2025-04-22 Board of Education Special Meeting and Work Session

001numbers. All right. Uh let's get started today. The special meeting and works session of the board of education for April 22, 2025 is called to order. All items being considered this evening are posted on the PPS website under the board and meetings tabs. The meeting is being streamed live on PPS TV services website and on channel 28 and will be played throughout the next two weeks. Please check the district website for replay times. All right. Hey, good evening. Welcome. Thank you for taking your time out of your day to be here. Uh we have a full agenda. Uh today we are uh receiving the proposed budget from uh Superintendent Armstrong this evening. Uh we will be reviewing the spring map data as well and we'll also be voting to approve the OD grant integrated grant

002application which we previewed at the April 8th board meeting. Our last item will be to vote on a resolution to add pay grade to the senior leadership schedule. Superintendent Armstrong will be providing an overview of the leadership realization to provide context. First up, let's start off with the consent agenda. The We will now vote on the consent agenda. Board members, are there any items you would like to pull for a separate vote? Take your silence as no. Uh, Miss Bradshaw, are there any changes to the consent agenda? No. Is there any public comment? No. All right. Okay. Do I have a motion and a second to approve uh to adopt the consent agenda? Motion. Second. Director Green moves and Director Holland seconds the adoption of the consent agenda. Any uh Okay. The board will now

003vote on resolution 7094 and 709 to 7097. All in favor, please indicate by saying yes. Yes. Yes. All opposed. Abstensions and student represent Cancei. Yes. Thank you. Consent agenda is approved by a vote of six to zero with student represent voting yes. All right. Next, we have the our spring data dive and an opportunity to review our MAP data. Uh for those you don't know, MAP stands for measure of academic progress. Superintendent Armstrong, can I hand it off to you? Yeah, absolutely. We're excited to bring you this and we have our chief of equity and accountability, our chief academic officer and our soon to be chief of schools before you and they will present the information. Thank you. All right. Um, good evening board directors, Chair Wong, uh, and Superintendent Armstrong. Tonight, I'm joined by

004Chief Academic Officer Christina Howard and Senior Director of Schools Dr. Isaac Cardona to share our midyear map growth data and our systemwide response to these data. Our agenda, here's our agenda for tonight. We will just briefly discuss the use of MAP growth assessment in Portland public schools. We'll discuss and share the levels of student growth as demonstrated by the MAP assessments and then we'll share our action steps that we have taken and will continue to take to support student growth. First, I wanted to take a moment to talk about student growth versus student proficiency. Growth and achievement proficiency are highly related and wanted to take a minute to talk about the relationship between the two. As I realize uh as it relates to student proficiency on assessments like the OSAS, as we move through the

005presentation, you may note that our growth percentages are often higher than our OSAS proficiency present percentages. Excuse me. Here's why. We know that we have a good amount of students who are currently performing below grade level as measured by the state assessments. The books on this slide represent an amount of student growth within a given year. We know that when students are below grade level, they have to grow academically each year and hopefully accelerate their growth so that over time they have more growth or books under them so they can eventually reach the grade level standards. So under a scenario where we are monitoring growth and proficiency, we can have a large proportion of students who are growing and whose growth has not yet gotten them back to the grade level expectations. On the next

006few slides, we'll look at growth in uh ma mathematics and reading for all tested grades. And we'll look at growth data for our um different student groups, including growth by race, ethnicity, multilingual learner status, and special education status. This is also a slide that's just for a quick reminder. Um we assess students in grades three through eight with the MAP assessment in the fall and in the winter. The data analyses we can depend we can produce depend on the timing of the assessment. For example, in the fall, each student has a single score. We examine achievement at a point in time and we can compare achievement at two points in time. Then we get to the winter where after the winter assessment growth, we can measure uh growth because each student has two scores within

007the same year and at the same time we can compare growth over time. When looking at our MAP results, the minimum amount of growth we should expect to see is at least 50%. When more than 50% of students are growing, we are shifting the distribution of learning and students are accelerating or catching up. On the other hand, when we experience growth less than 50%, it means that students are declining in their growth and that they may be falling behind. So, let's dig into the data. Quick question. Yes, sir. So, there like it said And on this one says fall and spring. Yes, I thought I changed that. It should say fall and spring. That's a typo. Sorry about that. So, it should fall and winter. Oh, no. I'm sorry. Yeah, we changed that today. Yes,

008it was a typo. We realized that we had put fall and spring when it's actually fall and winter. A spring window for Matt wouldn't occur till later in the year in May. Got to June. Okay. Apologies for that. Here are our overall growth percentages in reading and math. During this school year, more students met their growth targets in math than they did in reading. Although we did meet the expected level of growth in reading, we know that we need to grow more than the expected level to catch more students up over time. And remember that the amount of expected growth is greater. Well, I just said that. So the amount of growth of math is greater than 50%. So that means a percentage of students are catching up over time and that's relatively good news.

009Here are our reading growth percentages by grade level. Compared to last year, we are seeing increased growth in grade eight and grade four reading while the other grade levels showed a decline in reading growth as compared to last school year. Next, we have our growth percentages by race, ethnicity, and special service status. You will note that the growth rates continue to vary along those predictable lines of race, ethnicity, ability, disability, and language proficiency. And now looking at math, here are math results by grade level. In math, as opposed to in reading, we see increased growth in all grade levels as compared to last school year. This trend matches what we have been seeing in our OSAS data. That is, um, if you recall, our students are making a little bit more progress in math than

010they are in reading. Um, so we're continuing to see that in the data. And for our final data slide, we have our math growth by race, ethnicity, ability, disability status, and English proficiency. As was the case at each grade level, here all student groups are are demonstrating increased growth as compared to last school year. Over the next few slides, uh, Chief Academic Officer Howard and, uh, Dr. Cardona will share how we are responding to these data and supporting student growth across PPS. Good evening. Uh the data we are sharing is from one point in time during the winter assessment window which was January 6 to February 14th and we want to share what happens after the assessment has been administered. And so after the assessment window, principles, coaches, instructional coaches, and teachers analyze the data

011using data analysis protocols. At the elementary level, schools offer a tiered system of supports in math and reading for students who are not yet meeting grade level benchmarks. This includes smallroup retaching during core instruction blocks and individualized intervention and targeted practice during daily what I need also referred to when block time. This individualized intervention may come in the form of high impact tutoring, small group work with an academic interventionist or specially designed and designated intervention from a special educator or English language development teacher. Parallel support and intervention structures exist in our middle schools. Principles, coaches, and teachers use the data analysis protocol to determine shifts in the intervention groups and targeted supports for individual students. So, this is after the data has been uh released from that window. Um, this is all of the actions

012that have been taking place so far. Um, in the K5 setting, schools schedule a 30 to 45 minute what I need or windb block which allows an all hands-on deck approach where educators can group students to provide personalized instruction based on their levels of need. High impact tutoring as well as academic intervention occurs at that designated time. In the middle schools, students with intensive needs are rostered into an academic intervention course to receive intervention tier three support um to address their lagging skills. Next slide, please. From the earlier slide, Dr. Adam shared 50% is the amount of expected growth and any growth greater than 50% means that more students are growing than would otherwise be expected and students are therefore catching up. So reading AC academic interventionists regularly monitor the progress of their students with

013intervention curriculum embedded assessments aligned to the skills taught on regular bimonthly cycles. Interventionists enter this data into our synergy data tracking system. The numbers here capture the most recent data points entered into Synergy, showing that 61% of students in grades one to five were meeting their individualized program goals and 70% of students in grades six to eight were meeting their individualized program goals. And that's from our data and synergy. I'm going to pass it to Dr. Cardona. All right. In the past, you might hear that central office operated within silos. And so this past year we worked to desilo the work that we do here to support schools. We created a crossf functional set of teams um doing collaborative instructional walks. It's comprised of members of the school performance office, teaching learning and student support

014services. We are joined at the school site by administrators, instructional coaches, members of the instructional leadership team. Um and then we also have visiting principles and visiting instructional coaches um see other schools together. We review student data, observe classroom instruction, and then support school leaders with implementation of their school improvement plans at the K5 K8 level. These teams have visited every school site three times this year, visiting over a thousand classrooms. We monitor progress and development in instruction. And through this process, we've been able to identify our sites that are doing fantastic work, those that need levels of support from central office. And in these cases, the senior director of schools in partnership with senior leaders from OTL and OSS have worked with school leaders to develop a short and long-term set of goals and

015wraparound services to support acceleration. These plans have included facilitated stepbacks with instructional leadership teams, schoolwide resets on PBIS, which is positive behavior incentives. Um, on-site professional learning around curriculum implementation, enhanced classroom coaching, and support for PLC's, which are times where teachers, coaches, and admin work together. Um, and sidebyside classroom observations with school leaders. In all cases, we've seen these schoolwide interventions accelerate growth in instructional practices in support of improved student outcomes. This is some uh example data currently from our K5 K8 schools. Um we visited again over a thousand classrooms since we began in September. And if we were to separate out spring observations from fall, we'd see that the dark blue MET indicators have increased over the course of the year. The story this graph tells is that most of our elementary school educators

016are using our adopted math and language arts curriculum. Um, our work now is continuing the professional learning and coaching needed to help our educators use our resources with increasing intentionality and alignment with our instructional framework to ensure that educators have the supports they need to use data strategically um, and plan for increased levels of student access and engagement. So, this is the work we're currently engaging in um, with school leaders and instructional coaches. Can I ask a question on that slide? Absolutely. Can you tell us about the uh very distinguishable core action one, core action two and core action three? Sure. Um core action one refers to the task that is in front of students. So looking at the work that's in front of them. Core action two refers to the questioning a lot of

017the questioning techniques the teachers using. So it's really the teacher driven actions. And core action three is the student driven action. So we would want to see things like students discussing the material with each other or discussing the task, engaging in conversations. And you can see that's an area of of growth for us across the whole district. This is again across all classrooms. Um and so you can see that's an area that we need we need to work on. Thank you so much. We also prioritize administrators being in classrooms. This is an example of the frequency of informal observations of principles or school leaders within classrooms over the course of the year. So for about 3500 classroom observations and informal feedback sent to teachers using our mosaic system. And with that we'll take any questions

018that board members may have. Director Green. Excellent. Thank you. Um, I tried to write them down so that I wouldn't interrupt and mess up the mess up the presentation. I'm working, Dr. Adams. I I So, um, earlier I I heard you saying you were mentioning that um, on some of the first slides you were talking about that we're seeing this um, we're making an assessment in the fall, then we make another one in the in the winter. And so one of my and then you said that we were measuring over time like we're getting them. So I'm looking at how can we how can we measure or what can we measure because if we're doing it at this one spot and then we're doing it at the other spot and we're waiting and we don't

019have a um some small milestones in between. How do we make sure or what can we measure um anecdotically so that we can make sure that we don't get to the winner and find out that all these kids are behind and that we should have done some milestones? Um because I'm not understanding the what does it mean over time? Are you talking about like um for middle school and then over time between graduation we hope that they catch up or are we talking about overtime for quarters? So like over this quarter we're going to be measuring this so that we can see over the next quarter we're going to measure this and is this the only assessment that we're using and if that's the case why that was a myrrated questions but I that's you

020got the doctor in front of your name so I know you got it. I appreciate the question. Um, one, when um, to your second question, when we're speaking about growth over time, we're looking at how much, for example, did third graders grow in 2022 to 2023 versus how did third graders grow in 23 24 versus how they grew in 2425. That that's what we mean over time. But this is midyear growth. So we're looking at the growth that's happened toward during the first half of the school year and we know um from data that if students meet their mid-year growth they typically will meet their end of year growth target as well. Okay. Although we don't assess MAP at the end of the year we don't make that a requirement because students are taking the

021statewide testing. We don't want to overassess students. when you um speak about um is this the only measure or what can we look at in between I would point to our adopted curriculum which comes with end of unitit assessments and tasks and so as a teacher if I just taught unit two in math and I just gave the unit two assessment after let's say a two and a half week period maybe that unit lasted two and a half weeks I then can use that information and should use that information along with the exit tickets, any other observational data, homework, classwork that I've seen from my students to make adjustments in real time. And is this something is this something that's being done um anecdotally across all of our schools where all teachers are doing what

022you just said so that we can each teacher every teacher in our district can measure prior to um prior to the MAP data because the other thing that I'm concerned about is how does the MAP data um inform instruction like what if they're if the MAPS test is testing on something that they haven't actually been studying the last eight weeks. Sure. That's a great question and what I would say is the assessment that should inform instruction is the assessment that's closest to instruction which would be the curriculum based assessments. Math can tell you you're on track, you're off track, here's a generalized area where you might have strength. It might be in algebraic concepts in geometry and math, for example, instead of num number operations. And here's maybe I'm weaker in number operations, but the

023curriculum based assessments and the teachers observation of students each and every day should inform those in between teacher moves on a daily basis. And I know Chief Howard will kick me if I say something wrong. No, it's it's fine. I think everybody should be kicking everybody if we're saying something wrong. Um because I guess what I'm trying to get to and what I'm trying to understand is if we've got these systems in place and we've we've been doing these systems well and everyone understand the understands these systems and all this stuff is set out and we've all got it then why is our data look the way it's looked for the last 20 years like nothing has changed and so I'm trying to understand why aren't we or at what point do we start doing

024something different something new to getting to be proactive versus being reactive because I feel like we're reacting to the fact that our kids are behind. And I want to do these these front assessments or these mark these marks. We should be checking like once a quarter so that we can see exactly where they're at. Sending stuff home so that everybody knows where we're at instead of waiting to the end of the, you know, if we're looking at May and saying, "Uh, yeah, they're behind." I think we failed the students and I'm trying to figure out how do we get in front of it. So that's where my questions are going because I want I want to lead the the conversation around this is where my kids are at versus responding to the conversation around this

025is where your kids are at. Sure. I'm going to go back to this slide for just a second. Okay. Um, as you know, we have curricular adoptions that we've provided to teachers along with professional learning. And um, as we have shared previously, um, we know we're not to 100% adoption yet as this first um, bar on the far left shows. And so I what I would offer is that there's putting materials in front of students. There is following the curriculum and then there's bringing the curriculum to life. And I like to think about it, the analogy I like to use as a cooking analogy. The first time I use a recipe, I've carefully measured everything. It's all around the kitchen. I'm looking at the recipe every two, three seconds to make sure I'm adding the

026right things in the right order. That may happen the first five, six, 10 times I make that recipe until I make it my own. I have everything memorized. I know all the moves to make. Curriculum adoption is the same in my opinion for educators because it can potentially be a different recipe than the recipe they were used to using when they were making all of their own materials. And so what our efforts have been is to try to strengthen educators adoption of the materials and use of the materials through ongoing professional learning and PLC support. I appreciate the questions for every I I have a question. Um are teachers um connecting with parents on a regular basis as to where their students are? I think that's something that you're really trying to get at as

027a parent myself here at PPS. Uh after the fall administration at fall conferences, we get data saying where our students are on the MAP test. we can see what their end of year growth is expected to be, where they're strong in skills, and where they might be lagging. And then um after that November date, we then look again at January, look at the reports that I'm very similar, and teachers communicate how students are doing along the way. What does that communication look like? As a parent, I get like a letter home and it shows your own individual students growth over time. also where they are currently um for that for the winter assessment based upon their goal. The same goes for I Ready at mid year uh which is our a different math assessment and

028so we can see where students are progressing within math and where they might be lagging in skills what might they might need to have at home to kind of catch up or what teachers are doing in the classroom. So it's a letter that goes out to the to our families that says this is the information about your kids at fall conferences. It's like a conversation. So they will share with you the conferences. Mhm. Okay. So, I think we need to probably discuss that at a different time then because the conferences how do I'm I'm thinking about oftentimes families are working and they're not able to come to all the conferences and so they they'll in turn send a representative. I mean, I've actually gone and sat in on some of the conferences with with some

029of the ones and then you have to come back and share it. I'm trying to figure out um as we're communicating with our families um for those families that may need a little more support outside of the letter um how are we intentionally and and it's a lot to ask but it's I feel like it's the work of us of of what we need to be doing especially for kids that are uh further behind or kids that aren't getting where they what they need to make sure that we've done everything within our power our power to make sure that the families understand um where their kids are actually at, not just you you've got a good kid. They know that already. I want you to know that your kid can't read. That's what I want

030you to know. So, how are we um I think we need to do some work on on how we make sure that they understand the brevity of that that what you're learning here may not me ne necessarily match up to the state test and those two things can be different you know and and so I don't think they know a lot of families don't understand the difference on that that I've talked to director thank you I have a few questions Um, one is just a followup because I also have kids at Portland public schools and I actually don't think I have gotten any letters in the mail. So, if that should be maybe something the district takes on or I now just feel like I threw my amazing school under the bus and their administrators

031for not getting those out to us. But if maybe we could just make sure everyone knows they're supposed to because I'm sure there's just a misunderstanding. I think there also has been a shift to move things online through parent view. Yes. to save paper and so there might might have been a lag there from the school. I have a first grader who has no test data at all. But then when I asked her teacher, she printed it out for me recently. So just for what it's worth, there might be different things happening. Um so you'll get them now though. We I'm going to get them now. Um I just asked because I've been like I don't know. I've just been like wondering how is my first grader doing? Um I I haven't known. I mean

032her she's a really good student but like how's she doing on her tests, you know? Just curious. Um yeah. Um so anyway um I have a couple of questions. Um so first of all I am curious about um the MAP assessment and how it is used not just for interventions but how it's used generally speaking to inform like whole class instruction. if it does inform whole class instruction after the MAP testing or if it's just that kids are falling behind and then we have that like I'm just going to say band-aid for lack of a better term approach that you all talked through but like what kind of happens to the rank and file whole group as a result of maps data. Um, so schools have what they call PLC's where they're able to work

033with instructional coaches to unpack lessons. If they see maybe there's a lagging skill across the board, they can work with their coach to figure out how best to either retach or work through that lagging skill. Um, so that'd be like a whole class tier we call tier one set of instruction. Um, the tier two and three talk about which is like individual student needs would be in the wind blocks, but it's the data is all helpful and so it's just kind of like sitting down and processing through it. Um, sometimes schools have data days where they might just dive into the data for like a half day with their school teams either grade level partners or you know K12 just to kind of like talk through what they're currently doing, what's working class to class

034or if there's discrepancy between the different classes in the grade level, how best to work together to resolve those things. Um, so it's a lot of just planning and depends upon I guess what the data would show within your classroom or grade level. My other question has to do with what I heard about the assessments that are happening with the embedded curriculum, but then there's also maps on top of it. And I'm curious why we need to have both um and how we utilize that data from directly from the curriculum um in addition to the maps data and how they like interact. Sure. So, sure. Thank you for the qu thank you for the question. Um we do have curriculum based assessments. Um not all teachers are using the curriculum and what Matt provides us

035is a way to look across the entire grade level at all of the students to understand how they're performing. Um we have been in conversations with our teachers association about assessment and are always working to have the smallest assessment blueprint that we um can have and we have a very small assessment blueprint. We also are um developing we have developed a pre-k to 12 balanced assessment system which consists of all the things and teach all the formative things that teachers do the curriculum based assessment an assessment like map and then all the way at the end the OSAS assessment which doesn't provide us useful information doesn't come back in a timely enough time to make adjustments right and so what we have been stressing is that we need to really focus our student learning learning

036analysis on all the teacher moves and on the curriculum based assessments so that adjustments can be made to instruction in real time and in time for us to make changes for students to help them be successful. And so I would love to get to a day where we were able to look at all the curriculum based assessments across the system and third grade and fourth grade etc. because then we wouldn't need an assessment like that necessarily. Great. Cool. Thanks. I think that's all for me. Thank you so much. Okay. I have a um couple Is that okay? Okay. Couple questions. Um well, one is actually just a comment. Um just from my science background, I get really nervous when there's no error bars. Uh I just want to point out that uh if you look

037at the participation rate for black students, it's around um almost 12 percentage points lower than say for example our white students. So what that means is that with a smaller sample size or less percentage and we don't know what the demographics of people who are opting out um there you know the error bar should be kind of it would it would be a fuzzy line right um this is not to say anything about that we need to obviously address our our highest needs students not commenting on just just a little data nitpicking there. Um my other question is just uh in general because you you mentioned working with our our teacher association. Um has there been could you I don't know if you can answer this now or maybe later. Um what are kind of

038the general changes in for example like PLC PLC requirement uh and flex time and PLC for teachers to collaborate with each other. It's one one of the one of the things that we hear a lot and also anecdotally from personal experience that the opportunity to work with each other especially with teachers that are having success with our students um is really valuable. I'm just kind of curious what are some of the changes that have happened in the last few years and and what are some potential changes coming down the line? I can speak to um the protocols that we provide at the district level and I think um Dr. Cardona can speak to the amount of time at each grade band. So, we um have protocols that folks can use that are in alignment with

039um unpacking a upcoming unit of instruction. So, when we're thinking about a curriculum based assessment, we're thinking about that being at the end of a unit, we're also thinking about a teacher teaching probably anywhere between four to six units of instruction across the entire year. So, that's four to six curriculum based assessments. So the first protocol we have for teachers to go through a planning protocol is really around unpacking that upcoming unit of instruction so they can deeply understand that unit including the assessment that they're going to give. Another protocol is called lesson unpacking where they're looking at the daily lessons and being able to deeply understand those. Again, prior to teaching something, prior to this presentation, we rehearsed it, we uh worked on it, we did our talking points, right? That's the same thing

040that we would expect teachers to do prior to teaching, right? We want them to practice. We want them to look at their upcoming lesson to deeply understand that. And we also want them to understand the formative assessment that's happening in that daily lesson. Um, and then we also have protocols around student learning analysis, which you heard tonight. That's when an an assessment happens either curriculum based or um for example MAP then we have a protocol that they can go through in their PLC um to be able to understand what the data shows and then make decisions based on that. So it's a process that they walk through. Um we also have something called lesson rehearsal where that they can practice the the the daily lesson as well. Speak to your second part of the question.

041The goal is to have teachers working together collaboratively in their grade level um even through these processes. Uh there are times where we might have singleton so they might have one person per grade level and they might do like a K12 or 345 um set of PLC's. In our middle school we've shifted to be a five of seven schedule. So there are additional blocks of time off where teachers might collaborate with subject area or grade level um depending upon which time that is. There are some admin directed times and also just some flexible times for their off periods, but the goal is to always have folks collaborating and learning from each other. Great. Thank you, Dr. Holland. I just have a a few questions. Um, so when we look at the reading data and the

042declines in the seventh, sixth, fifth and third grades um, based on the MAP assessment, you know, what do you attribute the decline to that too? Well, I can say one important data point is that our current third graders have not yet had fully science of reading aligned curriculum since kindergarten. Uh next year's third graders will be the first cohort. And so you can see that sort of up up the the the different grade bands. Um, and that's an important point to note as we're focused on really early literacy and thinking about alignment to the science of reading. Um, and that's that shows in our data. So to make sure I just understand, so you're saying the decline in the seventh, eighth, fifth grade is because they haven't had the science of reading. I'm I'm saying

043that might be one contributing factor especially at the third grade is that that we haven't had starting next year will be our first year of third graders who will have had kinder first second science of reading based curriculum before entering third grade. Right? So these shifts have happened and so that is that could be one of the reasons that we're seeing some discrepancies and some some some things going on in the data. How do you how do you come to those conclusions when you get the data? How are you assessing what is working, what's not working in different age groups? So, I think I think one of the things is is that's why we shared one of our strategies is really the teachers focusing on their individual data and going through a protocol that that

044allows some reflection that's driven by data to make decisions around intervention groups. So, as a result of this data and and Dr. Dr. Kadona could speak more at the school level, but as a result of this data, folks will change intervention groups. Um, students will receive may maybe be in the next cycle of high impact tutoring. Um, and so we're we're we're making decisions based on the data and same at the the middle school level as well. Did you want to add? Yeah. Uh so the work that I do currently with principles we look at the data in our teams or instructional walks and so we can see sometimes like strengths overall like where the school stands where each individual grade level stands. We can also see if there are maybe areas of low growth

045and go into those classrooms maybe ask questions. Uh there are times where it might be a new a new teacher to a new grade level for them. And so we've had people observing other classrooms, even other schools where something's going really strong, um, or partnering with OTL, which is our teaching and learning office, to go through and help support just implementation of the curriculum if it's something that's newer. Uh, it's nice to be able to be able to pinpoint even by teacher or grade level where maybe more support is needed if the growth isn't matching growth in the school. Um and if it's you know there's a lack of growth overall in the school trying to figure out what is causing that just by again observing looking at data asking questions and then supporting the

046school and it could be a wide range of things and each kind of department that we work in here in central office can help support um the school if there's an issue and how do you so when Dr. Adams had talked about not all teachers are teaching that curriculum. How do you still make those assessments if all our teachers are not teaching that curriculum? The bulk of teachers that I see are teaching the curriculum um in schools. I think it was like 80% was that first slide. And so, uh it's I support K8s and so in our K5s and K8s um I'm seeing curriculum implementation um in different classrooms that I observe in and if there's not then we just figure out what maybe the the root of the cause is. And again, it could

047be familiarity or using things they've used previously and just kind of addressing those root causes of maybe why there's not implementation currently. Sometimes it's unfamiliarity or trying something new. And so we try and support teachers to to go work through that. But maybe Dr. Adam was good. Yeah, I was just going to add that you can see up here the core action two and three which is around the questioning for core action two. The teacher questioning is the teacher moves and then the core action three is around the student discussion, student interaction, student deeply understanding the content. Those are areas of growth which is why we are able to do these sorts of walks to figure out what are next steps. So for example as if I walk into a school and I see this

048then we discuss as with a school team consisting of the principal the instructional coach other members of that team as well as a senior director of schools what are next steps for the next six to eight weeks that we're going to take as a school. What supports do you need? How do academics team and the schools team partner together to be able to support the school to to grow in these areas? Because you can you can see up here that those two areas are areas that we need we need to grow in. Um and those those are the teacher moves and the student moves to uplift. So when we're talking about implementing curriculum with integrity, meaning they're uh students are are uh mastering the content at high levels. Um students are engaging in the content

049deeply through discussion, through questioning, through different pieces. We still have some room to grow and that's what we're trying to work through with our instructional coaches. They're getting training based on the data. We have um our school walks where we're we're creating those six to eight week uh continuous improvement cycles and then monitoring those actions in a next walk. Um so each school is getting two to three walks with specific actions as a result of what we're seeing. Um when you do the walks, I mean I've been on one of those. Um I know you don't go to every classroom. So do the principles. um tell you like who might need to be looked at either for a really great job or you need help. Uh one of our goals this year in my cohort

050is to see every single math and reading classroom. And so it was, you know, figuring out when they teach at different blocks and then scheduling um walks around those. And so it's not necessarily seeing one particular teacher, it's trying to see everyone um and kind of understanding the schoolwide implementation where they are currently in schoolwide needs. and on the wind blocks. I mean, I know there's a huge range of kids and abilities and needs. So, when you're doing what I've seen anyway, usually it's divided into three groups and there's somebody helping each group. Do we really have the staff that can do that? I mean, how do teachers get people to support their win groups? It varies between different school buildings. And so there are times you might get pushin support from our ELD teachers

051who are language development teachers, my special educators push in as well. There are times we have educational assistants. Um, and so it it does vary, but I've also seen teachers who are managing that classroom by themselves and it could be small group instruction. It could be having some students doing their my path on I Ready, which is tailored to like their own levels in the curriculum. Um and so it's again varies by teacher and based upon either support or student needs but yes sometimes teachers do manage all of that alone and kind of figure out how best to do so. Kudos to them. Okay, the last question. Um, so giving some of the some of the um gaps with maps and the alignment with curriculum with teachers, some teachers using it, some teachers not. Would

052it would it be more beneficial to have a classroom assessment data versus the map data? You know, as I um thank you for the question, Director Holland. Um, as I mentioned earlier, if we had a way to examine those data across the grade levels, I would love to be able to do that. And it's one of the things we're going to be trying to work towards is having more insight into the end of unit assessments in the curriculum because those are the closest ones to what the educator and the teachers doing each and every day. But is that Well, I know we have a couple assessments like is it I ready? Like don't those measure classroom data as well? So don't we have that data already for I Ready? We have that in K5 math

053but not in any other subject or grade level. Go ahead. You were about to say something. I was just going to say that yeah, we're in um a lot of conversations right now on being able to figure out ways to aggregate the classroom based assessments up to be able to look at it at a district level. Um and we're we're working with lots of different folks and in groups to have those conversations. How far are we out from being able to get that done? Our hope is that we can do some some version of that for next year. That's all good. Thank you. And appreciation as far as the improvement that we are making. So I want to make sure I put that out there as well. Thank you doctors Adam Howard and Cordona. Doctors

054is plural not medical so don't get sick. No sorry mic is on. All right. Um board members, as part of our legal requirement, um we also serve as the budget committee. Um so I want you to know right now we are now convening the board right now is convening as the budget committee. The purpose of this initial budget committee meeting is to receive receive the superintendent's budget message and receive the budget document. The budget committee will not discuss or entertain public testimony on the proposed budget at this time. Tonight is the first time the superintendent is presenting us with a budget. And to clarify, we are simply receiving the budget budget message tonight. I know we are anxiously awaiting uh today's presentation of the 202526 proposed budget. Board members, I want to remind you that

055tonight is our chance to hear from super superintendent Armstrong about her budget proposal. uh and this is for the upcoming year and is the official kickoff of the budget process before the bud board adopts the budget in June. While tonight is our first full look at Dr. Armstrong's proposed budget, there are many opportunities both for the board uh both for board discussion and for public comment on the 202526 budget. Next week, we are holding a public hearing on Tuesday, April 29th from 6 to 8:00 p.m. at Grant High School. On May 6th, at our next board meeting, we have an agenda item and time set aside for questions and discussions. Uh May 19th, we will vote to approve the budget and then final adoption of the budget is on June 10th. We also will have

056time on the agenda during the May 6th board meeting to ask questions before we we are scheduled to approve the budget on May 19th. That is still three weeks from our final date to adopt the budget on June 10th. Dr. I have a question about that. So, are you saying that we're only having one meeting where we're having a discussion and questions or are we having a discussion and questions next week before the hearing? We have two meetings to discuss this. Which which ones are they? May 6th to May 19th. The 19th is the one we're actually approving it. You're saying before we're having one meeting before we're actually approving it. Yes. Today's budget proposal isformational. We are not making decisions on this tonight. I'll just say that for the record, it seems very inadequate

057for a$2 billion dollar budget to have one meeting before we had the meeting that we're approving it. Um, so I was under the impression that tonight we both received the budget and also have an opportunity to ask questions or submit questions submitted and also next week as well versus just having us hearing about the budget because otherwise literally we just have one meeting before we're approving the budget. Thank you. Noted. Um, you also are welcome to send in questions, email them in to Miss Powell. And u, I also think your community deserves more than just us submitting questions and having that done offline. All right. Um, Mr. Pretendant, would you like to get started? Absolutely. Thank you, Chair Wong, members of the board. I want to start off by um saying my my budget statement

058and my budget statement has not changed since January. I've been really clear with all those who have a vested interest in Portland. Our financial reality is serious and we must act with intention. We are in an alarming state. But even more than that, we are at an alignment moment. alignment with our values, our goals, and our responsibility to every student who walks through our doors. The 202526 budget sets our direction. So, I return to Portland Public Schools knowing the stakes in our city is are it's high and we are in our third straight year of a significant structural deficit where costs to run our schools exceed the revenue we receive. That gap is real and growing and we have been responding to this challenge since January. We're responding with a clear plan, a people centered,

059datadriven, equity rooted plan. The proposed budget protects the student experience and student achievement as our northstar. Every choice in this budget connects directly to our board goals. third grade reading, fifth grade math, eighth grade readiness, and high school graduation. It also fully aligns with our strategic plan, Forward Together, which prioritizes racial equity and social justice, inclusive and differentiated learning, professional excellence and support, and embracing change. Among our budget decisions were reductions, restructurings, and realignments. I want to be clear in the fact that we have laid off amazing people. If I could hold on to the brilliance, talent, and skill of employees that invested their time and talent with us, I absolutely would. So, what the numbers reveal, our total proposed budget, 2.04 billion, and that reflects the full cost of running our schools, every classroom,

060every cafeteria, and every counselor. That's a 15% decrease from last year and that's significant. Our general fund is 868 million. This is the core of our operating budget. We kept about a bill just over a billion flowing to our schools and programs and that was intentional. Our capital projects fund is 643 million. These dollars support our ongoing construction, repairs and modernization project. Our debt service is 272 million. We're investing 545 million directly into instruction. Support services are at 451 million. And these are functions that keep schools running like transportation, counseling, and safety. Facilities construction total 639 million. So our enrollment trends, we've seen a 10.8% 8% enrollment drop since 2019 2020 school year. This is one of our biggest financial challenges and it's happening not only in our city but in the state and across

061the nation. Our weighted enrollment is 52,324 students. That's what drives our state funding and accounts for students with higher needs. Despite the decline, 98.7% of our elementary classrooms are within target size. Our classroom sizes remain strong, averaging 23 to 24 students. So, we currently employ, as you know, more than 7,000 people. We have significantly reduced central office FTE and services, one of the largest to date to date with over 85 FTE reductions. This clearly signals our commitment to protect classrooms. Every employee group saw compensation increases this bienium and we respect and value our workforce. Our people are our greatest asset. Now, I want you to hear me clear on this. Without new revenue, we're preparing for another round of reductions in the 2627 school year that is estimated to be at least 30 million. There

062are no quick fixes in this work. Rebuilding trusts, reconnecting relationships, and ensuring that families feel welcome are all part of the process. So, this summer, we're launching a comprehensive enrollment campaign. Our chief of communications is spearheading a datadriven marketing and communications enrollment campaign. We're expanding our reach through a few key strategies. We're partnering with the city of Portland to lift our schools up, engage our principles, and remind people why Portland School matters, why public education matters, and why now is the time to stay or come back. The 2526 proposed budget is built with the assumption of continued funding through a renewed 1.83 billion capital bond which is scheduled for the May 2025 B ballot. This assumption allows the district to plan for facility needs while renewing the current tax rate. If voters decide to approve

063the bond, funding would support key priorities. modernization of Jefferson IDB Wells and Cleveland High School improvements to safety, technology, infrastructure, and ADA accessibility. Upgrade to curriculum, arts, and athletics. It would allow us to address some of those priority projects that are significantly impacting our schools in poor failing condition. So, we've done everything in our power to stretch the dollars we have. We've testified before legislators. We've mobilized community voices. We've aligned every eligible dollar to strategic outcomes, including 63 million in integrated grant funds. Our message is simple. Our students deserve more. Oregon cannot afford to underfund its future. So, what's ahead? is you'll hear through this presentation, you know, our state appropriation, general fund, uh, beginning balance. You'll hear funds connected to our projected property tax revenue. Just want you to know that we're doing our

064part to address the deficit next year. But sustainability demands more than grit. It demands partnership and long-term change. So, finally, I just want to say that we've sacrificed deeply and strategically. We've protected programs and services as best we could. And we're not done. We recognize that there's more work ahead and we commit to moving forward with clarity, with courage, and with community. So with that, I'd like to begin the presentation. And I have my team with me. Dr. Adams, chief equity and accountability, Michelle Morrison, chief financial officer, and Deborah Capori, chief of staff. So the agenda is to share on the planning process and the considerations in this proposed budget to share an overview of that proposed budget and to allow time for discussion. Next slide. So the planning process and consideration. So four actions

065that I really want you to hear me say. Um that's building on uh the strengths here in Portland. It's developing a shared vision. It's achieving that vision together. And it's about organizing and advocating for education funding. Lastly, just want to note that we're committed to transparency, collaboration, and engagement. You know, you've heard me say since January our $40 million shortfall and what we're actively addressing. There were four key strategies that we leaned into. communicate early and often, promote flexibility and stability, center student outcomes, and foster fiscal sustainability. With that, I'd like to turn it over to our chief financial officer. Thank you, Dr. Armstrong, and members of the board. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. We've been working for a while towards this presentation. So, uh, thank you for your time and attention. Uh,

066want to just start us off talking a little bit about the budget process. Most of you are very very familiar with this. Um down in the lower right hand corner of this slide, we uh talk about budget awareness and that's really once we implement a budget. So last fall we started looking at Quick question. Oh, I'm sorry. I just want to know how you would like for this to go. Would you like for us to wait until you're done with the presentation or if we have questions and midstream do we ask then? It's up to you. I think it'd be great if we can get to the end and then um have the opportunity to then open for the discussion part. I know that there was a question about that. Yeah. So after the presentation

067we can talk about the process is outlined. Uh we I also misspel we also have a work session after the hearing next week and that will be when we can um when we set a uh time to discuss. So that along with the May 6 meeting, we have two opportunities to discuss this as well. But I don't understand. It sounds like staff is willing to take questions and have discussion tonight. I don't I don't I don't know why we're just talking about process. It's a $2 billion budget and it seems like we we all got the presentation. I'm looking forward to getting it presented, but we should also utilize tonight to get sort of initial round of questions out there and have an initial discussion. Well, there was a slide said discussion. Yeah. After the

068fact get all the way down. Yes, please. Thank you. Nor the non-d doctors or or the non-docctor. Thank you. Um and we do have different slides throughout to kind of give you a sense of flow through the presentation. So um thank you for that. um budget awareness. We came together early last year um moving into the budget planning. Um that's about when I joined the district. So really getting caught up to speed on our current position and where we are in terms of outlook. A lot of the work had already been done in terms of getting priority um input from our um principles and folks that were really close to the work of the school. So um pleased to see that that started so soon. Uh and we are currently in our budget building um

069and we're proposing to you tonight. So that's great. And there's several touch points in between now and adoption. So uh once we conclude that process, we will move into our new fiscal year starting July 1st. All right. Okay. This is just a a slide to show folks that maybe aren't as familiar with the process. um kind of the the inputs and then the reaction uh plan that happens. On the right side of this slide, you can see yourselves, board of education. We also have been working all along with the community budget review committee. Um they've been getting similar information and we'll be providing a report back to you uh in a few days. We have the tax supervising and conservation commission also, which is a another element of accountability in our community. And then of

070course our students and PPS teams, community members and partners who have been giving us input all along as we move through this process. And on the left hand side of the slide, we are looking at the planners and the implementers. So we're coming to you with recommendations based on feedback and then uh through the superintendent uh the cabinet leaders and all of the functional teams and principles will be activated according to what's in this proposed document. Our planning for this year's proposed budget has been informed by data. We crafted a needs assessment that helped us identify PPS's relative strengths, growth areas, and areas of additional focus, and areas that are in need of attention. The data we analyzed include community engagement findings. As you know, um Dr. Armstrong has been out in the community meeting

071with principles, meeting with teachers, meeting with stakeholders. We examine our enrollment trends and our student demographic shifts. Uh we look at student achievement data and some examples of those data are provided on the slide. We also looked at program participation rates and workforce alignment data. Uh the budget team continues uh to work on their budget analyses and comparing our revenue versus our expenditures. We also uh analyzed and thought about every decision to make sure there were not disproportionate impacts to schools, especially schools that have high proportions of students that have been historically underserved. And we also looked at the results of our successful school survey, which measures school climate and culture. PPS prioritizes investments based on identified needs, centering on enhancing inclusive and joyful learning experiences that ensure that all students, especially our focal students,

072have access to the resources and supports they need to demonstrate excellence. These priorities align with our needs assessment and community feedback. They emphasize early literacy achievement. We want to strengthen preK to3 reading and writing instruction through high quality standards aligned materials, target interventions, and professional learning for educators to support literacy development, K through 12 academic success. We want to expand access to highquality instructional materials and strategies, meaningful professional learning for educators, and targeted intervention supports to accelerate learning for students struggling with grade level content. attendance and engagement. We want to increase attendance rates by fostering a sense of belonging and improving school climate, graduation, and post-secondary readiness. We want to strengthen instruction, equitable grading practices, career related programming that emphasizes realworld hands-on learning and providing and continue to provide credit recovery options. Safe and supportive

073schools. We want to expand access to behavioral, mental health, and wellness supports while implementing policies and practices to ensure a school environment free of discrimination, harassment, bullying, and retaliation. And finally, a culture of racial equity and care. Cultivating. We want to cultivate racial equity and care through meaningful engagement with students, families, comm and community l, excuse me, and community leaders and implement culturally responsive strategies across schools and departments. This plan is a critical component of our district's broader strategic efforts which are aligned with the PPS board goals. We will track and report on key indicators quarterly for internal review and annually for the board and community. Additionally, we will provide periodic updates specific to these investments as required by OD's integrated grant guidance. All right. Thank you, Dr. Adams. I'm going to move into a

074couple slides that may look quite familiar to folks who have been uh along this process. So, this is one that we introduced early on as we discussed the rising costs and everyone is familiar with the inflation that's happening in our local economies and that impacts our schools as well. Everything from fuel, transportation, utilities, supplies, um, and our rising costs for staff, of course, that's an impact as well, probably the largest to our budget. And our student needs continue. We have to rise and meet those needs. and sometimes that takes additional resources. Um, we do have limited revenue. Our state dollars continue to fall short of the cost to operate schools and we have less special revenue, especially as we're coming off some of the pandemic relief funds and our declining enrollment. Of course, that drives

075a lot of our funding. So our general fund uh for state school fund, we have our major state grants including the student investment account and measure 98 also known as high school success. And as our declines are happening faster than the rate of the state, those funds are being redistributed across the state. So this slide was shared back in January of 2024. So, not this January, but the prior January. And that's just, I think, a sneak peek at what was coming as we uh started this three-year even beyond a three-year reduction um approach to this budget. We have um just continued to decline and decline and decline as our uh expenditures outpace our revenues. And so we're what we're discovering is that we are in a structural um deficiency for our budget and that we

076need some major course correction in order to rightsize our operations. Just wanted to bring this back to the top for you guys. As um CFO Morrison mentioned, our enrollment continues to decline. We continue to see the largest decline at the elementary level specifically um in kindergarten and first grade and those that bubble of students is moving up through the school system as they metriculate from grade to grade. Um this enrollment decline is projected to continue into next school year. And at the same time, we continue to serve large numbers of historically underserved students. By that I mean our black students, our native students, our Latinx students, our students with disabilities, and our students for whom English is not their first language, or as we like to call them, our multilingual learners. This slide shows the

077enrollment decline comparison between PPS and the state of Oregon. As you can see, since the 2019 2020 school year, PPS's enrollment decline is almost 11% at 10.8% while the state's enrollment decline is 6.5%. When enrollment declines are not proportional, as Chief Morrison mentioned, our funding could be impacted. We are currently focused on an enrollment campaign being developed under the leadership of Chief Communications Officer Gross. um principles will play a key role in emphasizing and helping us restore PPS as a district of choice. Okay, this is my graph. So, we're going to talk about the proposed budget and this is a comparison of our current year budget compared to what we're projecting for next year. I think one of the key pieces to this slide is to recognize that our current year budget um was set

078at this time prior to the year starting and so some of the adjustments we've made across the course of the year. Those are what our impacts are being measured against as we move forward to 2025 26 and you may notice that as you're moving through our proposed budget document. So, the budget is uh we've said multiple times it's uh just over $2 billion. That is all funds and you can see the sizable um amount of that in capital projects fund and that is our gift from the community that allows us to continue investing in our schools. Um it is decreasing from prior year as some of those projects um close up. You can see that overall the general fund is our operating fund. I think we've touched on that already and you're well aware of

079that. That is where the majority of our obligations are for running our schools and our support. So everything that's required by the state of Oregon for us to provide to students should be covered by that budget amount. So, our special revenue fund, again, those are federal programs primarily, uh, also includes nutrition services, um, anything that's really targeted or restricted through certain things, the student investment account grant, high school success, our CTE programs, everything included in integrated guidance. So those are we we do a terrific job leveraging them against our our board goals and the things we want to achieve but they are by source restricted. Our debt service fund those are funds that we collect specifically to pay back principal and interest on debt that we have issued in order to fund capital projects or

080our pension obligation bonds. We have our capital projects fund. I touched on that already. And then internal services fund. That's a set aside that we use for um internal liability insurance and um other things like that. So this graphic is right inside of your proposed budget document and it is uh colorful and terrific in a sense that it really shows the distribution of uh what I just shared in the bar chart. So we have our special revenue fund, our general fund. You can see the school program budget um and internal service funds. So similar information, just a different way of looking at it. This graph should look familiar to you. We brought it to you a couple weeks ago as part of the integrated guidance and it's just a representation of our state resources and

081our federal resources that are used uh specifically to support our students and our schools. All right, this is our general fund in a pie chart in uh by resource. So you can see that our property taxes that's the permanent tax rate and the gap tax uh combined there. We have our estate sources which are the school state school fund as appropriated by the legislature. Um, one of the things that I think is important to recognize here that the property taxes, the majority of the property taxes are combined with our state school fund grant and at the state level and then PPS has provided a per student allocation and that's a distribution of uh resources across the state. So that's just important. you can see um the amount of impact that the state school fund level

082will make for Portland public schools. Also on the screen in yellow is the local option. Um again another uh provision by the community to supplement our funding to support schools. I think that's good. Okay, moving on to the expenditure side of the PI. We have uh you can see this is by function and as you move through the proposed budget document, you will see that the expenditures are broken out by function which is by major category and also by object which is salaries, uh benefits, supplies, services. So you'll see the def definitions of those represented in your proposed budget document. Uh on the slide we can see the majority of our expenditures are direct instruction. The support services here though they also rep represent direct interactions with students including counseling services um and custodial staff

083maintenance. All of those folks that directly serve our schools are wrapped up in the support services. So you can see the smaller slices of the pie are things that we do to support enterprise and community service and our contingency which which is where our fund balance will live at the end of the year. All right. So, moving on a little bit about the 2025 bond because as you move through the capital projects area of the document, you're going to see that there are some funds budgeted for projects in the event that the bond passes and we'll be able to begin those right away because we're assuming the appropriation is happening. Um, and uh, conversely, if the bond does not pass, then we will not spend to that appropriation level because we will not have those

084resources available. The monitoring of the budget throughout the year is something that um department staff and the finance team take very seriously. The bond uh is up here for update and repair schools. You probably have this memorized board uh to improve safety and security, modernize high schools, and uh improve technology, educational materials, and update our athletics and performing arts facilities. And as I had mentioned, our cash flow is included in this proposed budget. All right, this is a slide about bridging the gap. So, as we have moved through multiple years of targeted reductions, we have taken on u a couple of risks as we've balanced this budget and felt fair to disclose that we are uh are maintaining a minimal general fund reserve. So the policy is between five and up to 10% ideally um

085and we are targeting 5% in this proposed budget. We are drawing from the PERS stabilization fund which was set aside specifically to offset significant PERS increases which we are going to experience next year. Uh we have implemented spending restrictions and are monitoring our spending more closely and that will include renegotiating current contracts. Um and we are have been very restrictive about our central office hiring really reviewing every position to see if work uh can be redistributed before hiring another person in that role. And again to shield schools from the impacts of these reductions. We have been we are willing to take these risks at this time. But I want to let you guys know that the budget is a plan and there's a lot of kind of large variables out there still today and if

086our situation changes the plan would also change and we would be bringing that back to you as well. We wanted to take a moment to just provide a highle overview of our approach to school staffing. There are detailed slides in the appendix of the presentation on some of the staffing shifts that we made for schools. While we did have staffing changes at all levels of school, we did not increase class size at any level of school. In the upper elementary grades, we are promoting blends. And at the middle and high school level, we have implemented minimum class sizes. Strategic school supports are now maintained, although some cases this is at a decreased level. Examples of that would be um our academic interventionists, for example. And then flexibility was added to allow principles to accommodate um

087their staffing to the needs of their school. So they do have some choices, not many, but they do have some choices and how they allocate their staff and what they can swap certain positions for. Um Dr. Armstrong mentioned this earlier. Um here's a visual representation of our projected elementary class sizes. Across the x axis are the size is the size of the class runs from seven students to 34 students and along the y ais is excuse me is the number of classrooms. Each grade level histogram of class size is a different color. Um, and at this time 98.7% of elementary classrooms, that's 738 of 748 classrooms are projected to be, excuse me, below the class size target. And our projected elementary average class size is 23.4 students. I'm going to speak here a little bit

088about our central office um reductions. We are in the mode of prioritizing, streamlining and systemwide accountability. So I shared with you a little bit earlier that we have been as our staff change as they attrition occurs, we've really been evaluating positions, any position that's not directly student facing in order to determine whether or not that position needs to be filled. We have um central office personnel and non-personnel budget. So again, those will be services and supplies and travel um in order to uh tighten up and focus more of our resources towards schools. Um our personnel reductions impact multiple employee groups and functions within the district. And so you're going to see probably some modification of information that comes out to you based on the staff that are available to bring it to you. We have

089a leadership restructure um that we will be uh talking more about I think in the future. We are anticipating improved efficiency and cost savings and again our non-personnel reductions are focused um in our contract services uh professional development travel. So this slide shows an iteration early earlier iterations of our reductions and the proportionality of central office versus schools and specialized programs. I think one of the thing to note here and we didn't represent it graphically but central office as a percentage of our budget is much smaller than the school and programwide budget. So just note that these impacts are extremely significant. Our initial recommendation had 30% of our target um from the central office and the 70% was from the schools and we did several listening sessions and collected lots of feedback and decided that

090we would be able to shift more central office reductions um and fewer impacts to schools with our again our total target of $40 million. So this is the most recent iteration of this slide. Again, because our budget is a guide and it's continuing to move and um evolve, we're starting to think more about um the future and the impact to our 2627 year. I know that Dr. Armstrong already mentioned that we are estimating a a minimum impact of $32 million in the second year of the biania based on the information we know today. Can you say can you say that one more time? What was that number again? Uh a minimum of $32 million. And so with that in mind, as we're moving through the reductions that were um recently announced, we identified some additional

091positions at the central office and uh it increased our reduction for 2526 to 43 million um in an effort to increase that fund balance beginning for the following year, kind of smoothing out some of those impacts. And so I think that you should expect to see us continue to work towards um a smoothing so that we can um kind of stabilize the system a little bit instead of having major spots of reductions. This is a rather busy slide, but I wanted to bring it to you to illustrate our um what would happen if we didn't take action as a district. We've had multiple school finance officials look at this with me and we have determined that if no action is taken, we're going to continue on that trajectory of outspending our resources significantly. And so

092I know as we move towards um adoption of this budget and even navigate the following year, we're going to have to keep this in mind in order to maintain that uh 5% fund balance. uh we're going to have to make some significant system changes. So, as we um with along with Superintendent Armstrong present this budget, we do so with uh a significant level of uncertainty. Um we know that um we anticipate some changes in funding from the federal government. Um and as such, we have reduced our title programs by 25% due to that uncertainty. We saw some federal programs um an example being around school-based mental health um was expanded based on a prior agreement. However, based on the rising costs, we weren't able to hire more people in that area because the increased cost

093did not uh keep pace with the cost of um employing people. And in some cases, we have some sun setting grants and programs that then cause reductions because we couldn't transfer those programs over to the general fund because we simply did not have those dollars. Thank you. This was uh information that Chair Wong shared earlier in terms of our next steps and opportunities to share information about our 2526 budget coming up. So um you can see that we move towards adoption on June 10th uh which is the same day as the TSC hearing. And we know we have some uh the legislative dates that are coming up. Uh right now we are looking for forward to the May revenue forecast which at that point usually what happens is that's when the budget bills start passing.

094So we still have time to do a big push before that comes out and then the legislative session is um has to adjourn by the 28th um but can adjourn sooner June 28th. I would be remiss. I know you've seen this slide a million times and you know that if you click on that state advocacy toolkit, it takes you to our website where we have our state advocacy toolkit, but we must talk about it again because we still need our legislative support. We need um we we can't do this uh alone. You've seen what the seriousness of the cuts. You've seen that we have a structural deficit that isn't going to go away without increased funding. And we need um not just us in this room, but all our parents and community members out there

095as well helping us take the message to Salem that we need their support. We're not going to get through this just by making cuts. We need additional funding to carry out the goals that our superintendent and you all have outlined for our district. So as we prepare for questions and discussion, I just wanted to lift up five key points uh to summarize uh what was shared with you. Uh first is that we know that there'll be a gap um a budget gap in the 2026 27 school year. I know some school systems make reductions every two years based on the bienium because our structural deficit has been so significant. Portland has traditionally moved on a year-to-year basis. And so if you were to look at for the total bienium, right, we would be looking at

096a 70 million reduction over a two-year period. That isn't traditionally the way in which the school district has reduced. And so we're in this yeartoyear. And so to lift up my second point was that when we think of a bienium, right, if we were to reduce by $500,000 this year over two years in ongoing expense, that would be a $1 million savings, right? So if we choose not to make that $500,000 reduction this year, that means next year it's a $1 million reduction. So I just want to make sure that I lift that up. Um, the third is that we're focused on our our board goals. Um, the third is that I know that over the course of the next several weeks, uh, there may be discussion on adbacks or reconsiderations and I just hope

097that you hold one phrase, which is if not that, then what? Um, because that's the state that we're in right now. Um and so the fifth one is really just to recognize and understand that as I mentioned before 85.5 FTE reduced at the central office level over 200 FTE reduced in our schools and so the magnitude of those reductions on staff those directly impacted and those who support them are significant and we have a lot of people in Portland public schools um caring ing a lot of sorrow and disappointment in where we are fiscally. And I just wanted to make sure I emphasize that and acknowledge those who will not be with us next year. Um, but appreciate the work that they've done to to make our school district better. With that, I'll turn it

098over for questions and discussion. Chair. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Um, sorry, I misspoke earlier. Um I got some conflicting messages and crossed myself over a little bit. Um but yes, we it looks like staff is ready to take questions and discussion. So um I do ask that for the sake of time um to also oh sorry s fairness uh to make sure that we give time for each other to so everyone has a fair shot equal time to ask questions. Before we launch in can you tell us how much time we have total for this discussion? Okay. Well, director Brim Edwards gets double because she didn't ask any map questions. So, um, we had originally scheduled an hour for this segment. Uh, we are now at 45 minutes. I'm willing to go a little bit

099more than that. Um, but I also want to keep in mind that two things. One, if there are questions that staff may have to come back to you, uh, they can come back to you. We do have a we and then second number two we will we are planning on having a work session after our hearing next week. Um just to keep in mind uh we received the budget which is over 600 pages and uh on Friday and I don't know about you but I was busy all weekend. I didn't have a chance to read yeah and it's holiday weekend. So um I'm on page I don't want to admit. Um, so yeah, so keep in mind we we do have two, three other opportunities to ask questions. So if they can't answer tonight, feel

100free to save it for next week. Right. Who like to go first? Um, you mentioned having to make system changes. What do you mean by that? Thank you, Director Sullivan. I think that's to be determined. I think that that's the work ahead of us is to to see what level of system changes can be made as we move into the future. That's again the most supportive of our students. Okay. And um do we have any idea when we'll know about whether title programs will be funded? We are still on hold. It's a very unusual time for us to not know that. Um, I know that we are considering that and developing a a supplemental plan if those funds do become available. Uh, but I have not seen the details of that yet. Okay, that's my

101main two. So, thank you. Oh gosh, I got a whole lot of stuff to say. Um, Huh? on Patty's on. All right. So, I'm I have some comments I'm gonna say and then I have some questions. Um, first I want to make sure I comment on the state of emergency that we're in, not just in Portland, but statewide. And it hurts my heart that everyone don't share the same urgency of educating our kids um that that I feel that they should be doing. Um last last year a couple years ago when we was going through the strike, you know, we had representatives from the state kind of chastise us for um things that was happening during the strike and telling us to take the reigns of the situation. Um and I think it's being revealed

102now it's not just a Portland situation, this is a statewide situation. And since they hold the pocketbook for the state for the statewide education funding, I'm going to repeat that back to them. Take the reigns. Do what you need to be done to be able to make sure that our school districts have what they need in order to provide the level of um accountability that you guys are asking for. Um you know, I heard this accountability thing came out from the governor's office. Um, which I think is And you know, I think the fact that you're asking us to be accountable without giving us additional funds to be accountable for, not just additional funds, the funds that you say we need to have a quality education system. It's it's mindboggling to me. And then when

103you break down your the account accountability system, you're actually putting in money to do that. So you recognize the the state recognizes that additional monies is needed. So if you're recognizing additional money is needed, then why don't you just fund the quality education model that you guys say we need to have? Um it's it's hard to keep somebody accountable without giving them the tools they need to be accountable. And if that's the case, if accountability is so important to the governor and to the legislators, I say we need to we need to implement it now. We don't need to wait till you guys figure out how to do it for the districts. Step in now and help. If you guys can do a better job, please for the sake of our kids, step in now

104to do it. Don't wait to give us some arbitrary um metrics that we have to rate that we have to get to. We need help now. do it now. Do it next next year. We don't need to wait for you guys' help to help our kids. You know, I think it's a copout to say, "Well, we're not going to give you money because we need accountability. Do it now. Our kids needs help today. Our kids need help tomorrow. We don't need to wait for you guys to figure out how you guys want to support. Do it now." Um, so I'm going just say that and for whoever at the state legislators, I'm going to be speaking loudly for those that do not and keeping them accountable for those that do not try to fund us

105at the level that you guys said we need to fund. Right back at you. Take the reigns and make the right decision. It ain't just PPS. It's the whole state that needs help. And if you guys can't see it, I don't know how much blindly we can see this. Stevie Wonder can see the how the trouble we're in right now. How come you guys can't? Our kids needs help. Our kids need you guys to do your jobs and to figure out how to support our kids. Now, I'm going just say that um I have a lot of questions. I will probably just send those questions in um because I'm sure I'm going to have a lot more. Thank you. So, I'm just start with um thank you for the presentation superintendent and um staff question

106on slide 15 because I just want to make sure that I've Keep going. That's not the slide 15 I have. She just passed it is the one. Yeah, it's Yeah, this one. So, when I look at this, it's an all funds snapshot. If I look at the operating dollars, it's actually we're flatfunded this year. Is that am I reading that correctly? So between the general fund and the special revenue fund, it's flat flat funded essentially. Okay. So about $1.2 billion or one just over a billion dollars that. And so the 15% decrease is in the capital budget. Correct. That's I think all funds alto together right 15% all funds going down but it's because of the 38% decrease in the capital project budget which the way bonds work is we issue them then we spend

107them down. It's not a ever ever evergreen thing unless the voters pass it right. So, I I'm gonna start there and I'm going to be in a little bit different place than my my my good friend to my left. Um because I think we need to be thoughtful about how we present this because when I look at this initially, it was like, oh my god, 15 to 38% decrease, but that's in our capital budget and that's intended to go down over time. and our operating budget which funds like the day-to-day work of our schools is really flat essentially flat funded and we've had a decline in enrollment. So if we're flatfunded it's um and a decline the per capita um is not um have it's on a per capita maybe not going down. Yes. If

108you're if you're talking per student, correct? The the revenue side of the equation is actually going to be more per student based on the governor's recommended budget. Okay. But we're not facing a 15% cut in our operating side. No. Okay. Um and because we have less students, it's actually even though it's flat, it's actually uh more money over fewer same amount of money but fewer students. Yeah. In fact, I think it's slightly more at risk of totally alienating you, but I actually think I have something that would be helpful in comparison to this. Um, I was just looking up like the state budget increase for the governor's current service level budget. It's a 13% increase because of the cost of PERS salaries and cost of doing business. So, a flat budget would be like a

109cuts budget, right? I'm just wanted to make sure you know that comparison. Oh, I totally have. And but I also want to be it's I think this slide might lead people to a different conclusion because it's all put together um versus our operating you know generally what everybody's focusing on is our operating budget and we expect to spend down our our capital budget. Um so this is my 12th year budget with PPS. Um and we do need better funding for the state. I've been a longtime advocate um back when you and I had toddlers. Um but this will be one of those years in which we have probably more resources than we've ever had on a per capita basis in the last 20 25 years. Um so just just adding some context is that um

110we had a billion dollars or more a year added to schools from the student success act in 2019. We had we have a hundred million a year uh from our local option. We have ballot measure 98 or the high school success act. We're going to be voting on those grants later on tonight. um money we didn't have say 10 years ago. Um we have a construction excise tax, the art tax, and we also have the huge gift from our taxpayers, $1.2 billion in capital bonds, which allows us to pay for technology, textbooks, curriculum, things that we used to pay for out of our operating dollars. So, I just want to be clear, we we um we can use better funding, but we also have funding that we need to use use wisely. And I think

111um pay attention to like how do we how do we um work on the structural so that we don't have a structural debt because having stability is really is really important for for our schools and our community. Um and again I think it's important just to keep that in context. So yes costs are going up and we're we've also had some pretty significant increases. Um I am going to want to better understand um there's a slide that has the central office cuts that is um is it the 20 the 26? No. This the slide that talks about the contracts and professional professional development. Um, I'd like to have um the specifically what what it is we're cutting and what fund it's coming out of. Um, so we it's a fair amount of resources, but over

112the past 10 years, there's been an increase in the amount of contracting that's been done. Um, so I'd like to see what contracts are being proposed to be eliminated and also what professional development. Um, what was the third There's a third category uh travel um and the dollar amounts for each of those just to get a better sense. Um perhaps also just a onepage chart or to show us what on what page in the uh budget book the uh specific reductions of each of the categories of staff. So I looked at um Dr. Adams heat map and counted 156 teachers that are proposed to be um cut from from the schools. But it would be good to see a comp like comparatively by numbers what we're doing in the other categories. Um I'm gonna I

113have a series of questions I also will send about the size of the size of reserves the contingency. Um, and then in the 2020 the 2025 bond, assuming if the bond were to pass this year, I to specifically what projects are going to be would be rolling And since I assume that bonds are the bond there's bond spend in this budget that people can come and testify about the bond and the budget. I mean okay um again I'll have some additional questions but those those would be the ones that I would start with. I think we need a lot a lot more details. Is it in terms of what not only from an FTE standpoint but also services and importantly like so what does that what does that mean? What are we going to see

114less of next year? I also will be interested if there's any contracting out. I know LA last year um the print shop work was contracted out and I looked in the budget this year and it looks like it's twice the We spent twice as much this year than we did the year that we had an in-house print shop. Um, so I'll be curious whether any of these are proposing a uh contracting out of any of our um core services and then what our projection because when we agreed to the print shop it um when we voted for that it was to be there was be some sort of savings but it looks like it's 700,000 more than it was the year that we had an in-house um so that my questions and I'll send them

115all off and hope that we have a chance at a board meeting to talk about the other questions that um in the work session that questions that everybody else has as well so that we can benefit from each other's scouring of the two pages. I just have one real quick thing because you mentioned that we have more money than we have now which you know I get it but over the last 10 years you know we at over 20 some 22% inflation so even though you know we have more money now I mean just over time you're going to have more money because inflation happens so I I I want to make sure that people understand that yeah just like you know 10 years ago minimum wage was $7 and minimum wage jumped to 15

116That doesn't mean we have adequate amount of funding just because we have more money because I didn't say that. I said there's been sign the the local in 20 years the local option, the student success act, ballot measure 98, the construction excise tax, the art tax are all examples of things that were new revenue streams coming. Thank you both. Send it in. Great. Thanks. I'll turn on my mic. That'd be helpful. I just have a few things. Um I do just want to say that uh overall just as far as comments go, just ditto to what um Director Holland had to say about um the need for the state to invest more into our schools and into our students. I also just really quickly want to say that declining enrollment is such a fascinating issue.

117Um, as many of you know, we've had declining enrollment at my own kids's elementary school, so I've seen it firsthand and how it's worked. Um, and it's not like you lose 30 kids and they're all in one class. Although, oddly, we are losing a weird situation. We have a big fifth grade and we are losing a bunch of kids at once, but normally you lose a couple of kids from each grade level. And so, it's not like you can just like lay off a teacher at the school because you still have class sizes that are like 25, 26 kids that used to be 28 or 29 kids. So, it's not like easy to solve the problem. And I feel like people who aren't in schools or don't understand education or I think they might resent

118that I said that. So, let me rephrase. I think people who haven't spent time in schools see declining enrollment and just say you have fewer students. It's easy to solve. You just need fewer resources and you need to figure out how to deal with it. And I think that the state needs to recognize that if we do have declining enrollment, which we do, 6.5% statewide, I just heard tonight, that we need to figure out how to help create like an off-ramp so that it's not just like a drop, but like some sort of like measured approach to helping us adapt to a new normal or new situation. And I think that what we're trying to do is create that ramp over time for our own declining system. But it would be nice if the state

119funding offered something as well to help us make those changes and have them be less dramatic and severe. So I think that's that's my comment for now. Some things that I hope to hear at the end of this process or throughout this process. Um, one thing I'll just echo the idea that every question that you get, whether it's the ones you listen back to and write down from tonight, um, or ones that you get in email that you create like a single document that shared with the public and so we can benefit, but also so the public can benefit and know the questions that we passed and the answers. I'm super curious as you go um, if you're keeping track of like lessons that have been learned from this year's process so that next year

120we can implement those changes. I would just suggest kind of keeping it looks like you already keeping a running list, but keep that running list going. Um I'd be curious about how many of the cut positions are due to vacancies or retirements that were already happening anyway versus how many um are more um actual losses to services. I um can I just jump in on that? Sure because I I just I want to take that moment because I I heard that emphasized um earlier in the presentation, but like even the the vacancies or those who are retired um still feel a critical role and we still have to figure out what those mitigation plans are and transition that work somewhere else. And so I didn't want to lose that point that it's not like people

121leaving and their work just vanishes. Yes, that's a really good point. And I guess I should have handled the vacancies where the work's already not being done from the retirements, which is a different deal entirely. I totally agree. Um I heard just in my ear that there's more PERS changes coming. Um and I would just be curious to learn more about what we can expect there going forward. And then um I've just been thinking a lot about what we can do about those schools with higher class sizes. um you know, can we get volunteers to start kindergarten at the neighboring school? I don't know. So, I just encourage us to get creative about how we can help move kids around strategically potentially um by choice or something like that in the near term. I I'm

122going to use the word audit, but it's not really what I mean. And so help me come up with a better synonym, but I'm wondering about doing some sort of audit lowercase a for contracts, like looking in the future at the contracts we have and trying to figure out where we can make reductions next time around. Um, that's obviously too late for this year, but I'm I'm looking Oh, perfect. Wonderful. Love to hear it. I'd love to learn about the outcomes there. Um, and I think those are the questions that I wrote down. Um, lots more digging to come. I also think page 88 is where I uh saw the list of how many FTE are reduced by different um different 88. I know because Michelle told me earlier and it stuck in my brain

123because I had read to page 86 and the thing I was looking for was on page 88. So I have admitted to what page I have read in the big budget document this weekend. 86 is where I got. So, thank you everyone for listening and thank you all for all the work. Michelle, you just got here and had to put together that huge effort along with I'm sure a great and talented team underneath you. Amazing team. Thank you. Yeah, but it looks it's I'm really impressed. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Um before I go, I want to make sure uh student director Convi have questions or comments. Yeah, I also have lots of questions, but for the sake of time, I will only share two. And so, my first question is, what does

124the reductions look like for athletics and performing arts at the school-based level? Student director can save, we will add that to the list and get back to you with those and to everyone with those uh with that answer we don't have right in front of us. Great. And I was also wondering what are we doing to advocate for our local priorities stated in our advocacy agenda the board approved earlier this year. Well, we had an amazing su student day in Salem which was very impressive. Thank you for your work and for your fellow students. And we have um we have a government relations director uh Lisa Merik who spends a lot of time in Salem. We also have um uh a contract lobbyist that we hired this session to assist due to the large um

125workload with federal, state, and local. We didn't talk about local cuts um from our city and our county, but those are also potentially in the works. Um so we have about one and a half halftime person in Salem lobbying. Um but we do, as you can tell, that's not a lot and we have a lot on our plate. So, we really do rely on um our our advocates to be out there as well. We partner with statewide organizations like KOSA, uh the Superintendent Association, um OSBA, the school boards association, other education um groups, educational groups to help us get the message out uh about what these cuts would mean. But I really believe and know that having uh parents and kids, people with experience right now today, teachers, uh is a lot more effective than

126uh no offense, but hearing from me. Yeah. And I think my last question was more geared to our advocacy around like our local priorities we have stated because I know we have lots of engagement opportunities at the state level, but there's not a lot of um engagement opportunities at the local level. You mean for for uh this board for advocate people to advocate to this board about the budget process? Yeah. No, what I'm like meaning because I know like in the advocacy agenda we have like a state priorities and like a local priority section. I just haven't really seen that much advocacy at least for the community or sharing opportunities for like our local priorities. That's a great suggestion. Thank you. I know we have had some many alerts. We've had lots of people um

127both from the uh central office and uh families who have expressed their concerns to the Multma County Commission about potential cuts to school-based mental health professionals. Um we've done a lot of lobbying with our uh city council members about potential cuts to Sun Schools. Uh the same at at the county. Um the mayor is going to be doing his state of the city uh next week on uh Friday uh the second Friday May 2nd at Franklin High School and our superintendent will be uh welcoming him. Um I know that this the county commission uh chair Jessica Vega Peterson will be releasing her budget the county budget this Thursday. So there'll be more opportunities, but I take your um comment very seriously and we will uh with our advocacy efforts with our own communities, we will

128get the word out about what needs to be fought for at the local level. This conversation just reminded me um and hopefully I see a lot of uh news folks in the audience that hopefully they can also share about this too. Um there is an Oregon PTA and community and parents for public schools um parent and community member lobby day coming up next week on the 30th of April. We have over a hundred parents. We keep hoping to get parents from outside Portland, but honestly it's so many Portland parents because we just know that we are in such a such a position, such a tough position here in our city. Um and so we'll have a bunch of people down at the capital next week. I was up my uh 11 pm to 1:00 am

129work block last night was doing the training slides for a meeting tomorrow for folks that are coming to that. So um yeah, people should know about it and come and you can find more information on the Oregon PTA website. Thank you. Um yeah, I just have a comment, concern, and question. Um I'll be quick. I'll try to be quick. Um I just want to also just highlight kind of expanding on what do uh director Holland said too. The same amount of money is just not going as far. Uh just perfect example. So looking at the the dollar amount doesn't tell the whole story. Um the teachers levy that we passed last year. Thank you to every all the voters who voted for it. Um and your support. Um you used to pay for like 800

130teachers and I think now this last levy only paid for about 650 about. Um and so the same amount of money is just not going as far. Um my my concern and again this is not concerned with the work here. this just a general concern I would like to highlight because I mean as we get into these cuts, you know, it it it's getting worrisome and and one of the concerns I've shared before was that, you know, there's there's obviously going to be cuts that we're going to pay for down the line, right? Whether that makes operations more expensive or or deferred maintenance uh growing faster than we can handle. And so, um, I think it would be nice to to shed some light on some of these perhaps some of these cuts that are

131may have some long-term consequences that we do need to deal with, uh, at some point. Um, and then my last question is is um I know that it's kind of late for this legislative session, but kind of in the future um would like to have um kind of a list of kind of unfunded mandates um and also you know from from the state and also uh kind of laws, policies, uh regulations that may be causing inefficiencies as we're talking about efficiency in the future if if it's possible. Again, this doesn't have to happen soon, but um it would be nice to actually start problem solving with our legislators about what are some ways that we can reduce costs for our districts across the state, not just for us. Um in terms of uh finding ways

132that we can not just unfunded a manies, but but certain policies that are really causing a drag on our operations. Um but that's that's all I got. So, thank you. Thank you all for your time tonight. Um, I'm sorry I held you over a little bit, but I think it was worth it. Rugged. All right, on that sad note, let's move on to something uh happier. Um, at our April, we're now moving on to the uh Oregon Department of Education and integr integrated grant application. Uh at the April 8th board meeting, staff uh presented the integrated grant application for the 202527 school years. At that meeting, we had an opportunity to ask staff questions and there was opportunity for public comment. Tonight, we are going to vote on the integrated grant application which will be

133submitted to OD by the end of the month. Wall excuse me, you need to close the budget. Oh, yeah. Thank you. All right. Um, with that, the budget the board acting as the budget committee is now closed. We're now back to regular board business. That good enough. So, I'll reread this whole thing again. I'm just kidding. All right. Well, now moving on to the um Department of Educa Oregon Department of Education integranted integrated grant application. Um, Dr. Dr. Armstrong, before we move uh onto a vote, did you want to pro provide any comments? Yeah, just to thank the team and know that we're committed to um stay aligned to board goals. We'll have quarterly updates and we'll present annually as expected to the board and to the community. Thank you. All right, let's put this

134on the table. If uh do I have a motion and a second to adopt resolution 7098 Oregon Department of Education integrant grant application 2025 to 27 for school district number 1J mult county Oregon sec believe I heard director Brim Edwards moves and director Sullivan seconds. Is there any board discussion? I had a question. I'm curious. Um I was looking through the sort of the linking packet. There's a tribal consultation um form that wasn't filled out. Do we are we not required to fill that out? Yes. Good evening. Um we are actually required to fill it out and uh it was completed um this last week and it is now uploaded into the the document. Okay. So when it was originally uploaded and then when we had the um previous presentation on it, it hadn't been

135done yet. Correct. Okay. And which tribe did um we do have the consultation with? Confederate tribes of Cletes Indians. The Confederates. Um, I was reading about the because I didn't know that much about it. So, I read quite a bit about the Perkins grant, the Perkins needs assessment and found it pretty fascinating what they want to do. Um, and I was just curious, um, it there's a lot of CTE involved in that, which is expensive, and can we meet their suggestions, um, with our budget situation? So, yes, uh, Perkins is the federal component of our CTE program. And so the presentation that was held the same day that I presented the integrated grants application to you where they describe the CTE program was so it incorporated all of those funds and um so both our

136major 98 funds college college and career readiness funds and our Perkins funds. So we can that's part of the whole program. So it will make us able to do what um what they suggest. It adds so we meet the requirements of the Perkins program or the Perkins requirements. In addition to that, those funds add to um our overall CTE program. Okay, great. U Miss Braw, is there any public comment? No. All right. Well, with that, if we're ready, uh, the board will now vote on resolution 7098, Oregon Department of Education integrated grant application 2025 to 27 for school district number 1J, Multma County, Oregon. Uh, all in favor, please indicate by saying yes. Yes. All opposed. Abstensions. Student Representative Cani. Yes. All right. With that, the resolution 7098 is approved by a vote of six

137to zero with student representative Conavia unofficially voting yes. All right. Um, thank you for your time and answering the questions. All right. Our next item is a resolution to add a pay grade to the senior leadership salary schedule. Uh, Superintendent Armstrong, could you introduce us? Yeah, absolutely. I have slides being pulled up. So, I will wait for that. This is an item that I originally brought a month or so ago and there were questions from the board and so I wanted to it's the last slide. I wanted to go over some of those questions that were presented to address some of the items. So, next slide. So, just some background information. You've seen some of these slides. I just want to call out a couple of things. I think in January, you know, when we

138announced our $40 million um dollar deficit and our engagement process, I guess we didn't announce it, it had been known that there would be a $40 million reduction for the 2526 school year. And so, uh we initially set out with a preliminary list of reductions. And out of that 40 million, about 70% of those funds were from schools and specialized programs and the other 30% was from central office. After our robust engagement process, we were able to shift the way that that $40 million were um were reduced. And so 14% increase in central office reductions which of course resulted in a 14% decrease in schools and specialized programs. And so that was March. The next slide then shows you uh where we are as of April which um is an additional uh 3% increase in

139central services which means a decrease in uh 3% and this is not necessarily to the reductions by site again looking at that $40 million. So, we did an additional three million um as we learned about um continued reductions that would need to be made in the future. And so, I just wanted to lift that up. And then just to add that the 3 million in addition that we added all central office because we know that uh budgets were set in schools. We feel like um we did as much as we could do for the 2526 school year in schools and so we needed to bear that that burden in uh in our central office. Good question. That 3 million for 26 27 turns into six, right? Yes. Okay. Yeah. if we look at it in

140two years because they're on ongoing notet one-time dollars. Thank you. So, next slide. So, again, I shared these numbers, but I just wanted to break that out further. I talked about a reduction of 85.5 FTE, which is one of the largest reductions to central office known to date. So, it's about 71.5 um FTE positions. that's generally funded and then 14 FTE grant funded. The reason why I'm talking in FTE and not of people because we know that we had some vacancies. We have attrition uh retirement and whatnot and then um reductions to to staff that were notified last week. And next slide, just showing the distribution of um our total FTE across our spectrum. And and I want to note that the proposed salary schedule is um for the senior chief positions, which are two

141positions. I just wanted to be clear because I think uh maybe somehow it was communicated that it was like all leaders being put on a salary schedule. And then I do want to call out that um prior to uh 2526 upcoming school year, we've had general um counsel that was contracted out and we're bringing that inhouse as a chief legal counsel um that would be on this new uh salary schedule. So um and and still resulting in a cost savings. So our FTE this year for our leadership is a 82 FTE and then moving forward to 2526 school year will be at 75 and we're continuing to examine efficiencies across our system. So we have a massive reorg. I'm going to show you uh what that reorg looks like for for my direct reports. But

142going further, we had um over 80 changes either um team members getting new direct reports, direct reports shifting um in other places and also um some layoffs. So the next slide then shows what the orchart looks like with um the chiefs only. And so with that, I uh presented a uh resolution for adding a senior chief salary schedule. And essentially, I I've been explaining this to a few people. And so one of the best examples to use because I know that you know when we talk about like adding a salary schedule or even a new position that's a higher position could be alarming especially when thinking about our financial crisis and the deficit. And so the way that I explain it is it's like taking five managers and saying that I'm going to make out

143of these five managers, I'm going to make one manager a senior manager and reduce two positions. That will leave a team of three instead of five. And so that's essentially um the best way to simplify uh the strategy. more people carrying loads of work um for personnel that um no longer exist. So with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Borcher. All right, let's um get this on the table. Do I have a motion and a second to adopt resolution 7099? Motion. Director Green motions. Director Holland seconds. All right. Any board discussion? questions. So I have a question. Um so originally it was two positions but there's said there's going to be a third position in in that. I mean in theory there could be a other people could move into it because we're

144not approving positions moving into it. We're move the board is would be approving the salary schedule. Correct. Approving the salary schedule. Uh the third position is like I said moving from a contracted general legal counsel to a chief legal officer that's in-house in our our system that's designed to save us more money over time. And then my my other question um is I'm looking at the slide six which is the sort of most senior leaders and I'm not seeing any reductions in positions among the most senior leaders. No, there are no positions amongst the chiefs at this time. I mean, we did one thing to call out is our chief academic officer, Christina Howard, um moving to a senior chief of academics role. We're not backfilling the chief academic officer. So, essentially, she's taking on

145a role with um two or three more direct reports. And so that is what would result in that increase of of pay. But um yeah, essentially they're um the chiefs on this that are so the reductions are in FT below the most senior level. Yes. Primarily at the senior director level which is um reporting those report to the chiefs. And I assume part of the reason to or most of the reason to do this is it's going to be you're feeling it's a better way of reporting up right of sharing. Yeah. Well, there's there's two things that we hear from our folks in schools, right? Um the first one is the the feeling of work being siloed and all these entities of uh these systems that are not necessarily working in concert with one another.

146And so with the move of um doing a senior chief of academics, it brings in chief of schools and chief of student support services all under the academic umbrella. And so that's one key part. The other part of it is um Dr. uh Franco uh chief of operations would be responsible for um you know supporting not only the chief technology officer, the chief operating officer but also enrollment and transfer services as we look to continue that work. We have some some significant uh work in that area as well as athletics and safety and security. Before we had um our chief operating officer Dan with safety and security, with maintenance, with transportation, with school modernization, with real estate and construction, and we have um determined the weight of that and needing to make sure that we're

147aligning for efficiencies and um greater accountability and support to systems so that our response and customer service can be improved. And so that primarily right is um those efficiencies and supports to school. And then the second is the reality is that we need to continue to examine our um our services and our programs that we operate. I absolutely love the example that um director Bur Edwards gave about the print shop um being reduced in the prior year and then discovering this year that we're actually now spending more money um to perform a function that was performed in-house with our own personnel. And so we want to make sure that we are not only, you know, benefiting from our return on investment, but that we're being strategic in the programs and services. And and the only

148other thing that I'll say is that typically when you're in school systems, there are uh two modes of operation. It's centralized services and it's decentralized. Meaning centralized, it's all held here at the central level. and decentralized, meaning that we have local autonomy and flexibility happening in our schools. And we've also, that's the second thing, heard loud and clear from school sites that they want more flexibility and autonomy. And so, we are beginning that shift. Uh we're starting our conversations about um how we stabilize and and close the gap in the deficit. And so, we will be having conversations and continuing to reduce in size for years to come. Thank you. Um I just want to um thank you so much for hearing from me on this. I was one of the people that had some

149concerns going in and really um wanted to have this moment for the public to hear about your plans for um the central office going forward and for your senior leadership team. Um, one of the things that really resonated with me about our conversation is you talking to me about how this was your you're now the superintendent and this is how you want to organize your team um, in a way that works best for you and for your team. And I know it's simply put, but you inherited something from an interim superintendent that had been a shift from past practice, and now you're going back to something that's a little bit more similar in structure up at the top, but also making some of the changes we've heard from schools about there being kind of too

150many sort of middle manager positions between our senior positions and our schools. And so, um, I just want to thank you for hearing that from the schools and making that change. And while I've certainly seen some concern about adding um an additional a higher level to our salary schedule at a time when we're making layoffs and cuts, I know you know that and I and and it's still worth it for you because you know that this change is something that in the end will make for a better functioning district. And so I just wanted to make sure that um I wanted to thank you for for taking the time to um be in a place where we we're ready to share more details about the changes. Um, and just wanted to also make sure that

151folks hear loud and clear in case it hasn't been missed, if anybody missed it. Um, that this in the end is uh it's a cost savings measure. Um, so I just want to make sure that we once again get that on the record before I cast a vote in support. Thanks. Thank you. Uh I want to make sure the um people online are have the opportunity if you would like to ask questions or comment director to pass or uh student represent no I I don't have any questions. Represent. Yeah. I was just wondering which specific senior director positions would be reduced in the superintendent proposed uh leadership structure. Yeah, I don't have the list in front of me, but I can at least share um a couple. I may have to call on the the

152team to to help me out. Um I will say that one of the models that we've had before were um 10 um senior directors. It was a mix of senior directors and assistant soups who were supervising schools with um a different distribution of schools. We have changed that model to be at eight. Um and I I feel like um that is enough to be able to uh do the work that we need to do. We have um also we had a um a uh senior director in um another program who uh that position was not backfield um so who resigned and I don't I don't know off hand if all the other I mean I I I resist naming people directly but um I okay so so that and I can I can follow up

153later as I as I said before, um we while schools because of an HR timeline were able to begin notifying staff uh several weeks ago, many of our staff uh found out about their positions being reduced or no longer being filled um four or five days ago. And so I'm I'm just a little hesitant to go into detail, but I'm I'm happy to follow up in email as that news is still settling with some um Yeah. And then my next question is, will there be any additional confidential executive assistance or assistance to support your new positions that you proposed? No, actually um we made some reductions in um our administrative support. So when we had a vacancy or um knew that we were doing some more nesting, we found ways to um find additional supports

154amongst the administrative team. But we really wanted to keep our reductions at the highest level as possible um um from uh manager and not necessarily from our clerical or support staff as much as possible. And then my last question was, what's the total salary cost of your cabinet, your proposed cabinet? That's another great question. Do we we can get back to you on that one. I don't I don't know if we have that detail, but uh I I will get back with you. Great question. Great. Thank you. Um yeah, one of the um very kind of historical kind of reoccurring complaint a lot with with in PPS historically is that there has been a lot of frustration with the feeling that things are siloed and so having the structure and you explain it um and

155also through other things that you've said and shown um anything that attacks that that siloedness and and reduces that and increases responsiveness to our schools. uh you know which is where we're the goal is to provide the service in our schools um is is a good move. So I I appreciate that. I appreciate that and I really want that to be the key message like the restructuring was not only for the efficiency but also because of our structural deficit and I want you all to hear me say that we will continue to rightsize right as we have to rightsize in schools we also have to rightsize in our our central office and like I said going back to that decision point of what is it that we centralize and what functions do we decentralize out

156to schools and being really clear about that and resourcing appropriately. Some final comments. Um, so, um, I had I had a question, um, that I just thought about it that's not too late to ask. And that's, um, in terms of I like the idea of I appreciate your, um, superintendent, your explanation of um, how you're considering this systemic kind of shifts. I'm curious if you'd thought about uh, any the desiloing is excellent. I'm curious how that looks then for someone say as a principal in a school. And my second question would be about the um any unintended consequences that you've identified as a result of this reorganization. Yeah. Well, my my my hope, my plan, the goal is for our uh folks who are served out in our community, our buildings, our students and uh

157families and staff feel a a greater um sense of uh service and responsiveness. Um and they feel and know and have evidence that we are all on the same page and support of the work that's happening in buildings. Right? Everything that we do in this building is dedicated to improving student achievement achievement and improving the overall student experience and we want our families, our students and our staff to feel that out in buildings um and here as well. So that I would say first and then the second unintended consequences. I mean, it's it's always always scary and risky to reduce the amount of personnel that we've reduced at the central office level. Um, and even in buildings, right? Um, it's it's scary, it's risky, and it's the work that we have to do because of

158the time that we're in. Excellent. I want to um just give a a brief shout out to I uh posed a question to some facilities staff about a park that's being used as a dog park and the the waste that's left there. And I just want to let you know and anybody else that's watching that our facilities people responded very quickly. I was impressed um I believe within one day to a neighbor's uh concern. I appreciate that. So something's going well. We're we're working on it every day. We're not waiting until 2526. Thank you. Thank you, Director Bridman Edwards. Thank you. I had some questions last time as I felt was incomplete of what um was presented and I not going to support um this I don't this new pay salary schedule which is what

159we're um approving not specific individuals or structure. Um it's a range of 224 to 239,000. Um and I'm not going to support it because it's on an evening in which a budget is being proposed that um cuts hundreds of teachers and school staff from our schools. And I don't believe it's time the time to be adding a pay step to the top of this pay scale. Um, I'm concerned that it adds another administrative layer back in a year in which PPS has still continued to pay three deputy superintendent on contracts that previously were in those roles. Um, and I think we're still paying um still have one of them on contract. So, we still have um contracted people who are um who used to be at the highest level of the district. Um the last

160time this came up um some of the push back was um that this was not supporting the superintendent and um I understand the board's role and I the board's role in my 12 years I've never told a superintendent to hire or fire anyone or what their structure should be because that is the superintendent's role. It is the board's role to approve um pay and economic benefits. We approve the teachers uh pay scales um and their contracts. Same thing with our nutrition service workers and a janitor. So, this is just another um a different class, but um this is the board's role and I don't believe that the case has been made that um we should at at this time after hearing that the position the district's in financially to be adding a new pay scale

161at the top. Um, so I'm not going to be supporting it tonight, but I I certainly respect the superintendent's right to um organize uh the senior staff in a way that um she feels works best for her and um to hire the people who um she believes should be should been the leadership team which is but it's a separate issue from the board's role of approving a new layer a new top layer in the pay scale. Um I'm respectfully lower respectfully disagree with that. Um I think you know when we are hiring a CEO or we're hiring superintendent, right? I think it's our duty as a board to make sure that they have what they need. um when we talk about um making sure that you know when we bring someone on that they have

162the tools. Same thing we just talking about with accountability with the with the governor, right? you know, you we we can expect someone to do more with less and we know with the reductions that's been made and also the efficiencies that um and I don't know this is just out of my conversations um with the superintendent of having the senior the senior level um some of the um if you look through the even our budget books from 88 I think to like 91 there's a lot of things that's in the actual budget that um need some oversight. Um and when I look at those and some of them are several hundred thousand dollars to millions of dollars that you know had we have oversight of those could potentially be a savings to us. Um you

163know when we have one person that's holding all this these bags you know there's always going to be some leakage that comes out. Um, and so I think by streamlining and having some efficiencies with even adding another layer, I believe the savings that we're going to get from that will far exceed the salary of what we're what she's asking for. Um, and so from from that standpoint, and I've always and I've said this before, I think our senior leaders make a lot. I think I've said this before, I think they make too much. My wife got on me about that u when she was here. But I mean that's how I feel. But when when you actually look at know the the the streamlining and then some of the efficiencies that could happen um I

164think we actually stand to save you know here millions of dollars by having that additional oversight um versus the couple hundred thousand dollars that we're talking about. And I I do think the price is high for for M2, but when you also when I look at the potential savings, um I think this is well it's well worth it. So I'll be supporting it tonight. I just wanted to just clarify um the the deputy superintendent positions um aren't in this calendar year 2025. I know the previous interim superintendent made the decision to carry one deputy uh position into the 2526 um academic year and that position um ended in December. And I think what was referenced was the fact that uh we have a person who used to be a deputy superintendent still um providing services

165and support to our financial leadership team. Um, just to emphasize just because I I want to make sure our community knows and whoever's watching that we're as transparent as can be that um we just um had our final senior uh financial leader installed this month. And so uh for the first time in over three years, we have a fully hired financial leadership team and that is going to benefit us. And so we anticipate even still, you know, it's been a couple of months for our CFO that's been um here and now that she's on boarding her ne new team and learning the systems of Portland and getting this budget to a place where we can have this discussion has taken some extra resources and we don't anticipate um needing many of those resources come 2526

166school year. So I just wanted to make sure that there isn't like any like ghost positions out there. I I've actually I think I used the word contracting um because I'm very clear that former deputy superintendent Clare Herz um is not a deputy superintendent her previous position but is she is contracted and she actually is filling a role on the health and welfare trust and I've when her contract has come up I've repeatedly like raised the fact that we are car you know continue to carry that um and I I believe our staff they should have their their own wings But it we did carry also Mong into um this year and then um Dr. Proctor into the end of last into the end of last year. So we should be No, I appreciate that.

167I I do and and we appreciate the support that um Claire has provided to the financial leadership team that are all brand new to Portland. Thank you. Uh, Miss Brasha, do we have any public comment? No. All right. Uh, we'll now be voting on resolution 7099. Um, the resolution to add a pay grade to a senior leadership salary schedule. All in favor, please indicate by saying yes. Yes. All opposed. Uh, any abstensions? Uh, student director can save you. Yes. Okay. We need to Yeah, we need to do that. Right. Um, let's redo. Yeah, I heard you say yes. Uh, we had a mis vote. We're going to redo this. We need to do it. Do it again. All right. All in favor, please indicate by saying yes. Yes. Yes. All opposed. Student representing Canvi. Yes.

168All right. Resolution 7099 has passed with a vote of 6 to1 with student representative Kavi voting yes. Thank you. Um before we adjourn, I just want a couple announcements really quick. Uh next Tuesday on April 29th, the board will be holding a budget hearing uh which is time for public comment. This will be held at Grant High School at 6 PM. Uh the next regular uh meeting of the board will take place on May 6. Thank you all for staying late. Before you adjourn the meeting um we had an agenda item that became a written written report and when I talked to you this morning, you said you were going to make some comments about it and then we'd have an opportunity to make some comments. Okay. Um then I guess I'm going to since

169the meeting is still open just notice that I'm going to submit um some comments for the record because we passed a resolution in which we were supposed to have um a presentation and an opportunity for dis said in the resolution opportunity for discussion and Q&A about the bond. Um and over the weekend it got eliminated from the board um from the agenda and it became a written report and no discussion even though we passed a resolution that said on this April 22nd meeting we'd have that. We also had somebody um an individual from the native native community or the Indian parented community who was um told to come to this meeting and they'd have an opportunity to talk about the bond. They sent us all a note before the board meeting that um they had

170been um told to come to they come to the meeting. This would be their opportunity to talk about Indian NED being taken out of the bond. Um and it surprised to them that then there was the agenda item had gotten taken off. So I I think it's disappointing that it's unilaterally got taken off something that the board passed as part of a resolution. Um so I want to just submit some comments for the for the record. Thank you. I think there's some disagreement on the interpretation of the words but yeah you can read the the resolution it says that thank you this meeting is ajourned