2025-03-04 Board of Education's Regular Meeting

001right let's get started car are we ready to go okay situate myself I'm getting old I can't read that close sorry my mic is on darn it all right all right let's get started today uh this public regular meeting of the board of education for March 4 2025 is called to order all items being considered this evening are posted on the PPS website on the board of meetings tab uh this meeting is being streamed live on PPS TV services website and on Channel 28 will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district for replay times uh good evening welcome thank you for taking your time of your day to join us and caring about public schools um just a few housekeeping reminders before we start um we ask that everyone here please

002treat each other with respect um we're excited that you're here also if you have signs or banners just be aware of people behind you try to keep them at chin level so people behind you can see um do not block the aisleways um for safety reasons and yeah just in general be mindful of each other thank you all right to start off we'll begin with a resolution that recognizes March 3rd through 7th as classified and non-represented Employee Appreciation Week superintendent Armstrong would you like to introduce us yeah absolutely good evening I want to acknowledge and celebrate the dedicated employees who are often the unsung heroes of our school district our classified staff and non-represented employees their work is absolutely vital to the day-to-day success of our schools from the custodians who ensure our campuses are

003clean and safe to the bus drivers who safely transport our students to the nutrition service workers who keep stomachs full to the office staff who keep our operations running smoothly and every other staff employee um that fits within that group they all play a vital and pivotal role in creating an environment where students can Thrive so when I'm out in the schools and and walking through the buildings I see the sense the the sense of care and pride and dedication and so we have our chief of Human Resources Sharon Reese here to say a few words to introduce the resolution before you tonight thank you good evening School Board it's my favorite time of the year uh before the school board this evening is the resolution to recognize our classified and non-represented employ Appreciation Week

004um it's an honor to appear before you this this evening on this topic and celebrate the tremendous work of our classified and non-represented employees in Portland Public Schools it's no exaggeration to say that these dedicated individuals are the heroes the unsung heroes of our school community and it's important that we recognize the invaluable roles they play in shaping the educational experiences for our students um in addition to the resolution in the board books is our years of service Awards which recognizes employees at 5year service marks uh and we have employees all the way up to it's about 15 16 pages of employees who've reached those fiveyear service marks and we have a group of four employees who reached the 40-year service mark this year and I would like to read their uh names uh Alicia

005fcker director of it Enterprise applications in our information technology team 40 years of service Beverly Greg nutrition services lead at Vernon 40 years of service Bruce krausser Electronics technician in maintenance services 40 years of service and Mary Collins educational assistants in our PK early Learners program at Clarendon you do it give it [Applause] up H I'm a non-rep uh employee and a mom in the district and in both of those roles I'm witness to the extraordinary dedication our employees have to our students in our mission and I'm pleased to present this uh resolution to you today I uh also want to plug for you and for the school district uh that we have the torch Awards another opportunity to recognize our employees coming up our n nomination uh process is open uh from yesterday through

006uh the beginning of Spring Break and as you know we launched the torch award uh to honor excellence and recognize employees and their contributions contributions and service to the district uh so please take a look at that and spread the word about those nominations we will be celebrating those employees on Thursday March 22nd so on behalf of the entire Portland Public Schools Community I extend our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of our classified and non-represented employes always thank you for the work that you do every day you're not only essential uh but Irreplaceable and we are deeply appreciative of your unwavering commitment to our students and our schools thank you yes clap there's not enough Applause for this these employees thank you um I just just also want to take a moment to

007acknowledge um we have Cara Bradshaw here who is also celebrating uh 10 years with PPS we are incredibly fortunate to have you working here I am pretty sure that everything would have fallen apart years ago if you weren't here so uh thank you and I just also want to present this uh 10year lanyard for your 10 years of [Applause] service I think I asked for a big giant gold medallion but I don't think we could afford it um so yeah uh do I is there well let's let's get this on the the table first do I have a motion in a second to put resolution 7053 uh classified and nonre Appreciation Week 2025 so moved second director split moves and director to pass seconds any board discussion I just want to Echo all the great

008things um we know that these employees do throughout the district record I spend a lot of time in an elementary school in our in our district and you see every day the things that everybody from our school secretary to cafeteria workers our custodians I think our cafeteria workers are represented but anyway um so but just the work that everybody does it's not necessarily like the folks who get all the glory I guess if that makes sense so I just want to say thank you specifically to the ones that I know at my school but to everybody who does those same jobs at every school and here in the district office itself thanks just want to join in uh with the appreciation just looking through the list I think of how many students they've impacted in

009a positive way um both from the long tenure but also the five years um because we want to be uh an employer choice and um it's clear um we have employees who have dedicated and these are just the Milestone years so we have you know uh people who are between the 35 and 40 so other people who have really committed their home professional career to um serving our students and the school district um so it's humbling to read um and I um want to just thank uh Cara especially uh because um I'm sure in your role it's like 10 years but that's like dog that's not really dog years um sometimes I'm sure it seems like more than 10 years so thanks for everything you do to keep things moving uh for us and the

010board and the school district I'll just jump really quickly before we clap again and just recognize the lunch lady at mlc who was so amaz amazing Ella um who passed away a few years ago but um just thinking about all these teenagers running around a building and what she did for us um and also want to thank Cara especially too because you probably feel like oh my god I've been here 10 years there's nothing like making to make you feel old like being someplace rooted for 10 years so congratulations yeah on behalf of our students I just want to thank our amazing staff for their dedication to our students and families I know as students we don't thank you enough but on behalf of all of our students we really thank you and appreciate you

011all well said everyone all right the board will now vote on resolution 7053 resolution to recognized classified and non-represented Employee Appreciation Week March 4 to 7 2025 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no student represent cavi your vote a strong yes abstentions great resolution 7053 is approved by a vote of 6 to zero with student representing say be off unofficially voting yes thank you thank you um one thing I forgot about uh I just want to interrupt really quick in our agenda I this this was going to go in the opening uh and I just spaced it so I'm just going to say it right now um just really quick I I just want to kind of there's been a lot of questions about

012the types of meetings um and what the differences are between all of them and I just kind of want to just take five minutes I'm just going to kind of quickly review meetings and and kind of meeting procedure really quick um the three types of meetings that we work with regular meetings which is today and then we have executive sessions and then we also have work sessions um and just kind of General guidelines so that you know board members if you need a review or or public that is this most of these questions come from the public are a little confused um regular meetings are typically meanings that we make make decisions those are the types of things that we vote on things and and have debates about uh you know whether it's policy or

013resolutions that come up um or business items um the next classification of meetings is um uh work meetings and work meetings are typically we don't are typically not for decision making times the only thing the only decisions we make during work meeting are typically consent agendas or uh first readings of policies work session yeah the work session sorry yeah work session thank you um this is also a time where where uh the board gets a chance to kind of review data have discussions about um ongoings and and issues in the district also times to raise new ideas but typically is not uh meaning that we make decisions except for you know the consent uh last type of meeting that we typically have is a executive session executive sessions T tend to be sometimes sometimes will

014be private sometimes media's uh usually media is welcome but may not be report on it executive sessions are sessions that no decisions can can be made because Oregon Public Law we you know decisions have to be be made in public executive sessions are typically uh most often are situations where again no decision from the board is made but it is more of a what I call a um professional courtesy where the district may be making a decision and wants just lets the board know that you know these decisions are being made and they might lead to a decision that the Board needs to make like for example if it involves approving a contract later on um when we're talking about things uh you know the on um you know the the the tail end of

015this decision um so those are just kind of General um overview of the three types of meetings um I also want to kind of remind uh everyone as well about uh meeting procedure one of the things and I take very seriously my role as chair is to ensure that everyone on the board has an equal uh voice and say and ability to to voice and and feel heard um it is my job to facilitate the meetings accordingly so I just want to kind of excuse me um go over one of our board policies board policy 1.7.11 DB in under 9h it says in matters of parliamentary procedure not covered by these rules and regulations provisions of the Roberts Rules of Order newly Revis shall Prevail um the and I know that not every board member

016has been trained on Robert's Rules of Order but one that I would like to implement or reimplement actually is the proper word to use it is Robert's Rule as order um uh I'll just I I wrote it down so I'll just read it up straight up uh no no one is entitled to the floor you know quote no one is entitled to the floor a second time in debate on the same motion on the same day as long as any other member who has not spoken on the motion desires the floor and what that typically means is just basically um you shouldn't be expecting you know you're not you shouldn't speak out more than two times unless everyone has a chance to speak already in a debate and the reason for this is just to

017make make sure that everyone on the board has um feels like they have space and has the opportunity to to chime in with they need to instead of having to you know uh assert themselves again this is my job to make sure that everyone has an equal voice on this board so I will be uh enforcing that to the best of my ability all right next up now that that's said uh we are now moving to the a brief update on the 2025 General obligation Bond so as many of you seen on your seats we do have a so just kind of quick quick update um the school district has provided a onepage win pager and some people have seen this already uh just kind of goes over really quick we also have um The

018Campaign is also up and running also has a one pager uh if you like to see the the campaign website which is you know a separate entity to PPS it uh the website is yes PDX schools is it.com I should have prepared and done my homework yes uh yes PDX schools um um and uh currently right now we are um trying to get the endorsements of all our ptas in all of our schools um our goal is to get at least 90% of ptas to endorse this Bond uh we uh are again trying to remind board members if you can please talk to your ptas and your zones um to have them endorse uh one little quick update as as I found out the hard way a lot of ptas don't meet meet in March

019because of Spring Break um so one work around to this and what some schools have already done is that the pts boards can vote by email and that is a completely acceptable way to vote so if if they're contact their president and um ask them hey can you vote on endorsing the bond you can vote by email and typically they send an email to all their board members and they you know just vote by email and they can approve it uh let let someone on the campaign know or me if you don't know who's on the campaign or director brim Edwards and they will send the proper paperwork to the people um thank you we are very excited for the bond uh does anybody else have any updates they would like to add I'm gonna

020raise some issues when we have the actual contract um discussion late late later on tonight um some things I think that we need in order to have a successful uh Bond effort and um also um I would just say we're hoping also for 100% participation from the boards um to help us get this over the Finish Line um so I'm sending appreciation for the both to the board members and the staff who have already sort of financially helped out um and again I think we're off to somewhat of a slow start but happy that we've got a two-pager now go ahead thank you I just want to let folks know that I'll be holding weekly coffees to answer questions about the bond throughout the district this week Saturday from 2: to 3: I'll be at

021the Blue Kangaroo in cwood come on down and ask me your questions and I look forward to hearing from folks throughout the district um as I make my little tour my little thing I look forward to getting the endorsements from all of our student councils across PBS to have them help support our bond and one last announcement um if there's any questions the principles will also be receiving a toolkit too uh that has the information and and guidance about the Bond as well all right moving on next up we have the superintendent report would you superintendent Armstrong take it away excellent thank you and I believe uh we're gonna have Miss Bradshaw launch that and navigate for us all right well I will just jump right on into the fact that we are in March

022and we are in women's celebrating women's history next slide please thank you we are it's a time to recognize and honor the incredible women who have shaped our world our communities and our place here in Portland Public Schools from our staff to our teachers to our ad administrators we see you we celebrate we're excited and I just wanted to take a moment to recognize women's history next slide um celebrating as you already heard classified in non-rep Employee appreci Appreciation Week you know it's a really hard time right now as we know that um Staffing sheets were delivered to schools last week and the reality of our $40 million deficit is real in many of our spaces and you know it's it's pushing it pushed us through the budgeting process to um really think about um

023how we divvy out our resources and so you know not only do I just want to recognize classified and non uh rep Employee Appreciation week but I also just want to recognize that this is also a hard time in our schools and what many of our staff are are grappling with as we work our way through a budgeting season I'm also hopeful that there'll be some response at the state level as I was down in Salem um yesterday and had an opportunity to talk with an elected official and um not my first time down in Salem and lots of conversations with elected officials and even some moves for non um unfunded mandates raising the uh cap for special education um if those two things were true we would not be in a reduction um this

024year and so we just want to continue to encourage folks to Advocate um for all of our staff that we are potentially losing and um just wanted to to pause and say that uh the next thing lifting literacy so just a couple of updates on the literacy campaign you know we um definitely continue with literacy at the heart of what we do and so we know that um as we lift literacy we're lifting Student Success and voice and and choice and so there's a couple things I want to highlight if we work our way through the other slides Oregon Battle of the books um is well on its way so each PPS School crowns a winning team which advances to many regionals at McDaniel high school on March 15 um and so top teams from

025there will compete against other districts Statewide to determine winners at the elementary middle and high school level so we're excited about that and then the Chapman challenge as you see in those pictures up there staff issued a bold challenge to their students it's a reading competition against their own teachers and so for every 15 minutes a student reads they earn a swift it's a paper bird that gets added to the chimneys and the hallways and so if they reach the top before their teachers then they win a schoolwide camp out celebration and and it's complete with s'mores and stories and so every uh K through two student received a copy of just ask third through fifth graders received the Harlem charade and all students were given them the three questions um book to keep and

026to read so we're excited about that and then another thing that I just want to we talk about appreciating employees I just want to lift up all those folks that came together to help us pack up the van for our bookmobile we had many of our staff come together and do sorting and and um uh I would say sorting through the books that were either donated or um given to us by age and genre and so on the next slide um just excited to show uh the pictures of the bookmobile that was at omy um this past Sunday and it was a great celebration of literacy and book giveaway the books were free uh many of the kiddos were excited sorting through looking for their books and so uh we know that literacy work starts

027in our schools um starts at home starts in libraries starts in classrooms and so we were um very appreciative to lean into that the bookmobile will be making its way around the district through the month of March and then we end again at omy on April 5th I believe where we will have the van out again and celebrating families and giving away tickets to um access Amy and some other great things so super excited thank you for those of you that I saw there really appreciated that that director Hollands and director split appreciate you and then just moving on uh quickly just you already heard the update about the one pager I want to continue to lift up that uh the bond has um been referred and we have a ballot that's coming in May

028and we are really excited about the opportunity to rebuild and modernize our buildings with educational materials and technology and um just super hopeful to what this can bring to all of our Portland communities across the city and and lastly just a note in QR codes where you can follow us along on um all the projects that we have under way there are the QR codes for Facebook LinkedIn and Instagram and so we will also have these slides posted on our website and just um excited Together We rise thank you thank you student representing canavi right well good evening everyone before I share my student rep report I'd like to share a video just highlighting the amazing work our CTE students has been sharing and doing in their classrooms [Music] all right thank you and I

029just want to give you huge thanks to our CTE and AP and IV director for helping make this happen as we all know we are in a budget going to the next physical school year we will be having to make severe Cuts around Staffing around our programs for our students and around things like CTS which we truly see our students participating and truly you know I think we talked about this in earlier board meetings but we have an issue of attendance sometimes students are not feeling the need to come to school or there may be obstacles schools I believe programs like CTE are what gives our students the reasons to be at school and when our state's thinking about cutting funding from our schools this will truly impact them and our staff and our families

030yesterday myself The District student council and 30 high school students attended our day of action we have our annual one this is our third one and we had this is our record-breaking amount of over 30 students who were able to participate in advocacy for Educational Funding let's give it round Applause for that our students had a great time speaking with legislators legislative leadership just sharing their voices and also advocating for PBS's legislative priorities it was amazing seeing students advocate for not only themselves but for their peers because we believe providing quality education to each and every students should be a priority and it should be a priority for our governor and our legisl so today I publicly call on our governor our legislators and our legislative leadership to prioritize our students because or in the

031state of Oregon we are in an Educational Funding crisis and they are the only ones who can change this situation we are currently in [Applause] right and then my next thing is across the district I've been hearing concerns around lunchtime and the menu students are saying they don't have enough time to eat lunch lines are too long and we know when students are hungry they truly can't get work done so I look forward to working with the superintendent or the policy committee chair to find ways to how we can create solutions to these issues because I believe it's important we provide nourishing meal stores students that they truly enjoy and also we give students enough time to eat their food all right all right yeah and this Friday the District student council and myself are

032glad to announce our annual PPS students Summit which will be at Marshall campus where we'll have over 200 students attending workshops ranging from know your rights student safety Title 9 and CT and way more than that we'll also have an opportunity for our students to engage in a town hall with our board chair our vice chair and our new board member Christy split that way they're able to voice their concerns and perspectives and questions directly to our board members and for them to get some answers from that because over my course of time as student representative I've always heard if there's a disconnect with our board in the district I believe when we're creating spaces for our students to elevate their voices that's how we start closing that Division and really building a community and

033knowing that our district isn't just the superintendent board members but our district is our community and students so Together We rise and thank you [Applause] everyone well said let's bring recess back um all right next up we have public comments uh first up we'll start up with our student comments um Miss brha do we have oh before I say that thank you JJ that was awesome um do we have any students sign up we do we have Evan jenan right while you're making your way up I just want to kind of take this time to kind of go over some um guidelines for public comment uh we really value and thank you for taking their time out of your day to provide your comments or your input especially from our students really informs and improves

034our work uh we look forward to hearing your thoughts and reflection our Board office may follow up on board related issues raised during public testimony uh we request that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a Personnel matter uh for matter for materials that you would like the board receive handouts pictures Etc please do not come to the Das please hand them over to our board manager or Miss Bradshaw over there and she will distribute them to us if you have any additional materials or items you would like the to provide the board or superintendent we ask that you email them to public comment all one word at pps.net please make sure that when you begin your comment you clearly state your name and spell your last name you will have

035three minutes to speak you will hear sound after three minutes which means that you will have 30 seconds to wrap up your comment thank you you may begin when you're ready my name is Evan junman J N MN and I am currently a senior at Cleveland High School the co-president of the disabled and neurodivergence student union and a member of the design Advisory Group for Cleveland High School's modernization I am so happy to see continued progress towards a modernized school more importantly I'm glad to see design Advisory Group and community outreach sessions resume thank you director brim Edwards for attending the dag session last week it's great to see board members there now more than ever is the most important time to listen to community feedback as we decide where to save money on the

036design because in my experience in listening sessions and from statements made by the board and superintendent it seems that the PBS board is interested in reducing the cost of modernizing the REM remaining high schools which despite good progress made on this may still affect certain programs at these schools as a student in special education and with many friends in the Arts I am concerned that these facilities may be most affected by attempts to reduce the costs of the new schools as they are often the first to face Cuts in school budgeting I understand that cost saving is a key part of the design process and that measures have been and are already being taken but it's important that we make sure that we are giving students and Educators the building that they clearly need to

037support quality education for all students I want this board to prioritize Student Success over massive cost Savings in building design because that is the best way to improve outcomes and enrollment in the long run the voters soon to include myself want to vote Yes on nice new modernized high schools in May to see the fruits of all the labor and advocacy of our school communities the Arts which are so often affected most by cost savings are strong at Cleveland we have an amazing theater choir and band these programs deserve top quality facilities because if they can succeed right now in spite of hundred-year-old rooms we can only imagine what they will do with modern adequate facilities we need a school that not only meets edpc but also meets the unique needs of the Cleveland Community

038I also want to make it clear to the board that our building most certainly does need programs like a teen parent Center and Health Center these programs provide essential services to to students and ought to be included in the final design I'm excited to see a final design presented to the board rather soon and I want this board to keep in mind students needs and the unique programs and strengths of Cleveland when they make a final decision thank [Applause] you thanks Evan for continuing to show up even on school nights yes thank you also nice sweatshirt con Alum right here too sorry I was I wasn't referring to tonight I was referring to the um so I that wasn't uh slide I referring to the design Advisory Group meeting well I take back my compliment

039about the sweatshirt then all right uh next up we oh okay I'll read this slowly next up we have no just kidding um the general public comment and comments on the consent agenda because the consent agenda is the last item for consideration this evening I have asked those who are signed up to write comments on the consent agenda be allowed to provide their comments now uh Miss braa do we have anyone signed up for public comment we do second I away we have Dr Effie great house Asia Bel du boy Scott Bailey and Aaron Frasier just on the consent agenda uh no all we can we can call them all up or just yeah yeah let's call them all up all right um same guidelines as before apply uh just also a quick reminder about

040um if you're being for public comment make sure that you do not violate furo laws and any identifiable things of our students uh this includes testimonies using information that we anything that's identifiable especially in our school Community uh by use of direct or indirect linkage uh linkages such as school grade special education or other status um yeah so just a quick reminder about that um I say just go in the order that you were called thank you Dr FY great house g a t h u e thank you Dr Armstrong for working so quickly to reorient the district towards collaboration with the community on air quality in the past we've seen families and scientists bring air quality problems and solutions to the district or its contractors only to be met with silence or worse I

041do work off and on for Community groups in fenine communities around the country these are communities in Louisiana in the Bay Area Pennsylvania who live right next door to oil refineries most Communications from PPS on air quality issues uh in the past few years have been a mix of denial dismissiveness and misinformation that felt and sounded the same as the kinds of spin that oil companies use when they respond to fence line communities I am so heartened by the very different and positive experience this time Dr Armstrong in particular listened responded and took action uh to shift towards a more open and collaborative approach our group is going to reorient ourselves towards ongoing dialogue with the district to and that includes that we will continue uh public commenting on a more regular basis I also

042want to bring a specific problem and solution to this forum tonight last month this remind message went out to the entire District about how PPS manages winter illness there is nothing about air purifiers in this message uh it's all washing hands and cleaning surfaces this message shows that we have not learned the lessons of the pandemic in our district about how respiratory viruses spread through the air uh a lesson identifi by Dr Joseph Allen's keynote at the White House Summit on indoor air quality is that cleaning the air needs to be the first line of defense against respiratory illness we learned that flu is 50% Airborne so when a message like this is really only talking about preventing spread from surfaces we are leaving out uh the prevention of half of flu Transmissions we uh

043learned that we have a whole new way to get sick uh the new Corona virus in the mix does not spread through surfaces it spreads by us breathing in air full of infectious aerosols we learned from research in Italy that we can cut virus Transmission in schools by 82% when we clean classroom Air at a rate of six uh air changes an hour our group has specific suggestions for what to say about our air purifiers in these kinds of illness prevention messages I need to wrap up so I don't have time to list out our proposed edits uh but the proposed edits that I will share with the board and leadership are based on our members success at getting principles to request their second air purifiers and getting their teachers in their schools enthusiastic about

044running those air purifiers thank you yes thank you be fair um next up we have I believe Scott Bailey uh good evening I checked my email like five minutes ago and oh I'm on the docket I didn't know um so uh chair Wang director student director superintendent Armstrong um thank thanks for giving me three minutes yes okay as usual I'll cut to the chase about the bond um well a little bit of intro some of you know me some of you don't I've been working on stuff for 27 years uh served on the school board uh 2017 to 2021 and have been heavily involved with facilities um issues going back to 1998 I got on a committee and then they put me on another committee and another committee and another committee and Julia you're you

045were around for some of that almost all of it yeah um 2003 in your living room um so um in terms of facilities I uh espcially got involved with the 2012 Bond and organized uh with help from others of course uh a Citizens group that was meeting at the what you used to be the Lucky Lab in North Portland um to create a bond that would pass and that group really pushed the idea of doing high schools first as we modernized however things have changed since then and when I look at the proposed Bond uh for finishing the high schools what I see is that we would have high school capacity in this district for 177,000 students and we're projected to only have 11,000 high school students in 10 uh in 10 years that's a

046huge overbuild hundreds of millions overbuild when we also have what 50 plus elementary schools and middle schools that also desperately need um rebuilding uh and I'm encourage that uh Dr Armstrong has said she's going to look at school closures because that's where we're at and it's not just here it's globally birth rates have fallen drastically over the last decade or two that's Professor Bailey the teaching demographics and economics coming out so this isn't going to change anytime soon I don't know that we'll ever have 177,000 high school students or anything close to that um so I would ask you to I don't know where the bond is right now in terms of the ballot if it's already on the ballot it's on its way so is um if it gets on the ballot I will

047oppose it and I will fight it because I think it's a huge waste of money and would really uh it's also going to be 10 years or more according to staff where we would have no bond capacity no capacity to build other schools to rebuild other schools and you're going to have public reaction to having a bunch of half-filled high schools is that my time up or is that somebody's phone ringing that's the time okay yeah gentle yeah what happened to the old uh didn't we have like 30 volts wired into the yeah it it's in front of you but it's not operable right now ah there it is okay well I will stop there thank you for your consideration and uh there we go great thank you all right good even good evening everyone

048my name is Aaron Frasier and I'm the executive director of the center for black Excellence I'm gonna yield the first minute of my time to Yousef lry who's to my right thank you it's a pleasure to be here tonight I know that the time is kind of short for me so I'm going to try to speed through this but please bear with me and and I will ask to just listen to every word even though it will be fast because they are meaningful good evening members of the Portland Public School school board my name is Yousef ly and I am the President of the Oregon Association of black school Educators or simply put a rapsy I thank you for allowing me to speak today I stand before you to emphasize the critical importance of establishing

049a center for black student Excellence within our district this initiative is not just about creating space it's about fostering an environment that uplifts empowers and inspires our black students Educators and the broader Community a center for black student Excellence would serve as a dedicated hub for academic support cultural enrichment and the building of intergenerational relationships in a city where the degrees of separation are three instead of the usual five we have to understand how much connection matters and then when we take the historical context of our city into account we can first understand the need for a space where black minds are celebrated and appreciated moreover the success of this Center is deeply interconnected with our need to support black Educators as well in a time where representation matters it is imperative that we enhance

050our Recruitment and retainment efforts for our black Educators when black students see Educators who look like them it Fosters a sense of belonging understand and understanding black Educators bring in valuable perspectives and experiences that enrich learning environments for all they serve as Role Models mentors and Advocates that help to bridge the gap between the curriculum and the lived experience establishing a center for student a center for black student Excellence is not just a goal it is a necessity for creating Equitable educational Landscapes it is essential for the success of our black students and the overall health of our school Community I urge you to consider this vital initiative and the profound impact it will have on our students and Educators alike thank you thank you Yousef for speaking to the need for this Center for

051black Educators in addition to students and families as I mentioned at the outset my name is Aaron Frasier and I'm the executive director of the center for black Excellence as you all well know but others may not PPS is Center for black student Excellence was proposed in 2020 back when it was easy and perhaps even advantageous for the PPS board to support it but now every day it becomes clearer that for each step taken forward since the 2020 Bond passed we are at risk of being punted further back than where we were when this all began that is why tonight I here to commend the superintendent for the new life that her team has breathed into the cbsc and to ask this board to recommit to fulfilling its promise to open the center with the

052urgency necessary to meet the moment and we're not asking you to do this alone indeed it is with the same urgency that the CBE seeks to answer the question of what is going on here in Portland that despite our stated values which are more aligned with a Massachusetts a California or Maryland we somehow still have outcomes for black students that are on par with or worse than those in the states black people fled when they made the Oregon their home it is with urgency that the CBE is working with our partners to connect our children to 8,000 hours of out of school enrichment by eth grade and with which we are building possibilities labs to expose students to a wide range of careers early and often it is with urgency that we are working to

053make a parent through the success of black students a basic truth that is too often obscured by the data that we lament black people can learn we are good at it even when it endangered Our Lives we pursued it and in the face of obstacles certain powers now wish to literally make unspeakable we still produced innovators and inventors ground breaking Scholars activist artists philosopher athletes Visionary medical and legal minds and Century defining Statesmen so just imagine what our kids could do and be if we decided to pour everything that we have into them right here starting today imagine a future field with something better than what our current system produces because we integrated our belief that family and Community Partnerships are essential into our actual plans imagine the outcomes we would see if we were

054excited by rather than afraid of the fact that the cbsc will look different than what the district has historically done for the black children that it has historically underserved we can build a better world together Brick by Brick program by program and student by student at the cbsc and all we are calling on you to do is invest the money you already have collected from this community and that cannot be used for any other purpose than this one to embrace these truths and work towards that future rather than stying them through bureaucratic delay most important and lastly we are calling on you to to demonstrate through your actions and not just your words that you are braver and more principled than many of your contemporaries by re-embracing your commitments to educational Justice that were made

055in 2020 rather than backing away from them if do then together we can make this District a model for the state and for the nation thank you thank you all for your public comments um that was three right of four slots that we had we had another person but I don't see them they were supposed to be here virtually Okay so one slot from the wa wait list then we have time for one more Dr Hollins hello good evening everyone can you guys hear me okay yes are you giving public comment no but I asked I wna no I'm just kidding I got you um let me get but I wanted to actually asked Mr Bailey a question when he talked about the number of students proposed for based on the population versus the number

056of students that were there when he was his tenure during um his time on the school board I would wonder if he could share those numbers with the board and then I want want to ask the superintendent if looking at those numbers and the information he's brought um have that been included in the um thought process of the modernizations um that we're doing currently so um Scott before you give your reply I just want to for the sake of time and also to respect that maybe we have one more person off the wait list could you maybe give your answer and about one minute or less and then if you have more to add please email it to us uh that way director Holland's very good question I want to respect uh a chance to

057have your question answered um so whatever can be answered in a minute and I also think an email would also do it um much more Justice too so uh clarify make sure I understood your question how those projections have changed over the last five 10 years um so so PPS was a declining enrollment District 4 um until until the Great Recession um because young people would come to Portland meet couple up have a kid and then go uh I want a yard and move to Aloha or gram or somewhere outside of the city so we had a steady outflow um the Great Recession that reversed uh uh because of the housing market for about five years and we had increasing kindergarten and that's right when the planning for the 20202 uh 2012 Bond happened so

058at that time the projections were somewhat positive uh and about five or six years after that which would have been right when I came into office was when that started to flip and any kind of model that PSU runs it's going to wa is that is this just one or two year aberration or what and then it just became a steady Trend and we've seen that the latest projections I think the final projections are even going to be a bit lower than anticipated because kindergarten was uh lower than they projected I believe um so right around that time period And I spent a fair amount of my four years trying to get the district to link enrollment projections with modernization and I couldn't get staff to do it so I want to make a comment

059about this and I've said this before and I appreciate you coming here um I've been talking since we were on the board together about the housing units that are coming into the Jefferson catchment area and just uh last week I got a uh a newsletter saying that they the strong family uh corner of Alberta and Williams is building 75 units 54 of those family family size meaning they're three bedrooms and up Carter Commons 62 units also within the Jefferson catchment area uh Williams and Russell many of us in the audience went to the groundbreaking the other day 85 units plus 20 home ownership albino 1 is opening and so I I I believe that the fertility rate is flat or or going down um and I've also recently met with a demography uh from Portland

060State um and we we were told by the Portland State demographer that there were two areas in town that were experiencing growth of uh families that had teenagers high school and one was Franklin and the other cluster was Jefferson Jefferson's now just Building Family unit homes back after you know 40 Years of disinvestment so those units are coming and the people will follow and the families will follow and just from my quick math here it looks like we'll have 10 240 units coming on by this time next year so so just to counter that you know people are leaving Portland or whatever people will be coming back because these are considered affordable at you know 80% or less of the median income right so sorry can we are I know but could you email your

061reply back right I'll give you 10 seconds to finish up and then we we we need to move on and if you do the math on how many units that our family size uh would have to be built in the Jefferson cluster it's a whole lot more than that to to bring Jefferson High School up to 1700 it's way way be Way Beyond that I mean that's that's great that it's happening but thank you thank you um please email um everything you want to say please email to it the more information the better thank you absolutely thank you um all right uh we can have we have time for one more person off the wait list um then first person on the wait list is um Sheree LeBlanc first call second all right next Derek

062Grant first call second all right next Raa hki yeah yeah just a reminder this is uh one slot three minutes yeah thank you okay hi my name is Shannon fold and I'm the career coordinator at Lincoln High School and all of my fellow colleagues are also here and Rissa was delayed because we have a really big event that's happening tomorrow um that I'm not going to go into but we learned late last week that our um the career coordinator positions at all of the high schools um were cut from District funding and so it happened very quickly and sort of Blindsided us so we've been scrambling to put together something hopefully you have received what I'm about to read um and I brought up the education plan and profile here because the career um the

063career piece that is in the Ed plan and profile that the district has created from 6th through 12th grade um if you don't have this please look at it and see how many times the word career um shows up on that um but as career coordinators we are uh a single classified student facing position in the PPS high school that works directly with students all grades 9th through 12th in large Comprehensive High Schools this can mean carrying a case load of 1,600 to 2200 students we are skilled diverse group of professionals who have come from different industry and education backgrounds speak multiple languages many of whom hold Advanced degrees most of us have been in our positions 5 to 14 years and below is a s or and I just want to tell you a

064little sampling of what we do because one of our biggest um challenges is that people don't understand just how much career coordinators do in the buildings there's one per High School so we support all students in meeting their state Mand mandated personalized learning requirements for graduation which include their my plan project resume and career related learning experiences um and often we're the only staff member in the building who's like following up with students and helping them to find those career related learning experiences and then be able to reflect upon them so per per our um education plan and profile career coordinators collaborate with teachers and counselors and work directly with 9th 10th 11th and 12th graders to ensure that they are doing all of the things in the career plan and profile as well as

065we're heavily supporting um what is being rolled out in the Senate Bill three which requires the personal finance and the co the College and Career higher education paths um we have been asked in our buildings to be a big part of that as career coordinators um career coordinators actively maintain industry and professional Partnerships to support all students to extend their learning beyond the classroom so this means part-time jobs and summer jobs we are in heavy flow of Summer recruiting jobs right now so we're working with people on um getting those especially um students who it matters that they work it matters that they work and we want to find them jobs um we have internships we have Career Fairs company visits mentoring and job training programs volunteering we're working with students to find all of

066those opportunities and get connected and engaged outside of the classroom but it enhances inside the classroom so career coordinators are pivotal in Career and Technical education and I just want to um point out thank thank you for highlighting care Career and Technical education we work very closely with our CTE teachers in partnering with them to find ways to get students um you know more experiences um and we are taking them on field trips and what have you so um I know that our time is up but um one other thing that I wanted to mention is that career coordinators um support our most vulnerable students in our buildings and that's include those who are receiving special education multilingual Learners homeless Youth and teen parents um we sometimes are a Lifeline for these students um and

067helping them to get the resources and engagement that they need and um this Alliance some of the work that we align especially centering historically underserved directly supports measure 98 money so um um the CTE money that we report the data is the perkens and the pathways money we are collecting that data for OD so that the district can um send that information to OD OD so I just want to sorry to cut off because that was at at time yep I just to finish s yep I just want to thank you for um considering our position and all that we do in schools thank you for all your hard [Applause] work um if there's more you want to follow up on please uh feel free to email in and and thank you for coming out

068to speak tonight I also hope all of you will reach out to your legislators and the governor about your positions because they're the ones that can make the decision because we would I'm sure love to keep you if we if we could thank you and this is also a reminder thank you everyone who uh provided comment today your input helps our work become better so thank you if you have anything you would like to follow up on uh please feel free to contact our senior board manager Roseanne Powell um yes next up we have uh comments from our Union Partners we didn't have anyone signed up for comments but I did see some union members so I just want to throw this out there if if would like to use this time please St up

069step up okay if there's any changes let me know um all right next up on our agenda tonight is we have the 2025 26 budget development with our community budget Review Committee uh the community budget Review Committee or cbrc is a board appoint a committee that reviews evaluates and makes recommendations to the PPS board of directors regarding the superintendent's proposed budget and any other budgetary issues uh the cbrc or the board identify I want to thank um all the members of the committee who volunteered their time to support this really critical function uh superintendent Armstrong would you like to introduce our presenters for this evening yes absolutely thank you good evening again so providing tonight's presentation is our Chief Financial Officer Michelle Morrison chief of equity and accountability Dr Bernard Adams chief of family and

070Community oh okay senior director sorry of family and Community engagement Nicole Watson and uh we also have members of the community budget Review Committee joining us this evening and I'll let the team introduce uh those individuals those committee members but I'll turn it over to um Chief Financial Officer Michelle morson good evening good evening everyone thank you for this time tonight and thank you for um coming together with the community budget Review Committee um first off I would like to acknowledge our liaison to this um committee I've had an opportunity to attend uh two meetings now um and Alexandra Martin is our pretty amazing staff support for this group so I'm very thankful for that um uh Alexandra can you share who is with us this evening thank you Dr Adams we have our student

071representative on the community budget Review Committee here this is Caitlyn Bice would you like to introduce yourself yeah hello my name is Caitlyn Bice I'm a senior at Benson poly Technic high school thank you and we have caran here uh Karan Cruz support uh yeah I also support um my name is Juno Chang I'm the senior budget manager so Erin Cronin is joining us online I don't see any other cbrc members Erin would you introduce yourself hi Aaron Cronin um I've got two kids one at Lewis Elementary and one at cwood um happy to be a part of this and help uh put put our voices in as we try to untangle uh our budgetary needs thanks Erin I see we also have someone who it says iPhone 2 I don't know if that might

072be a cbrc member yes I'm sorry hi I'm minana Bishop thank you man and sorry and um I'm new and so I've been appointed to serve for um for three years happy to be here thank you those are the only members I see right now thank you thank you Alexandra and I think we'll just go ahead and get started and Dr Adams will get us going on the agenda and lead into our presentation sure um thank you good evening board members superintendent Armstrong cbrc members and members of the public who are with us in the audience excuse me our agenda tonight is to share and discuss our community engagement activities and our survey information from the community budget survey and then to share upcoming milestones in developing the integrated Grant application Alex if I could

073have the next Slide m back one miss Watkins is going to share uh information around our community engagements and then I'll share the summary data around our survey that we had out in the community for some time and then we'll have time to do some Q&A and I'm G to ask you to do an activity that I thought you enjoyed once before where you jot down something that you notice and something that you wonder and then we can go around the DSN through the cbrc membership in that format and so with that I'd like to turn things over to miss Watkins Alexandra if we could have the next slide wats Watson's sorry I'm messing you got a correct I do not no uh good evening everyone good evening board uh I'm Nicole Watson and senior

074director of family and Community engagement excited to share uh the vision for Budget engagement this was one of um my first lifts in this role being able to support Chief Adams uh and chief Morrison with uh really robustly engaging families um through a commitment of being transparent consistent and definitely deeply engaging Community um to our superintendent point we have prioritized really early and often and ongoing consistent communication to ensure that like all of our voices um especially those that are closest to our schools are really informed and included in the conversation throughout the process we were really intentional uh and continued to be in creating multiple opportunities uh for engagement ensuring that that feedback is not only collected but actively uh reflected in the considerations that are before you um this Vision was upheld uh

075throughout the process Again by communicating early engaging often and making informed uh decisions together we recognize that reductions uh impact real people real schools real programs and we've worked really hard and diligently to ensure that those directly impacted have had a seat at the table um we've designed a multiphase engagement process that is just beginning uh where all of our stakeholders are just not informed but really deeply invited to participate and to spend genuine time with us and helping us shape the conversation uh the insights these this slide just shares a little bit about our at a glance the activities that um we have been robustly engaged in um our effort were really designed um to recognize that we we couldn't use a one-size fits-all approach we we really needed to be creative in the

076variety of Engagement methods uh that allowed for both structured and organic kind of dialogue uh we've done some virtual Town Halls uh some listening sessions direct surveys uh and some school-based discussions where we've Pro provided opportunities for teachers and Educators families to engage in ways that feel accessible in language that they can access um and in meaningful ways that feel relevant to their lived experience the breath of participation from these particular engagement activities have really been a testament to the collective investment of our community folks have showed up and they've been really vocal in the ways that they have advocated for their needs um as we move into the spring I just want to attest that we remain committed uh to sustained engagement uh and ongoing dialogue while attempting to really Ensure that those conversations

077are not onetime events but that we close that feedback loop and engage in that continuous feedback now don't bulk at this next slide it is definitely a lot but we really wanted to articulate uh the level of Engagement of deep engagement that we have engaged in throughout this process by by prioritizing uh and reaching the most people impacted we've got some still work to do there are some stakeholders that are not repr represented here and again we are communicating early and often to get out front um so that we really provide a space for teachers classified staff and support Personnel to ask those critical questions uh and voice their concerns directly to senior leadership um I I want to just also go back briefly to say I know that there is a lot there but

078if you have any questions about the actual engagement timeline I do have a real detailed list of what we've done where we've done it and who was engaged if so ask um and just finally um across all engagement opportunities I think it's important to just level what kind of themes have emerged so far shedding light on kind of what um our most important groups have really articulated is the most concerning of their priorities um and one of the most consistent themes we heard was the critical need to protect instructional and student support roles wherever possible um we also heard concerns about equity and how the these reductions are you know may disproportionately impact historically underserved communities families and Educators really stress the importance um of ensuring that the budget decisions reflected a deep commitment to

079equity and Student Success um conversations have been centered around the real need for advocacy at the state level um there is some real tension around what we know is not working and there seems to be this real shared understanding uh that districtwide reductions will just not be enough uh so we're really pushing for increas funding uh to ensure some sustainable and longterm Solutions these particular focal engagements just kind of share a little bit of of who the groups were that we have engaged and again I I share we are really just getting started uh but we have definitely tapped our resj community advisory uh committees our migrant education Council uh culture in the classroom work which we'll hear a little bit about um our Indian education parent um uh committee our cbrc and our early

080literacy Grant advisory space and lastly I just want to kind of tap a little bit about the significant amount of feedback that we have received we are still working on our FAQ uh really trying to really gather what did we hear you say here's how we responded and here's what we can do and that I think is really walking through that phase and deepening that conversation um going slow to go farther has really done us well in this process um and we really are working to you know organized with Chief Morrison's team to to plan the next slate of engagements we have an intention to be reaching out to representative con and our student engagement specialist yen seow to see about how we can engage our students and our youth in this very important conversation

081we uh hope to engage our board with a board uh budget Town Hall sometime in May uh so that would be something that's coming down the pipeline but we recognize that we just need the advocacy at the state level and want to make sure that we are engaging uh continuously our stakeholders uh just to make sure that you are informed engaged and empowered uh to participate in the process and that is all I think I have sure um happy to now share the community survey participation in our key findings um as you may recall we launched a survey in October on the 21st and it was open until November 30th and we received nearly close to 4,000 responses from Community as the pie chart shows 70% of our responses were from parents or families roughly

082133% one were from teaching staff and then the next largest group were non-teaching staff in schools at 7.6% um respondents recommended that PPS eliminate a few programs versus um reducing Services across all programs and they also emphasize as um Miss Watson shared the importance of classroom instruction teaching and learning over Community Partnerships or extracurricular activities we asked about ppss we asked survey respondents about PPS is relative strengths and so we asked the question how well do you feel PPS is doing in the in the current is currently doing excuse me in the following areas and there are nine areas they are listed and shown on um the graph on the right the highest rated was our diversity inclusion and the lowest rating for how we or how well we're currently doing was with student achievement

083we also ask questions about the relative importance of excuse me of PPS what we needed to do to be successful over the next three years how important would it be for us to focus on again the same nine categories and out of this conversation came uh classroom instruction being rated the highest and Community Partnerships being rated the lowest we also analyzed a lot of open-ended comments and what we did is we analyze those comments and group them thank you so much by the themes that we had the nine areas that we had as a part of the survey and so you can see the uh graphic goes from the largest proportion of comments by a theme to the smallest from left to right and so our highest themes um for open-ended comments were around hiring

084and retaining high quality staff classroom instruction and diversity and inclusion and then the open-ended comments that had the smallest proportion of all the comments were comments around school climate and culture School leadership and Community Partnerships so we also looked at uh basically what did the community recommend so we asked two questions first question we asked was if you could change one thing about the your school or the district what would it be the overwhelming comment was around reducing class size the next largest group of comments were around hiring and supporting high quality Personnel that includes all the staff that work in the school so you see teachers support staff par Educators Etc and then the the next highest amount of comments were around fully funding and prioritizing special education services for our students with disabilities

085next we also ask and finally what is the single most positive aspect of the school or the district and um the most frequently commented were that we had caring teachers and staff we have strong and supportive School communities the access that we provide to special programs like language immersion Arts culture and sports and then lastly but not least the diversity in our school district so we have a feedback form that is still open at the time that these materials were submitted we had 202 responses we have more since then I don't have the exact number at my fingertip but we want to encourage people to continue to give us budget feedback as we continue to release and share information publicly and questions about the budget that we're receiving through the form the feedback form are

086being curated and posted in an FAQ on the budget website and with that that concl includes uh our sharing about the engagement activities and what um Community has told us via the community budget survey and so I wanted to we wanted to rather this a we up here not I um we wanted to open up the conversation with the board and the cbrc members that are present here or virtually online around something that you notice and something that you may Wonder in the data uh if we have the answer available we'll of course give that to you if it's something we need to get back to you we'll let you know great thank you uh I'll go around the room I guess I'll start with our online uh let's have director Green do you want

087to go first I'm writing my questions down I'll come back to you thank you director Holland you want to go first no thank you for being succinct uh director brim Edwards I'll just start with a noticing um that the highest priority um appears to be focused on our students and the instruction they receive in the classroom and the supports they get in their schools and I'm gonna this this isn't a wondering but maybe it's so wondering um is that I'm curious we already if we already sent out the Staffing to the schools and some decisions were made for example the were career coordinators what impact is the survey response going to have on the decisions that are made because it appears when I look at the in the appendix of the cuts that are made

088that um in addition to the 69 and I um I got a disclaimer beforehand that things may change but right now there um the the most recent version we have there's um 69 um changes of like basically support staff um sort of undefined within the schools and then there's another 70 um FTE in schools at the elementary high school and K8 levels actually I wait there's I'm sorry there's way more than that it's 113 um staff being reduced in the schools and I'm curious um so how was community at least the initial Community impact um how did that influence the Staffing formula and the decisions that were made and if people engage in the process since we have don't yet even have the superintendent's budget um what can they expect in terms of um responsiveness

089or is the were the decisions already made before the community engagement happen I'd love to start with that question thank you I appreciate it um so one of the things that we also had going on is not only the community survey but the staff survey as well and so we also had some imperson stakeholder engagement um sessions and one of the things that we heard loud and clear from our um leaders at the site is more flexibility and autonomy in deciding where they will allocate their Staffing and so what we leaned into was the core program and paying attention to um some of those adjustments that we had to make at the class siiz level and then some of those Investments that were more spendy so some of the roles that you named aren't um

090roles that you know we said eliminate um they are FTE that uh we allocated to buildings and we gave them some Choice based on some of the needs in their buildings and um that was their preference and so I think as the as we continue to hear from community and um we begin to um see what Rises to the top or more needs emerge uh we will continue to review and especially as we think of funds that may be coming in at the state level should our advocacy pay off uh we will prioritize the distribution of those FTE to schools based on the feedback that we're getting so all of the decisions that we've made has been based on um the uh data and the community input that we've received yeah didn't the Staffing manual

091explicitly say that the district wasn't going to fund the career coordinators I mean that's that's how it there was a sentence in there that said that yeah it specifically said that there was a reduction not an elimination and that schools had the flexibility to um fund positions uh based on um the FTE that they were allotted but they're not no longer getting that F the FTE for that particular position that's what the Staffing manual the Staffing manual said that there's not going to be any funding for from the district for career coordinators yeah and listen my goal goal is for uh more autonomy to be at the school level and so um I think in past there as the core program states there are some decisions about you know what lands where and then there's

092the out of formula and in formula and I think it gets really confusing to community and staff and especially around um this time and so uh we give our uh our sites Flex flexibility this year that they haven't had in previous years to allocate Staffing in the way that they need and even you know if you remember in the prior year um I think two years ago so this year last year would have been the first year so we're just completing two years of a full-time instructional coach and we gave sites the flexibility to use partial FTE and put that FTE towards intervention if that was a need in their building at the elementary level and so I guess what I'm saying is the FTE that was allocated um sites have uh discretion and flexibility

093to fund based on the needs that are coming up in their school communities I have another wondering but I'll wait till you go great thank you director BR M right director student director representative conavi yeah my notice was I think the percentage of students that responded to the survey was really low so I look forward to working with staff to identified ways to kind of increase that and I think my Wonder is how can we support our College and Career coordinators because I know one of my career coordinator and college career coordinator is here and just seeing the amazing work they do they're truly one of the backbones in our schools and I just see so many students just going to them even if it doesn't relate to college or career just for just help

094in their lives if they're dealing with something difficult so I would definitely love to see how we can keep them in our schools thank you director split thank you chair wall um I'll try to stick to the Wonder and uh notice and wonder but see how it goes okay so um one thing I noticed was um a focus on classrooms and then I also noticed retaining teachers made the list retaining excellent teachers and I loved hearing what the superintendent had to say about flexibility um one thing I know our school has dealt with is um in the past and I know other schools have as well is that Arts seems the Arts uh there's Visual Arts and Music Music Arts that we call it music at our school um and uh as far as elementary

095schools go and um we've seen the you know draft staff reductions every year that kind of take those down to part-time positions where either they'd have to work in two different schools which we know is really hard on teachers not the recipe for Teacher retention um and then also um uh my understanding is there's District policy that like required that you have Visual Arts and Music in the elementary schools are certain ones and I just wanted to give an example I wanted to say that I noticed that and I wonder if there are places where we have policies that given a $40 million Cuts Dynamic we might want to take a look at loosening up to say okay you can keep your absolutely you guys know I love our art teacher at my school I

096know we can keep our amazing art teacher who needs to have a full-time job and isn't interested in staying in PPS and being in two different schools um and she's the backbone of our school I think anyone would agree um and so for I just want to give that example of one I know of but maybe there's others where there's policies where principles um do feel that their hands are tied um and their communities are demanding something and they think they can make it work but there's like a district policy in the way so I think it just might be interesting to think about where are those places where you're hearing this is what we want we can't have it because of this and maybe given the Dynamics of a 40 million million dollar cut

097to our budget to be able to say okay we can let this go or temporarily or whatever so I just kind of wanted to put that out there that I notice retaining teachers is a priority and I wonder if we have policies that will get away get in the way of that given the cuts Dynamics thank you very much for the presentation I love what y'all are doing um it's why I'm here to represent schools and community on the board and so um when I what I see what you're putting out that's what's going to be my North Star thank you very much thank you director to pass yeah thank you um my wondering there was a there's a graph a bar graph that has the senen tiles in it and I just realized I

098was missing a lot of color in my life I really like that graph um I didn't realize until kind of late in the game that we're talking about two different surveys one has a survey response of 3,900 and the other one is only 200 and so I I I don't know when in the presentation I can't tell when we're reporting out on which one sure these data in this the the data in this presentation are from the survey that we almost got 4,000 responses on the com okay and that's the community survey right that was open from October 21st to the end of November okay and is there another survey that's open still a second survey there's a bu it's a budget feedback form it's a budget feedback form okay I I was just curious

099um there's a couple of graphs that you showed I'm wondering if there's a way to Overlay and I love that you did this SWAT analysis the strengths of the district transposed with the um the weaknesses um in in fact in fact on slide 10 the weaknesses are not are noted as uh student achievement um and diversity is rated really high so is there a way to look at those the strengths of the district um when we're making our budget decisions talking about instructional leaders and classroom instruction um I'm just curious about that and you don't have to answer it now but okay it seems like there's an answer in the data here I think that's all for me great thank you director green are you ready shut up after listening to everyone I think I'm

100good with with where we're at I like the slides um I like that we um we were intentional about our community engagement um I like that we're listening to what people are saying and that we're not making a decision for them them so I I think I'm good at this point Thank you right thank you director green um my turn um I actually I'm just going to skip to my wonder I want to actually expand kind of what director split was saying a little bit earlier uh I wonder if it would be possible to and and this may have already been done but like as you're doing your work every time you bump into say like unfunded mandate that's really putting some barriers or restrictions around what what can be done if that could be

101documented in in that way and including policies too what director split was saying our policies because one of the things about a lot of unfunded mandates that come from the state is that they're very well-intentioned but they also are a one-size fits all and you know we we agree with the intention but they they can result in unintended consequences so it' be I think it would be very helpful for not just the board but also the public and our employees to all see like hey this is what we want to do these are the barriers in our way um if there are unfunded mandates for example or any even funding mandates mandates from the state um if there are board policies um anytime that we really bump into that um it'd be nice and then

102find someone artistic and and make a beautiful chart about hey these are the our you know it's like a pinball machine we're trying to do this but these are our barriers and I think that would really help kind of um accelerate discussion it would also help with people in terms of like advocating at the state legislature to be like this is our ask these are the unfunded mandates that are really hampering us do something please and and I and and I think that would just be a very useful you know in terms of empowering people and even if they can't you know affect any change in the legisl empowers people to know that these are the restrictions that we're dealing with so yeah anyways this my Wonder um and did you have uh something after

103that you want to do after this or there there are a couple more slides but I think director was back so last time I asked about um one of the recommendations that was made um to cut the FTE from the southeast guiding Coalition schools and I ask whether or not those communities have engaged and I'm just looking at last year where the money went Harrison Park Maryville Clark Bridger creative science Hosford Lane lent and Whitman and I'm curious whether um since that last discussion since um I I can understand when I when I asked the question about who recommended it it was like well that the principles decided that like that was less important so if you're not one of those principles in that area I could see where be like yeah put it all

104in the big pot versus where the district had committed um and so I'd ask whether or not um those conversations had happened because these aren't community and I also ask whether there was a forum in a neighborhood I was told dway which is not anywhere near but so I'm curious whether any specific outreaches happened to those to those schools so they can participate in the budget process I can answer that um director at B ards no not yet and so I think again what the current budget engagement process revealed is where we continue to need to do some more work so I've elevated I've written it down and as I begin to engage continuing deeper that could be a community that we absolutely tap you're welcome I was wondering if we we could also invite

105our cbrc members here tonight to do a notice and wondering as well yes that's actually going to be my next question so thank you thank you yeah I go um my name is Karan Cruz for the record um just a little bit of background about myself born and raised here alumni of PPS Boise Elliott Harriet Tubman um I buy a district um Benson High School um I'm also um a teacher uh former teacher of 15 years taught in PPS for six years in Beaverton School District for um six or PPS 7 um so my lens is going to come from I'm also a parent I'm I'm on the PTA for Jefferson Jefferson is in um The High School playoffs right now so go demos um um I serve as the community engagement for PTA however

106so my lens is going to be from more so from a classroom persp perspective and I have a couple of um clarification questions um and then I have some wonderings so the first clarification is um on the budget engagement timeline maybe you can go back to that slide I also serve on the family advisory committee for PPS and I'm also on in the uh the culture in the classroom um initiative as well um I do not remember having a budget conversation um in in those sessions um so maybe I missed something there so I just wanted some clarification around that um and then also to um the wondering is um if you notice in the slide it said classroom instruction but at the end um it was uh student achievement um was was last um

107I think we should pay attention to that correlation um one of the things and then if you go back to in this presentation there's a a section where it has reductions um if if the community is focusing on classroom instruction um as the some of the board members have stated I think we need to reconsider uh cutting uh classroom positions um one in particular I'm noticing um in the elementary school section um um a reduction of 18 positions uh kindergarten education assistance um of a size of 20 in a title one school um to me that doesn't really align with our board goals if our if if we're trying to focus on third grade um effective third grade achievement um we have to focus on um early childhood education um one of the things that

108I'm noticing too being in all these different committees being in PTA I'm also on the site Council um the family advisory committee everything is in silos and I feel like everything is separated it's like everybody's doing their own thing like we're going to have a presentation of the center of black student excellence and I've seen the um the presentation and it's just and I feel like everything is just is just separated I feel like we need to all come together figure out what's what's really happening within the district I'll talked to a couple board members they didn't know anything about the the culture in the classroom initiative or the family engagement advisory committee um and that was kind of concerning to me um but one of the things I did some research on uh map

109testing um again this is focusing on classroom instruction um there's a disconnect because we we spend a lot of money on a lot of different initiatives as well uh we have um the um Innovative Studios we have all these different types of things we spend a lot of money on um but there's no connection have you guys raise your hand be heard of Community Schools that's that's pretty good that's pretty good um I won't go into that maybe that's a that's a whole another presentation but we need more of a community school model um districtwide within our district for sure yeah you can clap on that um so when I pulled I did a public request on the maps uh contract and I I believe it was um believe close to like a million dollars

110if not more um however we're not using it effect effectively um within the classroom because it's two different types of assessment I've been saying this to you guys over and over again it's like comparing apples and origin like we're assessing an orange but our state test assess apples um so it's it does there's no correlation there um there's so many things that we can cut um besides classroom instruction and then we have to have a more of a focus on class effective classroom instruction um I used to say I was an Effective Teacher because I was raising my kids reading scores they was reading at a second grade level by the end of the the year they were reading at the fifth grade level and I thought I was doing something however once they leave

111my classroom I saw the achievement go down and I saw them begin to drop out so it's like I have all these different perspectives of then being an entrepreneur being able to hire some of my of my former students and seeing just the different gaps in in the academics and that's not correlating into the real world there's so many different issues there but I just want us to kind of really um hone in and focus on um different things that we can cut um as an entrepreneur we call it cutting the fat um besides really affecting the true product the product is our students and student achievement that's the the end result the end goal that's the reason why we're doing all of this so we have to focus on that and um in cutting

112classroom uh teachers and assistants and things like that is not going to uh get us to that goal so that's one of the observations that I I've noticed um that we should definitely [Applause] consider okay so there's couple things that I've noticed and I've wondered about I don't highly have specific questions more so just curiosity um a couple things I noticed that you all spoke to a wide variety of groups specifically the migrant education family um the parent Association and I found that really interesting because um with some of this I'm having I'm kind of struggling to see how what we got from the community actually impacted where we're making our budget cuts with this program specifically I see that we talk to the parent Association but I know somebody in that program the migrant

113education program program and I spoke to her yesterday and she said that all of the positions were cut and that the program would be moved out of the district so that's just a little bit confusing to me um also as well I noticed that we rated high quality staff in student achievement as some of the most important things that we want to focus on in the next year and to me it's hard to see how that correlates with cutting all of our career coordinators because um as they mentioned it is very very important for student achievement and success to have those college career coordinators who can support students in that way and for the final thing to director Wing's Point um about um documenting unfunded mandates in schools like specific situations like that I totally

114agree with that and I think that would be very important for future legislative advocacy however I will say that I don't notice a very easy way for people to do that there's not really like a form for people to fill out and also a lot of people don't really understand specific unfunded mandates or just policy talk in general and then to the third point when people are in schools teachers are teaching and students are learning so oh I completely agree with that I think that we would need an easier Avenue for people to be able to report that and then bring that to the board and be able to do that without distracting from what they need to be doing at school thank you um not to interrupt but I think she actually had a

115question we can answer I'm probably not the appropriate person to answer but on the migrant education I got an email today on that do you want just make sure she knows what's happening there and everyone in the room knows I wish we could have said it when the folks that I think were here on the item were here yeah absolutely so we heard from OD um a few months ago that that program would be because of the numbers the the loan wrote numbers that um that program would be moved over to the mesd and so while you know they value feedback and engagement uh this is a decision that they um had to make quickly so we learned this on October 15th and since then um MD team and PPS have been meeting to create

116a um a smooth transition we didn't have a choice in it so um it's something that we have to comply with and so that is why the uh migrant education program is moving over to the mesd and then the other thing I will say is that I know it's going to this is a time and and it's appropriate as um you know folks in schools are are processing um their decisions around staff uh we have not yet received the final Staffing sheets from schools and so um and I get this is all part of the engagement process and we want people to come out and share their voices and I'll say that um until we receive the Staffing sheets from schools um we can't say definitively that you know a particular person or a particular

117group is um reduced right so uh more information will come in the coming months great thank you Dr Brim Edwards I was just gon to ask so for example just in term um having been around a while PPS goes through this like um tight loose so sometimes is we're going to give schools flexibility and then what we end up is so maybe only four of the high school will decide that um because they didn't get FTE for the career coordinator that um they're not going to take it from some other place and put it in so they've had flexibility but then what we have is not every school having the same thing and um I'm just going to be thinking as we head into into the budget process like what are the things that we

118know like every high school should should have I mean we know a lot about CTE and um it being a predictor of kids go through those uh CTE and uh courses they're more likely to graduate and be successful um After High School um and there will be things where like the example that director split gave where maybe that flexibility is fine that a school decides like we're not going to do that because we want to double down on this other piece so I just think we should keep that in mind because if there's um sometimes flexibility means that some students don't get things that we um think that all students and know that all students should have so that's going to be something when I go through the process that I I'll be thinking about

119like where's that flexibility and you know sometimes you uh the there way that you prioritize things is everybody's which I think is what we've done in the past everybody's GNA get the FTE because this is a priority for us um that every student should have that yeah I appreciate that comment I not sure if there was a question question in there but I appreciate the comment and I will say that you know as we distribute the FTE um in some cases equally there is that Equity piece of um schools and their communities deciding um what their need is and I think need looks different across Portland and so I think that's why principles were asking for flexibility um and for them to be able to make those decisions and so until their Staffing sheets are

120back and we're able to see um what it is that uh our true impact of Staffing is when we'll be able to speak to that better but as of now the core program outlines um what uh should be in all schools um that are Baseline I I think I would also add that thank you Dr Armstrong next meeting the appendices in here with those recommendations shifted before we put Staffing out so there were already we made improvements based on community feedback based on building leader feedback from those engagements and coming to you in just whenever it needs to upload on board book will be the next presentation that will have the more updated recommended list that will show the shifts that we made based on the feedback that we received and to that point so

121I got an email before the meeting about somebody who looked at your slides so people are are reading reading the slides and reading the appendix and they asked they said the SL the slide at the K5 level that only 6t FTE are being reduced and the person says I building Al loone we are losing 7.6 FTE can you explain so is this the the explanation is the next run of um and slides would have like the updated numbers and that's why what this person's question it appears that there's more FTE cut from their schools than it's cut across the entire District well I can definitely guarantee that uh the FTE on the second version uh the greater FTE that are reduced are at the central office level um not at the school site level and

122so we we look forward to having that up as soon as possible and so uh there it's been a a huge swing and as a matter of fact there's still uh reductions in cost-saving measures that we're identifying at the central office level um so that's that work continues no and what we can um as we've shared in the past BR redwards we can give you that sort of heat map um I love the heat map that will show um the changes year-over-year um the team's been very busy as we had to make changes um going into and leading up to Staffing but we'll have that for you as quickly as we can um s dor pass I'll go for to next I just want to make sure we see a hand up raised online oh

123that's just a oh we address we talked to the I'm sorry the advocacy cbrc I don't know the names of everything and everyone speaks an acronyms so it doesn't help me um but the cbrc members that are in the room but there's also cbrc members that are patiently here virtually and I thought maybe we might see if they have anything they want to notice or wonder about and I know we're a little around time so maybe they could no thank you that's why I thought that was a hand but I'm just seeing things yes is there anyone on online that would like to also contribute thank you uh Aaron Cronin thank you um hope every can hear me um I I noticed that um I guess the parent responses were align with my uh Focus

124also you know as a former student of 20 years in classroom uh in some degree and now observing my kids in classrooms um just how large the impact of class size has on the experience and capacity for children to get the attention they need and to be monitored and you know I was a child of uh a lot of attention difficulties in early classrooms and if I did not have a teacher that had the time to sit down with me and kind of hammer in on some stuff I would not have made it through you know law school I wouldn't I wouldn't be sitting here today so um um everything I feel has to support that and if we're throwing 35 kids at a fifth grade teacher that is an unsustainable um when I my

125daughter went through that it's just it is not it is suboptimal uh and we were failing our kids and then we're going to lose the families that can afford to take their kids in private school we lose them because of that experience so it's a a self you know it's a reinfor for in cycle so that would be my my main thing I guess that is my so I I wonder what are we doing to make sure that the classroom experience is and that is talk about Equity like that that benefits everybody in any all across the board like especially in places where you know maybe kids aren't um you know have a little more difficulty like I did paying attention and uh sitting still so anyway that's my kind of my uh baileywood um

126and um I'm curious to know what we can do to ensure that that that we're not just jamming kids into classrooms that then become sort of babysitting thank you great thank you uh Grace groom hi everyone um I I'm just going to focus for now on the notice and wonder on the community engagement piece I noticed that there were several points on the timeline of who was asked about or presented to about the budget um and from what I can see there was one town hall that was held for educators or maybe two pretty late in the process and I'm wondering um were the principal surveys did were those shared with staff did they get feedback from staff at what point were the direct service providers um able to give input not just hear a

127presentation great thank you yeah unless you want to answer them because I mean this is this is a marathon we're going to be answering lots of questions for the whole I'll go ahead and take that I also want to address uh karan's question my brother asked a really good question about culture in the classroom and one of the things that I want to reiterate is I'm like 12 days in the role so part of that means that we needed to do some information gathering and and one of the things that I asked our team to do is to put together an exhaustive list of all of the ways that we had began engagement from top of the school year to present one of the line items I see on my spreadsheet is that we did

128engage culture in the classroom on October 30th of 2024 in a virtual space that was before I might have got here so Karan I may need to do a little bit of research to find out what the contents of that conversation might have been like and who may or may not have been present to cooperate that but a part of authentic engagement is being able to be fully transparent so I appreciate the call in and I make sure will make sure that we get back to you about that particular engagement for Grace um you're right you did see one particular town hall and I think where the timeline might have felt late we are actually early in how we're engaging communities around budget we typically do not engage uh our stakeholders this early in the

129game which then creates this kind of rut race at the very end by being early and often means that we do get an opportunity in the spring to re engage communities um and to be able to do that at a lift that feels authentic um one of the things that I think was really important to our team uh was getting in front of Educators and we attempted to do that and then it it didn't land easily so we reached out to our union labor Partners we asked some really diligent questions we listened to what they had to say and then we came back to the drawing board and replanned and re hosted didn't mean that some days were delayed uh but I would rather measure eight times than cut once and so I think as

130we are reestablishing trust with our communities it is super important to to have that Grace but also to reach back to our partners and get some feedback so I do appreciate that feedback and you will see more engagement for educators forthcoming thank you and I also appreciate the question that was asked about class size and um what we're doing and I will say at this moment um the most significant thing that we're doing is advocating at um the state level um to fully fund the uh quality education model um and unfunded mandates and raise the cap on special education um as we receive those funds should those items be approved and uh placed in the governor's budget that allows us to be able to properly resource our schools um but until that happens I think

131we're going to continue to have this push and pull conversation about the needs that we have in our buildings and in our classrooms and um the ones that we need from outside of Portland do you do you know what the classroom um classroom size cut off is for the state by law does anybody know oh it's so it's no cap oh wow okay no cap I remember having a four or five bullan of 35 students at Vernon um but that was one of my best class experien um I do have a question about um one of one of our roles as um as the community members is to um evaluate programs um will we get an opportunity to um have a um list of programs that PPS funds um at a very high level um

132amount level that we can evaluate and maybe give feedback on about possible cuts um rather than um classroom teachers before I see Dr Adams ready to answer that I just wanted to respond uh cranon I know you were being a little factious about your class in Vernon and 35 and being your best classet one of the things I've been saying in Salem and will continue to say here is that the students from 10 years ago 15 years ago and even five years ago are vastly different than the students that we have now and the needs that they have in their classrooms right and so um for us it's a conversation not just about making sure that we have uh one of our amazing high quality teachers in front of of them but that we have

133the supports for them to be able to do all the things that they need to do on behalf of students and in order to do that it takes resources right and so you know walking through a classroom in a couple different parts of town a class of even you know 25 28 30 uh presents different even just across our city based on um some of the needs that they have from their outer community so we want to be able to address that until we address that we're not going to see the rise in scores that uh we plan on having over time yeah but did you want to no I was I was just gonna um mention that Chief Howard and chief buo aren't here um but we can certainly have conversation with them and

134with cbrc about what is it that we mean by program what then does that then umbrella Encompass and how we might go about providing information yeah that sounds great um unfortunately I would love to com continue this conversation for hours but we are Pas time um I do want to really double down on my thank you for the cbrc you all are volunteers and this is really important work and we really look forward to more of your input so um let's keep these communication lines constantly open thank you you three for also your presentation was very helpful and answering helping answer questions um thank you thank you [Applause] um we're going to do a quick little switch through because um there were some scheduling conflicts and stuff like that so we have some uh Union

135partners that are here um and I want to get them some time and uh space to have their just time and space we' love to hear from you so if if any of you are ready and want to present hello good afternoon good evening um thank you for uh moving uh the schedule so that we could speak um my name is Angela bonam the president of the Portland Association of teachers and my name is Alicia Chavez and I'm the vice president of the Portland Association of teachers um so first as always I'll start with Kudos um I will share that it's been very very difficult um to find those Kudos uh this time around just from the flood of needs and um uh emotions coming from our Educators after the conversations around Staffing the last

136few weeks um but there are some highlights I would like to First give a kudos to Dr Armstrong um she joined P Educators for 10 different listening sessions um where she sat down with small groups of Educators to hear what they're actually experiencing on the ground um and those conversations were difficult and they were painful and there were tears um and uh we've never had a superintendent engage our members in that way and so um that is huge for us and huge a huge step in rebuilding the trust um so thank you uh I Heard lots of members say that they are tentatively optimistic that there is a little bit of Faith being built in that we can turn the ship around um I also want to appreciate our board our superintendent and um our

137state union the Oregon Education Association in our advocacy to remove the sped funding cap um and have that removal be matched with funds to make up the difference between what they've been paying for sped uh for special education supports and what our students need um if that cap can be raised and if those funds can be appropriated that is money that we can free up to to to provide the resources that students need across the board um I also want to give a kudos to chair Wong for an invite to Salem uh I was there with our superintendent um with our chair and able to Advocate to our Senate leader around uh education funding and making sure that we are you know avoiding those unfunded mandates making sure that we're talking about how can purs

138be funded separately from our state school fund so that schools aren't um thinking they have one budget and then the pers forecast comes in and it's a completely different budget um while the state still commits to the promise they made to public employees about their retirement how can we have both those things be true without hurting one or the other um you know I also want to give a kudos to our Educators uh we had several Educators across almost every school today do walk-ins and walkouts uh before and after contract time uh to take a stand in the national uh action on March 4th uh for our students against the cuts at the federal level against the threats to the Department of Education the threats to idea funding Title One funding um the attacks against

139our lgbtqia plus students our immigrant students and our communities Educators came out proudly we were able to go to Roosevelt High School this morning um I was at Marysville this afternoon Alicia you were at George um middle school and Cha well Chavez uh K8 as well and um being able to see our community come out and say we will not allow um a federal government to tell us what our values are we will continue to fight for our students to fight to tell the truth and teach the truth um and protect all of the kids that come through our doors was really powerful um so you know we are advocating for more funds from Salem as we should um I know that our district uh Dr Armstrong also has plans to do a blitz in

140the spring to make sure that our administrators are getting every student who is planning on enrolling or possibly can enroll is enrolling so we're not doing this October Shuffle where students are now in a new class with new students because we finally you know the the reality on the ground uh has finally caught up to the folks making the decisions um I know that we are also pushing to make sure that over the summer we're having those conversations maybe we can avoid some of those the day before the week before enrollments and try to get uh the Staffing set up now so that we're ready to int to to welcome our students um but I wonder what does it look like to ensure that we have the EAS in our kindergarten classes across the district

141um schools with over 20 students still need those EAS especially even even at our non-title schools right our students with high needs our students from historically and currently marginalized communities exist in all of our schools um so how do we ensure that we have the resources to support all of them what does it look like to have restorative justice coordinators and counselors and social workers in our middle schools and in our high schools along with College and Career support in our high schools what does it look like to have a school system that works for our students um where our students aren't saying you know I reached out and I went and filled out the form to go to the counselor but they're not here today they're split between a few sites so I won't

142be able to see them for a while right we want to make sure that our students especially those in crisis have access to those professionals and I'm concerned that with the budget cuts as deep as they are we are really cutting to the Bone we've been making Cuts year after year central office and our um schools and at this point there it doesn't feel like there's any more meat left to cut right um I know Foundation funding can't be used by stes for Staffing so what does it look like for our district to use Foundation funds for Staffing how can we um support those families who willingly double tax themselves to try to give their schools Staffing how do we support those families and saying we're going to commit to getting that Staffing out to

143all our buildings anyway help us get get that those funds out there what does it look like to use our rainy day funds our reserves to stop the hemorrhaging of our most experienced staff from our buildings from our student facing positions how are we going to Salem and saying hey we're doing everything we can we've spent our reserves we've spent our foundation money we've done everything we can we've spent every penny on our students how are you going to match that energy how are how are we advocating for Revenue reform for kicker reform for the top 1% how are we as a a district saying you know until our state can ensure that we have affordable housing in our city we will not have the enrollment to sustain this District um until our state and

144our County and our city says hey this ma it matters to have a livable City we can't maintain the Staffing that we have these are Big questions and questions that I don't know that y'all who have the answer to but I I want to raise them because I think it's important as uh cran shared that we start talking about Community Schools not just as a dream but as a a goal and as something that we will be fighting for and that we will be advocating for across the state because if we can get our schools to be funded as the community hubs we know they already are that's when we're going to see student achievement increase that's where we're going to see the absenteeism going down when students look at our schools and say I

145want to be there because I know when I need help someone's going to be available to help me I know when I want to engage in sports or arts or theater there's someone to do that with me um I I I think it's important and it's crucial for us to have these really difficult third rail conversations especially when we're talking about Revenue reform with the legislature and say that we won't accept A legislature that says well polling's not great um on education funding the folks polling says folks don't like kicker reform okay well we have to change that right we have to have our leaders lead so what I'm asking and what I'm I'm inviting y'all to join me in is as Leaders pushing our legislature to really make those difficult calls and and stop

146telling us we have to fight over scraps and start saying hey those who are eating at the buffet table to share some of that food um you know I think as Educators we're seeing this in the very um local and immediate way right we're seeing at Maryville eight and a half FTE being cut um we're seeing at high schools several FTE being cut and folks saying what is going to happen next year how are we going to manage we barely manage this year um but what I know about our Educators and what I know about our community is that we come together and we fight to make it work and we're going to keep fighting until we get what we need um because we know that when we fight we win right so to quote

147the Chicago uh press conference that they had today um you know those folks might be running DC but we're running PPS and we're running it together as teachers as families as communities and as staff and we can demand change for the education our students deserve we can demand change for the funding that our schools deserve and for the poor land that our communities deserve so I'm looking forward to continuing this fight and I'm looking forward to looking at how we can ensure that every step we take is pushing us towards those Community Schools towards funding that is directly impacting our students towards retaining and recruiting and and promoting our most talented uh staff and Educators so that they stay in our district so that they can retire from our district and be proud of being

148here thank you [Applause] thank you president Bonia um next up seems hard to transition from that that was very powerful thank you very much um next up we have uh an update for our senator for black student Excellence um I just want to also say thank you for being patient and flex ible as we kind of shift the schedule around and very many apologies for uh the delay so uh superintendent Armstrong could you introduce this topic yeah absolutely the center for black student Excellence is dedicated to empowering students within Portland Public Schools and providing them with the resources and support they need to thrive I like to well she's already here so I don't need to invite her up um but we have before you Nicole Watson who is the new senior director of family

149and Community engagement uh she will oversee uh part of her work includes overseeing the center for black student Excellence work and so I will have her introduce uh her staff and uh begin with this item thank you for being here so good to see you again thank you so much I am excited to uh provide this update and introduce um Quinn peoples who is going to wow you with an update of the center for black student Excellence thank you for that introduction like Nicole said my name is Quinn peoples I utilize Heim pronouns and I currently serve as our program manager within the center for black student Excellence we also had a couple slides and I don't know I'm supposed to wait for those to come up or not take your time fig out thank

150you um while we're here on this first slide I want to acknowledge it's been a while since we spoken to you also just as a reminder the center for black student Excellence comprises of a constellation of academic programs strategies supports and experiences reinforced by a physical infrastructure this opportunity ahead is to redefine the future by advancing a culture of black Excellence while meaningfully integrating joy and healing unifying and elevating the black educational experience and improving outcomes for black students here at PPS next slide please so a little background as you can see there between fall of 2022 and spring of 2023 there were about 150 meanss facilitated with the community to co-design that vision for the cbsc that vision is that very large booklet that many of you probably have and they're also was some

151time for our community pause and reset to reestablish a shared sense of community collectively problem solve and Char a path forward and finding a home for the CBS so moving forward to the summer of 2023 to 24 what emerged from that Workshop series was an investigation of SC both collocations uh existing properties and a number of other options and then fast forward until the beginning of this year of the Fall we were able to hire a director for the center for black student Excellence as well as myself as our program project manager and do some Coalition building next slide please so our priorities our staff has worked collaboratively to develop a Community Coalition strategy aligned with that Vision this collaborative effort has involved extensive engagement and deliberation over several months to personalize these student outcomes

152we've had a series of community conversations and we'll continue to have those with principles at Harriet tub middle school as well as boy Elli at humble Elementary and these discussions are aimed to understanding unique needs and aspirations of students with the no communities as we understand a one-sized fit all model does not work um the development of this multi-c partnership was Guided by principles of academic research Innovation as well as liberatory design and looks to prioritize the expansion of capacity power and resources within the community to collectively Implement strategies to advance educational Equity especially for our black students here next slide please so what we're working on now is what are our pilot programs or what we call our four core initiatives the first one of those is our action for Equity framework which will

153assist schools and identifying trusted adults improve student belonging and achievement increase attendance support leadership development and expand access within the public school education system using two metrics or two modalities um our Equity leader are trusted adult um which are who are the students or who are the uh adults in the building that students trust who are they going to who are the ones who know how to best engage and talk with our students and also our action for Equity cards or student Insight cards that would feature information about learning mindsets and skills reported barriers career interest goals and subjects of Interest so that everyone in our buildings can best understand our students so we will utilize those trusted adults which we will determine what that looks like by actually going to the schools and interviewing

154students about what does a trusted adult look like for them and design training based on what those students are saying they need in those buildings kind of going back to that approach if we wanted to be unique and specific to those schools we'll use that action for Equity framework to as a foundation for our other three initiatives that you see there and we'll speak more about on the next slide um and this will be continue to be a collaborative effort between the cbsc PPS departments and nonprofit organizations to implement and measure the impact of these efforts next slide please so our next phase upon establishing those things would be pages of possibility which is in line with the superintendent lifting literacy campaign that looks to cultivate a level of reading by providing each student with

155a personalized library of 12 uh culturally relevant books or books that just are reflective of who they are and experiences that they've had we look to do that in collaboration with third eye books as well as the Scholastic and the Dolly Parton Imagination Library our parents advocating for student SU success or pass um is an initiative that looks to establish robust Partnerships between parents and Guardians to create a supportive community that enhances student well-being and academic achievement and by uh fostering those strong connections we help to empower parents and equip them with tools to appropriately advocate for their students um something that I heard upon taking this role was that many of our black families didn't know that they could or how to advocate for their student to have an i AP I think that's

156really important information for all of our families to have and so we just want to make sure um that we're leveraging both experience parents in our district maybe pairing them up for younger parents um so we know how to navigate this place as a person who's here supporting their student and lastly as our bridges to Brilliance program which will be a mentoring and tutoring program that addresses the economic or educational disparities and empowers our next generation of leaders by fostering the intergenerational knowledge transfer and skill development through dialogue and other opportunities this will pair a student up with a peer mentor as well as a mentor and a career field they've identified on that student Insight Card from the last slide um just so we can start um ideation on what I can be very

157early on so next slide please so the things we'll be looking to measure in putting forth these pilot programs will be school climate and culture uh student achievement and engagement and those measures you see there as well as those qualitative measures of student portfolios which is collecting student work that demonstrates that growth in those areas and doing focus groups with students families um and teachers to make sure that we're getting their feedback Incorporated that that and using that to scale up or expand our programs in the future and much of how we can scale it will be conention upon budgeting for the next year so our next step so we did a soft launch of these programs was when we were starting to engage in those conversations with those principles at boys Y at humble

158and Harry Tu Middle School in February um between now and the end of the year we'll be implementing and managing that a4e program we spoke about determining timelines for those other initiatives and then finding ways to facilitate some Community engagement to make sure that we're getting that feedback from them as well and then in the summer we'll train those action for Equity adults for a full launch in the fall while continue to take steps forward in acquiring a space next slide please and speaking of a space this is a lot so please bear with me but it's the last slide Guided by a Community Vision the cbsc staff is working tirelessly to find a home for the center for the black student excellence in reflecting that Vision PPS staff Community Partners and data regarding desire

159student outcomes has supported us in envisioning the space that includes the following the create and innovate lab a dedicated pedagogical environment for students to engage in experiential learning with the within the entrepreneurial mechanical and creative Industries the space will feature full steam ahead a k through2 program that enables exploratory action oriented reflective and transformative learning using science technology art engineering and math skills alongside reflective reasoning to solve complex problems and ultimately increasing the number and diversity of students choosing a steam career additionally this space will feature the possibility Labs that offer developmentally appropriate career exposure for students including guest speakers panels Career Fairs and much more the center for culture and Community collaboration will be a centralized space for students to engage in Intercultural understanding and appreciation of history and culture within Portland Public Schools

160this space will feature a cultural archive with Comprehensive programming tentatively deemed the Legacy project that integrates AC mic learning and experiential opportunities to inspire students to become informed engaged and Empower citizens the space will also include the nurturing Community IMPACT Program coupled with a CBO incubator partnering with student serving nonprofit organizations to serve PPS students and provide opportunities to engage in community service and social entrepreneurship lastly a Community Kitchen will facilitate the nurturing minds and bodies program that Fosters Community promotes cultural heritage encourages healthy habits that support academic achievement and Empower students through food by combining culinary education intergenerational learning and social engagement the center for wellness and excellence and learning will bring a holistic approach to supporting black students families and Educators by centering the needs uh and experiences of these individuals and welcome

161and affirming all visitors regardless of background or identity the center will prioritize healing Justice address historical trauma and promote Collective Liberation programing will focus on holistic well-being as well as includes spaces such as a Writing Center qualitative reasoning room opportunities office sensory space yoga and meditation space a reading room and of course study spaces for kids and lastly the multi-purpose Center will be flexible spaces that are designed to empower student engagement community building and diverse learning experiences through a wide range of activities serving as a hub for assemblies events physical activities performances and collaborative projects they provide Dynamic environments conducive to student growth and development when operating at its finest the cbsc will cultivate programming that exists both within itself and within the schools to provide the most access to students is possible moreover the

162cbsc will create a Synergy between the district and the community that will allow us to support students while uplifting the very communities they are a part of and with that I just like to say thank you and I look forward to creating brighter Futures together there's been some recent questions um or comments lately and I just thank you team that was wonderful I just want to make sure that I I emphasize for for all of our community um there's a saying that says a rising tide lifts all boats and at the center for black student Excellence is a space that is available and open for all of our Portland Public School students thank you uh we have some time for some quick questions if you would like to take um I'm new to all of

163this I want the book can I get the book that you talked about everybody having absolutely I would love to have it um but super supportive everything I'm hearing sounds like a dream frankly and um kind of fits in with the Community Schools conversation everybody raised their hands about a little while ago um my question is my understanding is that we have funding in a bond that can be used for what did somebody say it's like nails and walls or something Sticks and Bricks thank you it's a rhyme I can remember that next time um and that's the money that we have I think it's $60 million right and so the school district can provide that physical space that's my understanding but everything I just heard is not just the physical space and I'm curious

164in the most supportive and sensitive way possible if I can ask how the rest of the work would be funded absolutely and I definitely want the team to be bble to answer that and I also want to say that that work is happening now um we have a work that's happening to engage our communities there's culture in the classroom um so we are already um putting resources into supporting our groups who have had the least amount of opportunity to be successful um and so we would stay and continue to commit to that and then we also have wonderful Partners who are um engaged in that work now right when we think of our resj partners and others who stand um in unity with our work for improving the educational outcomes for all of our students

165that work is happening now right I think the intent was never to to wait for the building or um um to wait for you know some some Grand uh bag of money but that we need to move now we need to do the work now and we're at this wonderful place now where we can get that work to be centralized but I do want to turn it over to the team to to add on absolutely specifically if you're talking about our pilot programs what you're piloting now we currently have an internal budget that we're using to fund those programs and then to continue those pop out or popup programs um we will be seeking internal funding to continue to do that work um as it relates to programming that may exist in a space I

166think much of that conversation must happen after we've identify what a space can look like to give somebody Something to Believe In or to donate to or energy too yeah and I have three questions I think my first one is if if you guys could share the cost of each sites well we're we're still in the exploration stage right now this this presentation is on the programming and looking at or understanding the work that's happening in Portland now and then we hope to bring back a later date um more information on um hopefully uh a home um we we're we're in a conversation stage now so not not yet ready to um have a public discussion and then my next question is it the is it the board's role or the superintendent's role to determine

167the location I was like we as the cpf staff are to provide a recommendation to both the board and the superintendent who will make that final determination yeah and then my next question is what's the collaboration looks like with the CBS looks like with B black student unions so from what I currently stand about Affinity groups in our schools is that there's currently an administrative directive being worked on by another work group here that is uh figuring out how and what it looks like for folks like myself to engage with affinity groups so at this time we haven't been able to because that administrative directive has not been established to establish a policy and process of how we can engage with black student unions and when we say Affinity groups and black student Union groups

168as we all know especially as a public school district all of our groups are open to all of the students whether or not they identify with a uh certain uh category and I bring that last question up because I know I received an email by BSU student leader about finding ways how all of the BSU at our different schools can find a way to connect with each other so I think that'd be a great opportunity for you guys to collaborate in that way absolutely thank you for that good use of space too I'm just you know after being on the board for five years watching this pass overwhelmingly by voters in 2020 um hearing the discussions around it hearing the critical you know push back from even some of our board members um I'm really

169really excited for the courage and the conviction just staying with this program voters were promised a center for black student Excellence y'all are delivering it um I'm I'm just very excited I'm supportive um I don't have any critical feedback I I know we're looking at spaces I know these spaces will be open to every student that wants to come and be uh welcomed there and I just can't say how excited I am to see the progress that's been made I also want to acknowledge Miss Camille in the back who did so much of this foundational work I mean so much of it pulling the community around pulling them along pulling all of us along us hardhead you know really I just want to acknowledge the great work that's happened for this last four years yeah

170thank you I just have one in your second slide you said 150 meetings with Community to codesign the vision wow that's a lot were there any were there just because sake of time hopefully quick um any highlights from those meetings or unpacking it in some way I'm just very curious so I started this job in September of 201 24 so that was pre me while I would love to answer that question I wasn't here to receive that Fe that was Miss that was Miss Camille's leadership at her at that time yeah absolutely thank you question um so thank you for sharing uh I really appreciate it and I was interested in the student really student based initiatives that you shared tonight um and highlighted and um I love that they're connected to our board goals

171and also to superintendent Armstrong's advancing literacy campaign um I love seeing that interconnectedness um I was a little bit concerned about the comments tonight about bureaucratic delays because I don't think we've had a presentation in quite a while um and I think there's an openness to have more information um in fact before for I mean just in terms of moving things forward I asked before the meeting for both the operating and capital budgets and also the sort of SWAT analysis with strength weaknesses opportunities and threats of like the collocation versus the um at at a school versus buying a separate building um because none of that really discussion has happened at a public board meeting and if something has um you know as we're you sat tonight listen to all the the hard choices we're

172going to be making around the budget to just understand um I think putting on the table in a public meeting um what what the implications are for the for the district in terms of not just the capital but also um the longer term um so obviously if we have a building and are operating it um and we own it um that comes with it financial implications so understanding that so I don't think there's an attempt to um delay things it is but also we have to be fiscally responsible and just understanding and stewards and understanding um sort of what it is that um is coming along with whatever direction we head whether it's an individual building or collocated at schools um many of the presentations have had references to District Staffing and District budget allocations

173and maybe this also goes to uh kanan's earlier comment about how do things interconnect so we can see those see those pieces instead of having it be a a separate thing um but the reality is a lot of those um items do have could potentially have budget implication so we just need to understand that and how it fits with other things um it also just along those same lines um once if we have a building or a school that um we need to operate is like what what are the commitments it be good to understand what commitments we have from our our partners um because in the day if the district is an an owner of a facility like we're we're we're the end of the the responsibility of of that so just to better

174understand that as well so I would say like with all do speed come bring that conversation on so that um the work that's happening can move forward at GNA um and so that that's what I would need to see um and I think as a public entity that we need to just publicly share and have a discussion about as we as we do with um all of our expenditures um but I I really like the piece is um that you're um piloting and um I hope you'll come back sooner rather than later and so that next time you don't have to talk so fast um uh to to know better understand that but again also having the financial piece as well and like the decision around whether we colocate or whether it's a separate building

175thank you my words I I deeply appreciate that comment and I just want to also shout out the incredible work that Quinn has been doing want to put this presentation together tonight but the load that he has been carrying behind the scenes to make sure that what you had tonight was robust and incredible thank you for that and your comments we will ensure that we get back to you with the answers of some of those implications allocations and the obligations on our budget thank [Applause] you oh director Holland yeah I thought I thought we was I thought you was calling on everybody first first umor I just um had a couple questions um one when we talked about student achievement on page six um it seems like we're continue using the same um measurements that

176we've been using have there been any thoughts about other measurements um besides standardized testing so still J so um outside of the standardized testing which is one of the things that are uh underneath that area again in some of those focus groups we'll be having we want to ask what does achievement look like for students our teachers our families and how are we measuring that we do currently have some mock survey materials focus group questions put together that we'd be happy to share with you all as the board if you just looking for more information on what those questions look like um but definitely want to take a different approach than just sting out a survey and saying give us your feedback um because if I've been some of these school buildings I hear students

177a lot say okay we're getting another survey we're going to fill it out we may not see the impact so we really want to be in front of these students administering these questions and surveys so that we know that so that they know that we're willing to hear their feedback and make changes in accordance to that great are we going to be using any other measurements like grades or classroom assessments or even like the map um assessment that we do are we going to be incorporating those as well I believe those will be a part of the conversation I think there are also measures that we have haven't even thought about at this point that'll be a part of that process and it'll be a little bit further down the line okay uh second question

178is you know I heard uh K Cruz talk about the culture in the classroom um how have that impacted this report that you just gave so I'm a lead on the culture in the classroom group and so when I'm sitting in space with our design team our guiding counsel um or even we have our um Community engag we have one tomorrow um I listen to a lot of the feedback that's coming from our black and Native families that we have present there and then try to incorporate much of that into what we're doing in this work with the cbsc because the cbsc is actually um uh a partner in that work and a sponsor of that work and so we take that work very seriously and integrate as much as we can into what we're

179doing and then my other my last question and I have a closing comment um and this is probably for staff do we know a timeline on a director that's going to be hired no uh thank you for that question director Holland I am just still getting acclimated um and trying to understand a little bit of where our budget is and so no but I will have an answer for that um and just kind of a closing remarks you know I I am so excited that this is moving forward um when when I came on board this was almost two years in that there hadn't been any movement so I can kind of understand where we talk about you know some kind of the bureaucratic delays that that have been perceived um this is a a

180great undertaking that hasn't happened before um so I think you know when we're looking at uh uh something of this magnitude Grace you know um has to be has to be has to come into play um because we're doing something that hasn't been done before um kind of speak to I think it was a question around um the community engagement pieces and some of those outcomes that came from from there uh Camille who's in the audience had did a great um report on that and with the finding were so I I asked my colleagues to please go look at that so they can get a better understanding of what the community wanted um what some of their uh parties was um I happen to go to a few of them um during those times and

181you know some of those feedback comments was a standalone place um and from my understanding of when this Bond um came to be it was a concept that the community was supposed to be leading on and so one of those party um pieces was a standalone Community Center um to make sure that our kids have something not just after school but also could be on weekends as well um and during the summer to help ease that U Learning loss that happens during those times and so I just implore you know our our board members to go read those reports that Camille spent years on getting done done a marvelous marvelous job I hate that we lost her um but um you know I just think we we moving forward and it's a great it's a

182great thing that we're moving forward and I just really looking forward to um the good work that's going to be happening thank you director Hollin um I just want to check in with director green so I think that this is absolutely um amazing I'm glad that we're actually here I've been um on the board now for four years um and I'm excited that we might actually be able to get this done in my um in my first you know my my full first term um I often say that it's it's easy to to talk about doing it it it takes a little bit more effort and intentionality to actually do the work um and that's what we're doing right now we're actually doing the work um we're we're going to stop we need to stop

183talking about it would be great if we had this it would be great if we were you know if we were able to pull this off we actually can pull it off we have the funding that was allotted for it um we have space available to us we have a community that is eager to get it um we have students that we know can benefit from it now it's time to just get off the pot and actually do what we can do so that we can get this mve forward so the community can benefit from it um and start benefit from it uh soon in a time when we need it we need a space that where we can come together we need a space that we can call home we need a space um

184where we can we can share our gifts and explore different opportunities so I'm excited for this um I'm excited for the conversation and I look forward to how this is going to transform our our students on tomorrow and thank you to answer that yeah no I'm happy to answer that so uh whatever we uh spend on the building obviously you know from the bond funds goes towards the building all other funds are put back into our um General bond fund that uh we can use to um improve other facilities or it has to stay Bond yeah Bond dollars for buildings unfortunately we're not able to use it to impact the learning environment and I want to thank the team for coming forth and I just wanted to I heard Julius uh director brim Edwards question

185about um um other ask and so it would be great to hear direction from the board on um what you all would like to hear next um so that this conversation can mature I'm happy to jump in I may ask before this meeting is just to see this specific sort of and sort of long-term financial plan so when if you buy a building or make some substantial improvements that um that creates a long-term commitment and obviously a space with no programming um doesn't make a lot of sense so understanding thei the financials of what what that implies and also to be able to see how it's integrated into um our school communities and and sorry one last thing the other thing that I I would want to see is um so having been on the

186board and this got referred and um also leading the bond campaign um there were a lot of things that were talked about but it was also talking about a constellation of school campuses so I do think the question of um is it going to be located a school how do we serve our how how does a non-school location serve students needs to needs to happen um so that we especially if it's connected to sort of a financial ask um so that that's what I would want to see but to me that's a straightforward Ian somewhat like um director split's um question thank you thank you director to pass yeah I just um so there are other very very large development efforts happening all over the country that have some kind of economic um or racial

187benefit um I'm thinking of places like Philadelphia uh lemur park in Los Angeles and so this is kind of one of those it's not a in five years will be done this is a 50-year 100-year investment in the community um that's been kind of ravaged by the freeway and all the other development that's happened in the 50s and 60s and so I I don't have anything that I need to see from it I'm trusting that you know when we're all gone the work is still going to continue to bring back this area where some wealth building opportunities can happen some home ownership opportunities can happen and we can have a safety quarter for the kids and the grandkids and the people that live here now and live here in the past thank you student represent

188kab yeah I think the three things I think I would like to have is just like the cost and amount of staff and like a specific timeline to not only be shared with the board but also our community and then just more student engagement on this project okay I don't think I've heard anything specific that um that I I share those questions nothing specific on my mind that hasn't been brought up except for just um wanting to hear um we've been hearing about a a tone of urgency in the public testimony and I know I feel that too um and so just being responsive to that um when we talk next what's what's the next step how do we get this done how do we get get things going um as quickly as we can

189based on the feedback we're hearing thank you director Holland I'm sorry what was the question if do you have any guidance for like um future updates that would help no director green no I don't have any additional updates that I would need outside of when can we when can we get started that means me last um I guess two questions is just how can I help and also it'd be nice to um I know it's kind of soft at this moment but it'd be nice to also have like I don't know maybe like a list of like Community Partners that are excited to help out just so like so that we have like a I know that you mentioned it here and there and it's been mentioned all over the place but nice to be

190in one spot shows like these are the Our Community Partners potential commun partners that could help run the place and staff it and fund I think that would that' be very helpful to kind of see it all one place thank [Applause] you um yeah thank you very much for that presentation it was very helpful we will now move do people need like a two-minute bathroom break break right let's do two minutes be very quick two minutes on the dot so at 8:53 we will be back one did we make on the no he didn't that's okay I'm a forgiving person so director Wong before we start I just uh this like a point of personal privilege at the beginning of the meeting you talked about executive sessions and having sat in more than a hundred

191executive sessions our executive sessions aren't courtesy sessions at all um they are an opportunity for us to be briefed ask question questions have a discussion sometimes set Direction but they're definitely not courtesy sessions so I just want to correct the record because I feel like it implies that those are sessions in which staff can have them or not but there usually is a very specific purpose and you have executive sessions because of what statute says we can okay well that's something we can discuss offline um all right moving on uh next up we have the consent agenda uh board members if there's any items you would like to pull from the consent agena for a separate vote please indicate that now I have you removed the ones that I asked for in advance okay then

192m braa is there are there any changes consent agenda I will say um you can move ahead you can move the Jackson field trip with the rest of the consent agenda okay then you um um I have more data I'm going to supply it a different date all right do we Sharon do we need to move that back on a motion a second to do that or yes that would be so moved thank you we have uh director split moves and um director my board seconds moving resolution um sorry 769 Oh I thought it was 7056 the Jackson choir to New York that's why I have it in my okay 7 z56 56 all right we have a motion a second uh to move resolution 7056 back into the consent agenda all in favor please

193we're going to vote all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes yes all oppos indicate no no stud representative conavi yes thank you the we have moved the resolution 7056 back into the consent agenda um with a vote of six to zero and student representative canav voting yes okay now we will now uh let's do I have a motion and a second to adopt consent agenda as amended chair W I apologize before you move forward um we would like to go back and look at that res solution number for the separate Jackson field trip I believe there's an Aon board book and then it should actually be 7069 thank you so since we already voted we have to redo it right all right I don't think you need to revote I think

194it's clear that it's a clerical correction that's motion excuse me resolution 7069 okay regarding the Jackson field trip there was a motion and a second and all voted in favor to move it back to the consent agenda so I think it's now clear on the record and you're fine all right great resol 7069 is now move back onto the consent agenda yes sir so now do I have a motion in a second to adopt the consent agenda as amended so moved second director to pass moves and director split seconds the adoption of the consent agenda as Amendment as amended is there any board discussion so just make sure that of all the consent agenda items the two that have REM been removed is the contracts for scansa scansa and Hoffman and also the resolution to

195approve a Senior Chief salary schedule correct okay all right um if there's no board discussion the board will now vote on resolutions 7054 through 7057 7059 through 7066 and 7 070 through 7072 in addition to resolution 7069 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all oppos indicate by saying no student director conavi indicate your vote Yes extenstions the consent agenda as amended is approved by a vote of 6 to Z with studing representative conavi unofficially voting yes all right last uh next up last week we had a request to pull four but now three resolutions off the consent and Jenifer individual cons consideration the contract for the Hoffman construction the contract for scansa construction and um a resolution to approve the senior chief's salary schedule uh kind of before we move on to

196that I just want to a big Applause to Jackson Middle School for being invited to the the National Youth Choir at Carnegie Hall this is an invite uh and not only that but they are also singing one of their own songs um and so it's a very very special occasion and not only that also remember Jackson the The Ice storms last year that caused the damage so a lot of Jackson were working through Portables and so these students not only had to overcome these uh in the craziness of last year but also achieved it and got invited to carnegi Hall so thank you I want to appreciate um Jackson Mill choir and and their choir director absolutely all right um we will start the with the resolution to approve a contract with scansa construction for

197pre-construction services uh for the Cleveland High School mization do I have a motion and second to adopt resolution 7067 expenditure contracts that exceed $150,000 for delegation of authority I have a quick question can we combine those can we combine those two together so we don't have to do them separately uh you would have to make a motion and and and have it seconded and then we can vote on it yes I move that we combine the resolution I don't have the numbers that of both the um contracts that we have before us tonight into into one resolution I second that okay we have director brim Edward let me just be very specific director brim Edwards has moved to combine resolution 7067 and resolution 7068 to a single uh vote we have director green seconds all

198right uh I think we have to vote for it to be combined correct right so um all in favor we're going to vote all in favor of combining resolution 7067 and 7068 um indicate by saying yes yes yes yes yes all oppos in K by saying no student representative canavi yes all right the motion to uh combine resolution 7067 7068 to a single vote has been approved by a vote of six to zero and Sen representative kavi unofficially voting yes so are is there any board discussion um yes I have some questions and I might have a possible Amendment um I've shared um I'll just start with the potential amendment I shared a freestanding resolution have a hard copies if I want to pass it down to you guys but it could it could just

199be a um an amendment into the resolution I can speak to that later but first um I have a question um and they know this this is coming um about the um thank you this is specific to the contract so there's been um a fair amount of discussion um and in the cost reduction framework that we had for um for the bond that the board passed recently it talked about um the reductions in the um the Contracting either like through the Contracting method or at the contractor fee or the general consideration and um can you speak to where those cost reductions might happen or how they would happen um so we we approved this contract tonight and yet we still have those the re requirements around um trying to get cost savings from the Contracting

200method um so wonder if you could share that sure stormmy shank senior director office of school modernization um thanks for the question so these contracts will approve the maximum uh value of the contract for pre-construction services and those pre-construction services are invoiced to us on a time and materials basis so if we want to reduce costs of pre-construction services we can change the scope of those in an amendment to this contract if we decide to do that the majority the vast majority of the value of this contract will be added in amendments mostly in the GMP Amendment and so at that time we'll negotiate the cost of the uh the GMP is the guaranteed maximum price of the cost of construction so we can negotiate and um amend the terms of the contract to try

201to save costs on um General conditions and then the contractor's fee is calculated as a percentage of the um final GMP so if we bring that GMP cost cost down by Saving um cost of construction through any strategy that automatically brings the contractor feed down as well so we're in an effort right now to identify strategies to um to kind of control the costs of General conditions and actually bringing these contractors on board will help us do that because they can help us identify um strategies that are going to improve schedule and um costs of General conditions through the pre-construction services that's the benefit that we get from pre-construction services so one one way that the cost goes down is just for example the board's requirement that the square footage be reduced correct that just

202across the board that will be an automatic um there's this other piece um and during sort of the RFP processes or any way we put can put caps on fees or fee guidance um just curious about exactly how it's how it's done in terms of like reducing the cost with the actual contractor do you wna other than the automatic they just the size of the project is smaller so they get a smaller percentage a percentage of a smaller project the fee yeah so the Dan young Chief Operating Officer good evening um so the fee is establish the fee percentage is established via the procurement so when an RFP is issued the proposers uh they submit a fee percentage and they are scored on points based on that so they win the award based upon what

203they submit and as one of the criteria which in which they are evaluated uh and so that is pretty straightforward fees just as a percentage of the cost of work as far as overall reducing um expenses that go to the general contractor uh uh as as storman was noting we if we reduce the scope that will then reduce the cost there the bulk of the costs that are going to go to the project to this contract are reimbursable costs that are part of the cmgc so it's open book Contracting if you will so if it is an eligible cost we effectively reimburse them so they it's so the oversimplification but the total cost of the contract is the the reimbursable work plus the fee director Holland I um I'm just curious on what if this

204if this passed tonight What expenses will uh be incurred between approval tonight and May 20th and May 20th yeah by the time that Bond passes so from today to the time the bond passed by approving this contract today how much expenses are we looking to th out between the two contracts we don't have the contract cash flowed in that way but correct um but it's not substantial dollars I mean they are going to begin the preconstruction services so they're going to start looking at cost estimates for example of the work they're going to start looking at constructibility reviews um they're already supporting uh the cost analysis that's going on so that's going to continue so there will be some expenses but they they won't be substantive so they're doing this for free they're not doing

205it for free and we don't know how much they're going to charge us for it between now and then we know what their rates are we don't know how many hours they're going to put in over the next eight 10 weeks correct the date of May 20th isn't a milestone in this contract so it's not um you know they never have provided us a uh in their proposal they have not provided us with how much they're how much effort they're going to put into pre-construction Services between now and May 20th because that date isn't um it's not any particular milestone in the in the preconstruction phase so it's not a milestone so if it doesn't pass if the bond don't pass in May that's not a milestone that they will not be doing any more

206work they won't be doing any more preconstruction work after that I would assum uh preconstruction services are funded from the 2020 Bond um I I got that no I got that piece but I guess I'm asking is that even though it was funded out of the 2020 piece we're going to be giving out taxpayer funds now for that but if it don't pass that mean those taxpayer funds is just gone in the wind no preconstruction Services um are we will uh have a benefit from that work product that we can carry forward um when a bond would pass in a future year so it wouldn't be um thrown away work I just I would love to know what that is that would be great sorry what what what is I would love to know what

207I would love to know what that cost is going because I thought I heard you I thought you heard you guys say that they've been doing work [Music] already the h both have been doing work under a small contract that scope was specific to supporting the cost analysis work that's been going on for the last several months so that's a separate contract all right director green uh thank you so I've heard you say that there's that we're still using the the cmgc model and the cmgc model um who's going to what are we putting in place now to ensure that we don't continue to have the level of cost overruns that we have been having and we've been seeing with the with the projects that's a question um you also mentioned that the the way

208the system is the way that it's set up now it's on a u a reimbursement process and so they they they do some stuff and then they come back and they say yeah this fit within the scope of what we're we're going to do so therefore we can be reimbursed but if we had a construction manager a construction manager that was different from the general contractor then the general the construction manager would be overseeing that general contractor to ensure that whatever it is that they're doing Falls within a scope and we don't have that now because they're both one and the same so essentially they're saying that um hey yeah we need to do this and then they're saying yeah we should do this and then we pay for it and then so who's going

209to ensure that that that doesn't happen because based on what you just said they're going to they could put in an unlimited number of hours at this point because we they haven't told us how many hours they're going to put in so they could come back to us and say this is going to cost us you know 3 400 hours every other week or something I don't know what they could come back with and neither do you because you said that we haven't we haven't talked about it but I think that that's something that we want to get um some level of control under so that we can identify um what what this cost is going to look like and then moving forward is it possible that we can have in the in the contract

210or in the documentation somewhere something that says um that all change orders have to come back to the board for approval or um they have to come back to facilities and operation because the change orders is where they're going to is where all the the cost overruns go they create all these different change orders that we as a board never see and then it just now we're 5060 million over and we got to issue so what checks and balances are we putting in place if we're not going to change the cmgc model then what checks and balances are we going to put in place because currently what we're doing doesn't work and we it it'd be great to say that it does but it doesn't and the fact that we have all these cost overruns

211and still delayed projects projects that aren't being completed on time tells us that it's it's not working so what are we going to do what are we going to put in place so that we can ensure that we're not spending more than what we need to spend I'm done that's a good question where to start um I mean I think just a couple of of points off the bat so cmgc is um is when you compare the two most common types of Contracting are design bit build kind of traditional or standard or hard bit it's got a bunch of names and then cmgc there are others those are the big ones in commercial construction spe uh particularly for public improvement work um designment build is really the standard for small or or large straight forward

212projects uh District the vast majority of PPS is Contracting is designed bid build cmgc is really the standard for large complex or even small complex projects um it's been used for all the high school modernization projects uh the cohort around school districts uh is very much the standard other public agencies Willen uses it extensively the city of Portland uses it like it's it's really the standard for this type of work because because it has a lot of benefits um which I won't enumerate I know that the board has materials that that talks about that uh when it comes to costs as I mentioned kind of very briefly and it's an oversimplification is one of the benefits of cmgc is visibility into the cost so a cmgc is really only entitled to eligible costs and the

213contract allows us visibility into their books and also allows us to audit so we audit typically on a project twice we do a a progress audit and then we do a a final audit and if there were a scenario where we overpaid for something that audit would catch that and then they would they' be required to reimburse us so it it has much more visibility into cost and then when it comes to changes to cost so the board will see well if the board approves this preconstruction services this will be an approval and also when when the guaranteed maximum price Amendment comes forward the board will will approve that as well and then any change order that exceeds the district's thresholds for changes that go to the board will also come to the board so

214the district has I want to forget off hand but depending on dollar amounts any change amendment to a contract goes through different levels from project manager to to a senior director to Chief level uh to the superintendent and to the board so those controls are already in place for the district and they apply to all all contracts not just cmgc contracts they bu everything yeah so let me just clarify um just for um everyone's understanding so the preconstruction services is the contract for preconstruction work and then when that's complete there'll be another contract that comes back with the guaranteed maximum price of construction for each School site that is correct there's a negotiated Amendment and that is the guaranteed maximum price so we'll be having this conversation another time once we get past the preconstruction

215one phas yes thank you when do you predict that's going to happen uh assuming the bond passes when would the guaranteed maximum price contracts come to the board for the three modernizations well comes under our contracts say 50% CDs and we I think it has a recommended um level of development on the design drawings but we need to come to an agreement with the the um with the awarded contractor on what point that is in the design so um we negotiate that with them so it's without having a a executed contract with them it's it's hard to know what we will agree on as far as the level of development so the GMP Amendment occurs during the design phase and it's not at the very end of the design phase it's at some um Milestone

216level of development and it be different for the different projects and so we might start construction with um an early construction package something relatively small usually before we actually have the GMP place so it's it's hard to say with specifics because it it depends on the project and you need to have a contract in place and then the the schedule established to to speak with more specifics I'm I'm just curious typically how long does it take the summer I mean just ballp park I'd love to know exactly but uh next spring ballpark you okay with that shooting from the hip I mean it's it's it's ladder in design um because you you I mean you want as much spec specificity as possible but shooting from the hip so it would be 50% of the construction

217drawings completed then right so or 25% or somewhere right there will be a set that is issued and that is the GMP set and that is what is cost estimated from the third party cost estimator as well as the cmgc and then you reconcile those estimates D do you have any questions I I guess I just have one question um just when director I was director green was talking there was I don't know trying to say this as neutrally as possible there was um he was saying what I heard him saying was that this model is not working but my understanding is that maybe some of our high schools were completed on time and on budget is that true like what's the general performance here can you give that or is it not something you

218could share off the top of your head yes so I think there's lots of ways to answer that and and the performance of a project depends on a million factors not just the the delivery method but just as an example the two most recent completed projects where they're completed and they're finalized are Lincoln High School McDaniel High School both of those projects were completed on time and under budget and those were cmgc projects thank you director green I believe that's an old hand it's no it's a new one it's a new one so you mentioned um you mentioned that Lincoln least Lincoln and McDaniels came in um on time and they came under budget um did we did we also have the same process in place with the other schools that that didn't come in

219on time and on budget so I mean it's it's great to point out the ones that did but we've done several so let's if we're going to talk about it we need to talk about it all the way around and not just the ones that make us look favorable so again my questions are um if we have an audit if we have the ability to audit and we audit twice and we we do this on multiple multiple different times then how did we not catch the the cost overruns how did we not know that we were going to be $50 million over if we have all this stuff set up and in place and that we do the you know we're looking at the um the uh the change orders that meet the the minimum

220whatever the minimum Board number is and I'm wondering if that's the 150,000 so anything that's less than 150,000 the board doesn't have to vote on and then if that's the case how many change orders came in close to 1,000 but not quite enough to get the board attention that's why I said I I would want to see all the all the change orders and then you also mention the um the guaranteed maximum price I'm G pause on this one because I actually want to answer before I make a statement um the guaranteed maximum price is that something new that we've done or is that something that we've done with all of our um all of our buildings good questions uh a couple of things I think they um can sometimes be a distinction between so

221a cmgc contractor gets paid costs that that are they're eligible for so they're costs that are specific to the project that that are allowed via contract and sometimes there are legitimate costs that go above the project budget whether it be unforeseen conditions or something so projects regardless of it's cgc or otherwise when you're in the project there can be costs that that become known those are eligible costs that is the owner's risk there is also in instances where a contractor will submit a change order that is not accepted and so sometimes I think we're hearing some numbers of really big numbers those have not been approved those have been requested and submitted but those have not been approved so the district has not approved I can't think of any of of large numbers project I'm

222I'm sorry director G I didn't hear that so we're not gonna pay that $50 million uh we are a claim has been submitted it has not been resolved so there's still a chance that we're goingon to pay the 50 million I do not know what that resolution is going to be all right that's that's fine so the now answer the question about the guaranteed maximum price is that something that we have with all of our um all of our schools a a GMP amendment is a standard um part of any project using the cmgc Contracting method yes okay so if we have a guaranteed guaranteed the key word here in my basic uh my basic understanding is the word guaranteed and then the next keyword is maximum so we have a guaranteed maximum that says

223we guarantee that it will not go above this why are we paying anything above that ever ever under any circumstances see these are the things that I want to understand I'm I'm trying to understand because all the money that we put into this this is money that we can put back into to our elementary schools this is money that can go back into our middle schools this is all money that we can get back in other places that desperately need some love and attention there's absolutely no reason why we should be spending half a billion dollars on a single solitary High School there's never in my mind you said that um according to what you stated that the design bid build um was a a process that was done on most large projects um you

224know large or whatever the case um well the excuse me the cmgc was something that was done on U mostly all large projects but in New York in California in Seattle they're all using the design bid build they're all using that and they're making they're doing larger projects and they're spending less money I'm trying to figure out how do we get to the place where we can get the top-of-the-line school and not spend all the money somebody is getting over on us I don't know who it is but somebody is getting over and I don't want to be got over own we need every dime every dime that can be saved we need to figure out how to keep it in our schools so that that money can go back to help other schools so

225I don't want to spend half a billion dollars on a single School may I may I call for the the order of the day to keep us on track so we have I believe a motion on the table I just have one last question then we are going to call for a vote we are P time I'm going to offer an amendment I think I already let me just ask my one question um will not approving this contract today potentially delay Cleveland and IW Wells wait is this for Jefferson potentially delay our our projects yes thank you director BM mward do you have a a motion you wanted to I I do um and I'm going to start by saying I'm supporting and I've been clear from the beginning I'm going to support the contract

226s tonight I want I want the projects to move forward and I want the bond to be successful um and because I want the bond to be successful um earlier I'd asked for a timeline of the major Milestones between now and construction start and specifically I'm very concerned about the timelines over the next two months um because I think as we heard tonight there's um a lot of uncertainty about the bond we heard from a student who's a committed supporter of um the modernization but a question about what what actually the school is going to contain and we also heard from a former board member with questions about um the decision to to move forward just generally um when I look at the one pager it says we have a 1.1 billion for the rebuilds

227and modernization um and then it lists like four things that's a pretty big category um and I think for most people and I think that includes almost everybody in the school Community it's unclear about how we're going to land this bond in the sense of um making cost reductions so that we have funds availables for elementary and middle schools repair improvements and at the same time um so fiscal constraint and build the high schools that we said we were going to build um but with cost reductions and I know that um I'm G to offer an amendment that is um just to give um Everybody heads up is the the resolved portion with a couple changes um so you you can just skip the recital because we have um uh a uh already a resolution

228before us um but the reason I'm offering this which really lays out over the next um several board meetings um updates on some specific topics about how we're going to deliver cost reductions but at at the same time deliver um the schools that we said we're going to deliver which is a modernization um keep moving Deborah um can I get to the motion please yeah I'm getting there I'm explaining what it is because um when I went to the Cleveland dag meeting um last week um I heard how thoughtfully we're going to move through the process and how we're going to deliver the project and the cost reductions and still deliver the things that the Cleveland School Community wanted and I feel right right now we have very little between now and when we're asking

229voters for frankly a huge ask and yes it's it's a tax rate renewal but that's a pretty significant rate that it is just in of itself and I think we owe it to people and we ow we owe it first to the school communities that they um understand what they're voting on like whether they're getting the school that they thought they were going to get and the B Community needs to understand whether we're going to have cost savings which we've told them they're going to have and maybe generally how much they're going to be as well as um you know that that money will be spent on elementary middle schools so the the resolution um the resolved would be and I don't I don't think I need to read it I'll just tell you that

230I would have the the first three which are laying out um the April the March 18th board meeting the April 8th board meeting and the April 15th board meeting um really specifics on the process so people understand what's happening behind the scenes because essentially we said we're going to go get cost reductions and then most information just disappeared and the last we heard is that we're going to get it on May 1st so really this setting out mainly a process by which our school community and voters and taxpayers will be able to see sort of the process by which we're moving through this and I have a lot of confidence in our team again based on the meeting I went to the other night that they'll be able to lay out you know where we

231can make reductions and where we can't where it might compromise the school so um it would be one two and three and then the fourth I would add a I would um eliminate number four because it sounds like that's the guaranteed U maximum price and that's going to happen next year but I would add a new a different number for just regular reports and updates on the cost reductions will be brought to the board through um the end of May um I think that's the minimum requirement that we have and frankly our next our next meeting is six days before the voters pamplet deadline line and we can't have more meetings where people don't understand um and out in the broader Community where people are confused about the size of the high school what we're

232offering and what our our process is and to to me this lays out just a process by which we we'll be able to provide that as much information as we have which is I think what we owe our community between now and the so to I have a point of clarification yes dor green oh holls so has his hands up sorry well I have a point of clarification though go for it are we not going to finish answering the question that was asked uh no we we're trying to move to a vote and then um director B Ms proposed a uh motion or put a motion on the table I can't vote without my questions being asked uh we need to vote on this or sorry we need to see if there's a second to

233this motion first and if if we vote on this motion first to move it off the T or onto the table or off and then we can vote on the original question of the um the contracts so the is there the motion information Point information yes so are you saying we're going to do a second on the mo get a motion a second on the on the motion that director B Evers have and then we're going to answer the question that director um green had I I think what he said I think um is that we would vote on the amendment up or down and then we'd have um they there's been a um a calling of the question um but calling the question I think can be um we can call for a vote

234about whether we want to end debate because um the debate only ends um when a majority of the board decides should be ended I think you have to appeal it but yes okay so we are now um the mo there's a motion on the table um I didn't get I didn't get clarification on my point of information we are going to see if the res um the motion is seconded and then we will vote on it if it goes up or down if it is approved or not then we will go and vote on the contracts all right the motion is in the document that director brim Edwards I just want to be clear has provided under therefore it be resolved numbers one two three and five and a new number four a replacement number

235four would say regular reports and updates on the cost reductions will be brought to the board through May 30th and that 31 is there a second can I ask a question second can okay there we go never mind we we need a second first and then we can we can discuss it is there a second second all right this is on the table board just uh questions one each please uh I'm going to make a comment then ask a question of this person I asked permission um so first just my comment is I think um I'm really comfortable having this sort of regular reporting Cadence um everything that's laid out here is information I think that would be really helpful um I think that I'm trying to think of how to say this as diplomatically

236as I can and so if it doesn't land that way I'm sorry I'm doing my best here but I think that the more that we are arguing and sort of um continuing to relitigate questions I think that the harder it's going to be to do the good work that I know um the chair and director brim Edwards and the rest of us are all doing to actually pass the darn thing so I want to say that I'm totally fine with this resolution but every time we have these updates I hope that we can consider how our um attitudes about the bond are reflecting overall on the desire we have to both pass the darn thing everyone here voted for it I didn't but I would have and um and so balancing that with the desire

237to like have accountability and be good FAL School Steward so I think there I hope we can find that balance and try to approach this work with that in mind like with like a helpful attitude and a good stewards of public dollars attitude hand in hand and with that I would like to ask the question too of this since this is all new to all of us the superintendent looking at this document do you have any things that you would think might make it um more doable or do you have any things that you would maybe change about it to make it so that you'd feel it's workable or do you feel this is workable as is to help the community see the progress we're making on like accountability and the the um Cornerstone report

238someday I'll get it right did I get it right yeah Cornerstone report yeah it's a great question I fully support the resolution I think that we can meet the expectations um I was thinking uh like the guaranteed maximum price I just wonder if there's like a uh guaranteed presentation time only because the amount of time and effort that the staff uh puts in so I think I'll probably build some parameters around how we receive questions and then when and and then the answering of that on those dates that's specified because I'm sure you all want more work going into the actual Bond program than the preparation for the meetings but I actually think this is really good and I appreciate director brim Edwards for bringing it forward and uh were're happy to uh be available

239for presentation and questions within that guaranteed maximum time frame and just to clarify I um we replace that when um the number the old number four um because they said it wasn't going to um probably be till next year so it no I I was maybe I maybe I was being factious I was just saying that I love this we will be prepared and I just want to make sure that there aren't expectations that you know these are like twoh hour reports in question and answer so anything we can do to receive the questions with the expectation that the response to those questions will be on these days and not you know separate work where we're responding um over multiple days because these are short windows and so I really want to support the team

240in being able to do the work of the schools in the bond um so that's but I I we support it ready to go thank you I just um would like to recognize myself thank you uh so um I have some issues with this one thing I do want to also throw out there is that you know as because of the timeline I am willing to if we do not uh approve this tonight or would like to prop po postpone it I am totally open to having our work session to actually actually have uh some proposals of this resolution then I worry about having this passed right now because this was literally sent to us 38 minutes before our scheduled meeting which means two things number one uh we didn't have time the board most

241of the board did not have time to go over this and and and have a chance to kind of review it number two staff has not had a chance to go over review it to see if there's any unintended consequences it could come from it number three because it was done so so uh right before the meeting we also don't have a chance for public comment in case there are public comment and you know noticing so I worry this is a very dangerous precedent to have a resolution to be put so close and not only that but it doesn't necessarily directly relate to resolution 7067 nor 7068 um and it is you know a different topic so um my thing is if this resolution does not approve tonight I am totally fine with us having

242revisiting this resolution and other proposals in our work session meeting in the in two weeks and the reason for that is because I am allowing that exception because yeah Election Day is coming up and we need to figure something out and there are some I do I do want to say I am not against the idea I think there are some good ideas in here and I think there are some ways here that could actually help solve the problem help the team in terms of like uh guiding the design advisory groups um and and kind of putting the onus on the board instead of the staff um so I think there are some good ideas here um I I am requesting that if we do not pass this we have more time next to actually

243review and kind of consider proposals for our next meeting so I will be voting no okay I'd like to responded to that also you've already spoken um I we we got this at like 5:22 or 5:32 and I like you really enjoy I have to read everything twice I have a a reading disability and so I need to read everything twice I need to read it slowly and I also need to read it when people aren't talking it's just hard for me to track and so I did see the email come in but I was traveling and I haven't had time to really digest this the way that is best for me um I like it generally I'd also think that it would be better with with more time um and so I I'm not

244going to support it tonight but I would be I would love to Workshop it and and make sure that it's going to work for for everybody couple things um so I asked for a timeline on February 24th I got a response that there wasn't going to be a timeline I asked again and I got another response like actually no response and I asked the superintendent and osm for that and um because I became concerned when the communication went out to the Brader School community that on May 1st that was when we're going to get the update which of course people will have ballots in their hand way too late I'm very opposed to to having a work session because I think it'll do exactly what director split just mentioned first of all this should have

245been done in January and the fact that we don't have this we don't we haven't had a functioning facilities committee that's meeting on a regular basis it wasn't even on the agenda item and frankly this afternoon at three o'clock it's like we're gonna have a bond update that got added to the agenda and so um and these you know the contracts didn't go were added to the agenda later as well so if this is been front-loaded in the process when we actually should have done it um I wouldn't have had to bring it and frankly I got concerned because I'd asked for a timeline that bumped things up earlier in the process and um I I didn't get a timeline so and then I had asked to have this on the board agenda the board

246agenda that was sent out to the board members it wasn't on it um I asked again before agenda setting got no response and so I sat down this morning and drafted the agenda and drafted something that was responsive and I frankly think this is like the bare minimum that we need to communicate to our community it's useful information like I say I left and there was big information that was shared at the Cleveland meeting and because the community had an opportunity to like hear about it and kind of work through it like they left on the other side with a yeah let's like keep going and I feel like our broader Community needs that yes thank you for valida validating that I mean it was hard I think when we left the meeting you were

247like I'm processing this but everybody's moving forward and I think that's what our community needs to do because otherwise you know we haven't had one person come sit here besides the you know Cleveland team and say they support the bond and this is giving our community needed information so I would hope that um the superintendent's um saying that they she thinks that this is a doable thing um of course um stormy and Dan if you had you think this isn't doable there's piece that's not doable um Sher if I may I I think um we certainly understand the need for urgency and we are more than happy to provide updates and provide the best information that we have available um and no we're not going to be able to meet board uh material cut offs

248for the March 18th the cut offs two days from now in the March 18th we're not going to have good cost data yet I just like expectations we're happy to bring like the best we got we will bring the teams that they will present and they we'll talk through those things but uh the reason that we were targeting when the question is is what's like the next step with the board was March 1st because that was or May 1 or before May 1 was the time that the teams needed to receive the information that was provided from the board meet with stakeholders prepare design options get feedback from District leadership because we have we have District leadership that needs to make get that information make decisions then send it to third party cost estimat estimators

249that all those things take time and what I think what I'm absorbing is we more updates even if it doesn't have as much uh detailed information will be helpful and so we're happy to do that as just want to make sure expectations wise some of it's going to be hot off the presses if that's acceptable and I appreciate that that you might not be able to meet our own requirement for 12 days in advance we don't have that kind of time with this schedule right so thank you for setting an expectation that it might be less than what we're thinking or maybe some of us are thinking very detailed and some of us are okay with more broad information yeah I was just wondering um so I just I think I just assume that whatever

250what um um so I just assumed what Dan I'm sorry I just want to call him Dan but yes I'm sorry um that we would bring whatever we had available to share and I guess I just wonder um I hear the posting deadline that's a real thing if we can just meet whatever is legally required to post for a public meeting I think that can solve that and I wonder you know if there's a timeline that we can commit to if there isn't any comfort with the resolution is there just a timeline that we can commit to for our next public meetings that we have um and and we'd be prepared to to bring whatever um is available and posted during the legally required time to post dor legal requirement for posting I think it's

251very reasonable and I think what I might have just heard is an offer to do what's laid out in the resolution with the public notice piece added without a resolution and I also hear we have people on the board who aren't comfortable with voting on The Resolution tonight which would then delay when the work would start if we have to wait for the resolution so I'm wondering if we can feel comfortable with this this is the plan we're going to do this you get the timeline but maybe not the resolution just so we can keep moving and then we can do the resolution next time if if you want so that way everybody can be comfortable with moving forward um in that helpful team-spirited fashion I'm hoping we can find okay director Hollin yeah I

252just want to uh I'm I'll be supporting this as well um it's just common sense to have reports knowing that is not going to be know a full comprehensive um reporting all the time but just making sure you know what what director was talking about you know getting this stuff done and how we present to the community you know this is one of those ways that we present to the community this is one of those ways that we get community Buy in to pass the bond and so some that's so common sense like this it should be a no-brainer that we put something out here we get regular reports especially since we do have a short window even you know since we have a short window I I don't see the big issue with with

253getting some reports to make sure that we're putting our best for front forward to do our you know have our due diligence as we're doing this stuff and I'm and I'm going to speak to uh director split's comment you know doing due diligence having questions to get understanding is never a an issue it should never be an issue especially when you look at other municipalities that have rushed things that have not done things and have overspent or misspent we need to make sure that we are getting an understanding of what we're doing so we are not in that position so we're not in that way of using taxpayer funds differently than they was attended for all right thank you we will now vote on um resolutions presented by director brim Edwards numbers one two three

254five and the modified number four are we just voting on the amendment just Amendment chair chair uh there isn't Clarity in number three you need to excuse me uh April 15th April 22nd just for resolution purposes April 15th okay Bo number three April 15 thank you so we will now vote on the amendment this proposed by director B Edwards and documents number one two three with the addition or edit of April 15 number five and number four with the uh amendments all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes I'll opposed please indicate by saying no no no uh student represented canav your vote Yes abstentions all right the amendment as uh has passed by a vote four to two with student representative Canvey voting yes all right now we will now uh move

255to the vote of resolutions 7067 and 7068 as amended I I believe that um director Hollands still was asking about it and I know there was a call to um call a question but I think that's um open to discussion not just necessarily shut shutting it off are you asking to appeal the call the question yeah I I would like does the majority of the board want to cut off the discussion to allow director Holland to Green I'm sorry do I have a second do I have a second for the appeal second director green seconds all right we will now vote on the appeal for the call to question uh all in favor please a yes vote means that we will continue discussion a no vote means that we will vote um all in favor

256of the appeal please Inc by saying yes [Music] yes all post please Inc by saying no no no no student represent kav yes okay well I will it is three3 tie I don't know what that means I think that I think it passes because we have student represent I'll shift M to a okay if I can get um Dan to acknowledge in the um while he's at the Das that he's going to send me an email indicating that um the what other schools did we have maximum price agreements for all of our other schools and how we had how we dealt with the cost over run I really just want my questions answer that's why I'm not ready to to close it up but if he can send me the answers to that then then

257we can move forward I was going to vote for it I don't have a problem with what we're doing I I know that we need to we need to get this done I mean it's it's an absolute must that it has to happen but at the same time we also need transparency we we need to be able to show our community that we value every dollar that comes in and we're going to we're going to make sure that we do exactly what needs to be done with it and they can take that all the way to the bank that's what I want from them it's fine the appeal has passed so we we can ask questions and continue the discussion will you send an email I will send an email I will commit to that

258director Holland okay well I I have like five more questions that I was saying that we're not supposed to direct staff but maybe we'll make an exception this time but we can direct the superintendent to direct stuff director Hollands I was joking I'm done I don't got no more questions all right director Bim medwards it's just have more questions all right we will okay what was all that for so for an email that was great all right um we'll now unprofessional Ed I don't think that I don't think that comment was necessary it wasn't for an email it was for clarification thank you for the clarification I was giv me a Sor yeah yeah thank you all right it is for a clarification and I apologize resolution 7067 oh sorry we'll now vote on resolution

259767 and resolution 7068 as amended all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all post saying by saying no student representative canav your vote extenstions uh resolution 7067 and 7068 as amended has passed by a vote of six to zero with student representative can savey voting yes um next up we have sorry um next up we have the uh resolution where am I 7058 the approval of senior chief's salary schedule um before we move that I would like to make a motion to uh postpone this agenda item to a future board meeting so moveed thank you I have director Wong moves and director split seconds can you explain why you are moving it to a future board meeting um I was um the superintendent has indicated that more time to explore these options would

260be helpful I'm happy to answer that too if that's okay if that's appropriate um so I've gotten some really good questions about uh the cost savings the reduction separate from the reduction for our um decline in enrollment and other cost-saving measures and so I want to have an opportunity to prepare um a more detailed report that shows um a separate separate information on how we're uh reducing costs to create um a structure that I feel will increase Effectiveness and efficiency at central office um so I just need some time to prepare some documents and have a more detailed um workc chart so that you all can have uh the information you need to to um make a decision yeah I want to speak to the motion um so I'm glad that's happening because when I

261asked for the org chart it this seemed front loaded when we're looking at a lot of school-based cuts to be um frontloading salary increases at the most senior um staff level um and the other concern I have like last year this was like removing the deputy superintendent which is a similar um sort of similar position was sold to the community of reducing a layer and that's the central office cost reduction so a little bit it seems like it's coming back um so that will be a question I one have answered um the other thing is I'm concerned that um we still have um on the you the district is still paying the last permanent Deputy superintendent um since her departure um this is the Deputy superintendent for business and operations um since she's and she'll

262be on the payroll at least through June 30th 2025 we've paid her firm um over $200,000 so um I'm concerned just again about we were sold that they were gonna that the pain in schools Al those are going to be pain in the central office and one of the the changes was we were going to be removing that layer so those are some of the questions of course I'm going to support um postponement because I didn't support having it here tonight but um I think we need to be it needs to be laid out I we don't need to do it um it just needs to be shared like how it makes sense and everything else um we're doing and then also at how it makes sense in terms of how we're pairing our contractors

263with our actual senior staff yeah I appreciate that and I just I want to make sure that um it's clear there's a couple things that I'll unpack but not not here obviously that's not an agenda item but we do want to make sure that we get clarification because we're not continuing to pay for a deputy and I know that an inter temporary superintendent came and made a decision about a structure in an organization that would impact a superintendent from years to come and it was always expressed as if um a superintendent coming in would have the decision right and so I remember and I just I I'm going to send the information and I was thinking about this today and I was remembering um my interview day uh and it was such a special moment

264and I remember you all saying that one of the most important jobs that you all have as board members is hiring the superintendent and I just hope that you all stand with me that it's not just hiring it's also about retaining and making sure that I'm able to do the job that I'm hired to do I will tell you having a direct report of 14 individuals will signific ific L impact my ability to be in classrooms to participate in listening sessions to be able to be out in field doing the work that we need to do you know by getting out early and often in our budget engagement we were able to hear firsthand from Educators from principles about some of the impacts that they were seeing we went through those ISR reports to schools

265one by one and made significant changes while we weren't able to give everyone everything at this moment we're getting out we're we're we're doing all that we can so that we can make sure that our classrooms are um are better places not only for our students but for our teachers and our support staff so I I am I am passionately excited and ready to bring back an item with more information and I just hope that you all hold that of course the financial management or oversight the stewardship of the district the creating policy but I want you all to remember what you said to me on the day that you hired me which is the most important job that you have as board members is hiring the superintendent and I don't see myself here for

266a year or two I see myself here um for the next 10 years um this is the place that I want to be and I want to make sure that I'm supported and I am hired to do a job that you need me to do and so I look forward to bringing back the information that supports some of the things that I said may I share something really briefly a little bit uh tangential um after our walkthroughs and our leadership went to lunch with a friend and on the way out was trying to Scurry out ran into four P members who were also having coffee and um they gave some really good feedback and I think you should they were like gosh we're seeing you know Dr Armstrong out in the schools that's kind of

267rare and I just wanted to share that with you that it it is being noticed these were um from I'm trying to think mostly North and Northeast Portland schools so it's you know you're you're out there and you're new still you're you can still say you're new and um your your service is being noticed thank you I especially hear that from students as well thank you director Hollands yeah I just wanted to uh comment on that as well you know and this is and and I and I raised this question uh during the time of um when we had the interum superintended a far you know every everyone we talked to when we went on this when we had the in superintendent that it was a responsibility of the board to support the superintendent and

268making sure that she or he or she have whatever she needs to be successful I was opposed for this the interim superintendent making those type of personnel Cuts they did them anyway um because this is what you get now you get a superintendent who's coming in who is not able to build the team that she needs to be successful for our kids and that's the thing these are our kids we want her to be successful for and this is why you don't and it's common practice you don't have interim superintendent Letting Go Key Personnel that a superintendent usually comes in and builds around for them to be successful I think that was one of our fails that we've done thus far and so to deny a superintendent to come in to be able to build

269a team around her to be successful to make sure our kids academic levels are going up I don't think that's I don't think that's the position we need to be in as a board I think we need to make and understand the Optics the Optics is terrible absolutely but you know what's more terrible is the academic progress of some of our students our black kids our brown kids our Native American kids that's the bad Optics not that that she needs some she needs some more support in order to do her job the bad that's the bad optic that we should be prioritizing that we should be worried about not what it looks like during a $40 million deficit the the the everything we should be focusing on is our students our students is the one

270that we have to do a literacy program for our students are the ones that we have to raise math skills for our students the one we have to have for know CTE and getting them up to par and be ready for the workforce not whether a superintendent needs some additional support and help to do her job that's what our focus should always be is our kids not what it looks like not what it looks like politically not what it looks like just to everyone else what what everything we should be focusing on is what our kids are and our kids are not performing the way that they need to be and that should be our motive that should be our our motivation our North Star to to making sure that we have just like we

271want our teachers to have everything they need to make sure our kids are successful we need to make sure our superintendent has everything she needs to be successful because at the end of the day the kids is the one that suffers from people not having support thank you director Holland all right um I appreciate your comments I we are unless there's other board discussion we will now V vote on the motion sorry we'll vote on resolution 7058 to be postponed to a future board meeting is that no I'm sorry did you have a motion for that just yes a motion thank you yeah it's okay all right yeah so the motion and it was seconded yes so the motion yes so now we are voting on the recommended uh proposal to move resolution 7058 to

272a future board meeting postpone all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no no no student representative kavi yes all right the proposal to move postpone resolution 7058 to a future meeting has been approved by a vote of four to two with student representative canav unofficially voting yes um for the sake of time I am asking the rest of the board members if you be okay if we move the board committee and Conference supports and other business to our work session in two weeks yes I'm good with that all right all right with that then this meeting is adjourned e