> Yes. >> Okay. um >> with one with one caveat and this is where we heard what came through as Jefferson is rising as the language sounded like to some families modernization. So we could have been clearer in what that was if they did not open the email they did not see sunsetting dual assignment for example. um gonna change gears a little bit. Um why is there not a curriculum plan currently in place? >> So in terms of building it out so part of what what what this is a pivot excuse me that was

149a loud pee. Um there's it's a little bit of a it's a pivot, right? So right now Jefferson is operating as a focus school that that curriculum is connected to dual um credit and and pieces with that. as we go through we to build out a curriculum plan and is going to require a lot of stakeholder engagement and that being students that are currently at Jefferson current students that are going to come to Jefferson and our internal the Jefferson staff as well as central office staff. So part of it is we don't want to get ahead too far of what where we are with the board because we've then it would single that we've already made the decision and whatnot. So that was one sort of piece but framing what does that look like I

150think is what does that look like in the years what does that mean comes from some of that that those possibilities come from the scenarios so an example would be that we can um we can look at particular as populations grow and we see that there's there's two ways to get to advanced coursework or electives right then we can say we can sequence what those electives are some of it we can signal we would antic anticipate, for example, that there will be a some type of advanced coursework in the sophomore year. We're not going to say exactly what that is, right? Because that's going to be we want to co-construct that. But that is that's sort of that balance of back and forth. We will and we're working on that that larger framework because it's

151what we're hearing is people are having a hard time visualizing what that means. So, we're going to help provide some concrete examples of what that would look like. But I also just want to make sure that we that you know engaging with the school community that is and the and the staff there is really critical in partnership with our central office teams. >> So I have a seventh grader at Tubman right now. >> Um >> what can I expect for his ninth and tth grade years academically? and should I have concerns that the quality of that education is going to be inferior uh to if he went to Roosevelt or McDaniel or Grant? So the um thank you for the question and so what what will look different for like if we take a current

152ninth grader at Jefferson like the current students are receiving a robust education right the what that looks like is a focused program right so for a seventh grader coming in what that means is we're going to look to to broaden what that what some of those opportunities are so does that mean that that there are um that there is an additional type of for example music right is there right now Jefferson has band we heard about drum line and various other things grant has band and choir so do we is that something that we will lay out as something that is different so that's part of what we that this is what I think people the tension of like is it the same is it different it's a lot around choice so we're going to

153be explicit about what those opportunities are when you think about right now what it looks like to bring the first group of seventh graders in that will be a very similar size freshman class to the next freshman class and the freshman class after that and the freshman class after that. So we will build that programming in concert with the school so that this is what a freshman experience is. As you go to sophomore, what would what would be um probably the piece that would that would be different currently and that we're this is where we're building out the academic plan is the that you may see a sophomore class that is uh an advanced coursework. So, for example, at McDaniel, a sophomore class is AP seminar, which is um offered to all sophomores and it's

154a language arts credit. So, is there a possibility that we would like if if that is the way that we're going to go like is it IB or AP then you would say yes, we could we will introduce that at that you know we'll build out something similar. We will have that in place as your you know as your seventh grader becomes a nth grader or 10th grader as we go. So they're in the nth and tth grade years. I think those significant pieces, that's where we will start to build out a timeline. But that timeline, I just want to be really clear. We want to make sure that we're including what the um student interest, right? So for AP or advanced courses, it looks one way. For electives, it really is we have to

155think about what is that student interest. So it's going to be both as we go. But we that's what we will lay out some of those that framework in the coming weeks so that people can visualize what does this look like and what does that experience look like relative to another school. >> Yep. Um I'm going to ask two questions and then I'm going to transfer to the phone because I have tickets to the Da Vinci play tonight and if there's some chance we end by seven then I can be there. >> Excellent. >> Um yeah our my our best friend's daughter is one of the leads. She's an eighth grader. >> What's the play? >> I believe it is called The Prom for Kids or like the prom kids version, something like that. >>

156Excellent. >> Um, so yeah. So, uh, I just, you know, The Walking in Late, it feels like out of a movie of like being a bad parent. >> Um, my kids's not in the play, but still they're in the audience. I don't know. >> Um, my two questions. One has to do I don't I I like honestly I looked on the FAQs before I asked just to make sure you weren't going to be like this. I think it's okay. No. >> Um, so Laura is in the audience. She's somebody I've known for like 20 years and really respect. 18, 16, something like that. And I know she's been talking to you and has brought up today her testimony scenario F. And I'm just curious like >> are we open to in the end will the

157recommendation be A, B, or C or will it be possibly something else? We are we are reviewing um what so the what does it look like so I will share what what does it look like if Sabin and Irvington were to go >> I don't know what's in scenario F to be honest I just heard about it tonight y >> but or I think maybe in some emails and I've been like what's scenario F so I don't know what's in there to be clear so I don't have a position on it I'm just like overall really wanting to maybe even take away from what scenario F is in all due respect but just >> is it poss possible that we will develop something that's different than A, B or C? >> We we are reviewing

158um pieces. So is there what what the final recommendation will be is it has not happened yet. Right. So we are we're bringing in information and we're looking at it. >> Okay, great. Yes. >> My other question is one that I've gotten I think in emails or just like around and um and I'm just curious how this would work. So, if we um when when we make these moves, whatever they are, how we'll have we'll need more teachers at Jefferson. >> Yes. >> And I've had people be concerned that in the end it will be kind of like I think many of us, probably everybody in the room kind of understands the way it generally works is like >> younger, newer teachers have often kind of get moved around um during these types of processes.

159and so concerned that Jefferson would in the end have less experienced teachers. Um have you thought through are there plans any notions of how that could be alleviated? My child by the way has a first year second grade teacher who's amazing. So I'm not trying to put down any new teachers. Um but just generally speaking that experience we know matters. So >> so we follow our collective bargaining agreements and there this is part of what we do. um every year there is some movement based you know from school to school as the case may be um what what we will do and and this is part of as we go through and work with folks um is really the the combination so one I want to say that there's a body of teachers that are

160present at Jefferson now right this these changes as we go through will be over a number of years and we'll work to make sure that the the pieces of how how that process happens. It's a it is it came through as a new process as in our last uh collective bargaining agreement. But we do have to we are very attentive not only with with um with teachers but with all of our union partners about what does that look like. We are um also cognizant about uh making sure that we one of the things that is true about high school teachers and high school that is slightly different than middle and elementary is that um certification it match certification drives sort of where people can work and what does that look like so we have to

161have people who are aptly certified to teach the courses so that is I mean it's a combination of things and I think that that is part of the process that we'll be working through with with partners as well and as we go as we move forward. >> Great. Thank you so much. And as I pack up and move to the phone, I mean, no offense or disrespect, I just looked at what time the meeting was going to end. I was like, I'll already be over there. I'll be there at 7. No problem. >> Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. >> These two did an amazing job of asking questions. They asked a lot of mine. Yes. >> Um I just have a couple um those that came up while you were talking. >> Sure. Sure.

162Um, did, and I may have misheard this, I generally don't know. Did you say that every middle school in these scenarios is a split feeder? Right now, they are is what I said. So, if we go back to um I I if I go back, I'd stop sharing, but if you're in the let's see here um I'll give an example here. Okay, so on um the summary sheet is lagging here. Just give me a sec. My back arrow does not work as well as my front arrow. Okay, I may be stuck. Anyway, on the on the um on the summary sheets that we have, you'll see this piece about uh percent of school students, middle school students moving together to high school. >> So, you'll see sort of what that looks like. Right now, in

163the Jefferson dual assignment, all the all the there's not one not one middle school is going directly to a high school, right? What we have in the scenarios that we shared is that uh we get to 90% is the highest number that we can get of everybody flowing together. Uh with that being uh scenario A which has all the students flowing to Jefferson and then dual um the dual language immersion going to uh Roosevelt. So that is as close as we could get with not making a change to dual language. What's what's the comp districtwide? I'm sorry. >> That was literally my next question. Literally my my second part as a whole. What percentage of our middle schools are split feeders in the >> I would have to look I'm happy to take go back

164and look at it. It has changed. >> So I'm happy. >> Where did that come from? Oh, okay. [laughter] >> It sounded like it was coming from back here. I'm like, who's talking? >> So I think there are there are a couple pieces. one is so we can we can look I'm happy to bring back the the some more details about what that looks like. It has changed over time and and part of what has changed over time is dual language immersion patterns as well. >> That is actually one of my questions. It wasn't my next question but I'm going to pivot right to it. So with grant one of the I don't know if it's noted but we've got the JDLI program there >> which is about I don't want it's like 250 some

165students right now and I was looking at the numbers and about 90% of them >> are not neighborhood students they go to school I mean their their neighborhood schools are in southeast >> um were were those numbers included in these grant numbers? >> Yes. >> Okay. And is there concern that once Cleveland is rebuilt that we would lose those students because that would significantly impact Grant's numbers? >> Cleveland does not have Japanese dual immersion. >> Do I guess my I wonder if once they get through 8th grade, would they still follow the JDLI program all the way through? >> I think it's been pretty strong pattern up to this point that that is true. I know Judy Brennan is here from Enrollment Transfer and pays it knows that a little bit better than I do,

166>> but I think that the patterns remain pretty >> speculation, but I I wondered if having a new high school open right around the same time would would impact um that enrollment at Grant. >> Good evening. Um Judy Brennan, director enrollment and transfer. Uh thanks for the question. Yeah, so we've observed this pattern over time. So Grant is the original and continuing location for Japanese immersion. Um it's the only location for Japanese immersion in the district and we've seen other modernizations happen including Lincoln, McDaniel, others um other places, Franklin where um students come from. Um what we see every year is there's a handful of kids who do decide to go back to their neighborhood school, but the majority of the cohort moves forward um together to grant. Um the cohort itself is a little

167bit smaller than it used to be. It used to be um closer to 110 students per year. It's down to around 90. Um but most of those 90 students are continuing to grant instead of reverting back to their neighborhood school. as you noted, uh, a fairly high number. I think the highest proportion of Japanese immersion students are from the Cleveland neighborhood. So, it could be that a higher proportion of those kids choose Cleveland after the modernization, but um, as I said, we've looked we've seen other modernizations and have not seen that as a like a big deciding factor. >> And that was about 90 per grade band. Correct. Ser total in the in the building. Um, and I might actually send this offline in terms of like the other um, dual immersion programs if they

168are the largest percentage is drawing from the neighborhood boundary. like I know that's what we're looking like over by Roosevelt where those kids >> live in the neighborhood and they're choosing, >> you know, the dual language immersion program but still living in their neighborhood where I'm just wondering if Grant's an anomaly and you're describing some other areas that I don't know much about around the city and you know like Lincoln, you know, um Franklin are the the high are the percentages of students in their DI programs neighborhood students? Is it flipped at grant? That's that's what I'm wondering. I don't know the answer. I'm just >> Yeah. Yeah. And keep in mind that um >> well, Cleveland is our only um well, Cleveland is not our only high school for Chinese immersion anymore, but but

169um Japanese immersion is our only program that doesn't um that has a a full Japanese immersion elementary school, Richmond, that draws students from across the entire district. Then those kids move together to Mount Taber for middle school and then to Grant for high school. And um it's the only program that has that big robust base. It was four sections per grade level. It's now about three sections per grade level. So it starts with one big base together, then they move together to one location and then to another. So in that way it is a bit of an anomaly in that um it truly is serving the entire district. >> Got it. Thank you. Um let's see. we've got >> the middle college program will that and I understand you you know with the transition >>

170it's not something that you can eliminate right away because there are you know students that are already enrolled in it is there a plan to sunset that as it becomes a comprehensive high school like over a couple of years um has it been discussed >> so I would say that the partnership with PCC will remain what that looks like is going to be part of this process That is true. So I think that you have um the so I'm I'll just say the partnership with PCC has been probably over 40 years with Jefferson, right? Okay. So it has the middle college was an expansion of a of an ongoing partnership. So the partnership would be there. The question is >> like that will be part of the the conversations of the balance of the academic

171programming that have surfaced. >> Okay. Okay. And then you mentioned the upcoming student engagement. Yeah. >> Which which schools were are slated for that? >> So we're going to all of the middle grades schools. So we're we've been to Aley, we're going to Tubman, Fabian, uh Vernon, and then we're also going to Jefferson to work with the juniors and seniors. I mean, excuse me, freshman and sophomores. >> What does that look like? Like what is >> what are we doing? >> Yeah. I'm like, what are you guys doing? [laughter] So we uh worked with our RA team and we built out um the middle grades questions of uh it's it is an imagining of high school. What are you interested in? What are some of the pieces that um what do you know already about

172uh the various high school choices? So those are a couple pieces um at uh what what was clear and it's been clear in all the places. I'm very excited to go to Tubman next week. Um, the entire seventh grade class is like, "Yep, come in." So, I'm going to spend a whole day with every class period of seventh graders, which is gonna be great. >> Seth grader invited me. >> Oh, great. Great. Of course. That's great. And so, what we're doing is we're asking some um initial questions about what do they know, what are their hopes for high school, what are going to be the ways that they um what what is important to them. You know, I think there's a piece uh as as we hear um uh we had some interesting uh questions

173from Oley Green students. They wanted some more information. They want you know so and one of the things I I thought was very interesting is like are you doing this with everyone like was one of the questions like we would like to engage. We're also working with the uh middlegrades what is like um the district student council. So, we'll be with the middle grades uh version of that next week and talking with them about what does student engagement look like and who drives student engagement. And I'm very excited about this with our face team is how do we elevate student voice and how do we how do they lead the discussions with each other and how do we work through what does it mean to engage in policy and what does that mean and sort

174of how do you move from your personal experience to what does that mean to impact policy or what does that look like or implementation policy not quite but implementation yes um you know what does that look like from from their perspective so um this this will be an as I said an initi you know a targeted initiation right of what are of conversations that then will continue over a period of time and so this actually is like one of I'm very excited about how do we hear from students about what they want from high school and how do we have this opportunity then to make some adjustments to they can see themselves in the decision- making >> sounds fun I'm jealous [laughter] um I have one last question. It was basically um I know you

175talked about synthesizing the feedback. Would it be possible for us to have access to all of the feedback um and did you take pictures of the sticky note boards? I saw them. I took pictures of the one I was at, but there was a lot of like interesting uh comments. >> We have pictures of the sticky note boards. I think we actually have the sticky note boards, [laughter] >> I think. Yeah. So, >> and the actual sticky notes. >> Yes, we are. we are um we are uh uh transcribing some of those pieces. So, we're uh happy to share uh work through the what what what is helpful information for the board. So, like we're happy to to work through what is that level of uh detail that you would like to see. >> That's

176all I got. That was Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. >> Yeah. Um I want to extend extra special uh thanks to staff. We are way over time and I appreciate you all hanging in here with us. Um, as a reminder, the whole board will discuss the recommended proposal at the December 16th full board work session and we are planning for a board vote in January of 2026. Our next meeting of the teaching, learning, and enrollment committee is scheduled for December 11th. The meeting will focus on PPS sponsored charter schools as well as talented and gifted services including access. another exciting meeting and uh yeah and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody. Thank you.