001all right good good evening good evening everyone this public spe oh no this is speci the public meeting of the board of education for April 2224 is called to order we want to thank everybody for being here we want to thank everybody for being here um there's a lot for us to get through so if we can ask everybody to keep U keep your voices down we would also um remind everybody to keep your signs um low and not try to block anyone's view um we would there's a lot that we're going to go through so again thank you and we appreciate you being here thank you um all items being considered this evening are posted on the PPS website under the board and meeting tabs this meeting is being streamed live on PPS TV
002service website on Channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for any all replay times thank you guys for all being here this evening before we get started I'd like to inform uh my colleagues and the public that we might have some IT issues tonight and we might be using alternative recording and streaming methods um just want to make sure everybody understands that um this this issue should be oh this isue should be resolved um by our next public meeting also wanted to share a few reminders I see that we have a large crowd this evening and in order to ensure safety please keep walkways and aisles clear we also ask you to please be considered of those around you and keep any signs below chin level
003additionally I would like to emphasize that our primary objective here today is to engage in business activities and be in service to of our children if we cannot conduct our business in this Norm in this room we will move we will move our meeting to another location this action has this action will be a detrimental effect on those who came here with the intentions of participating in the public forum as children in the audience we're trying to model what respect looks like for them and I'm a great cook all right interim superintendent hus would you like to introduce our performers for this evening thank you chair Holland it would make me very happy to do that tonight we have sixth through eighth grade students from Cesar shop is Band program here tonight and with their
004teacher Laura wo Miss wo would you like to say a few words about your program and what they'll be performing this evening good evening everybody um again my name is Miss wazo I am the music teacher at Cesar Chavez uh glad to be here with all of you we have two songs for you this evening that we will be performing at our spring concert in May the first song tonight will be Dragon Dance the second song we're going to perform for you is called work speed and these are sixth and seventh graders that are joining us tonight from our Band program thank you for having us tonight we hope you enjoy our performance all [Music] right e [Music] l [Music] the [Music] B e [Music] the [Music] the [Music] thank you let's give him a
005round of applause again all right continuing on our high note um we want to take a moment to recognize um Bon girls and roselt boys basketball team I want to also acknowledge that we have many students at PPS who are deserving a recognition and we are delighted when we take time to pause and celebrate our students because that's who we're truly here for um you can't expect that we will be hearing more of our student achievements in the future um the goal is to start being able to recognize our kids in the public form um as well and so superintendent hus would you please start us off yes thank you chair Holland I have to say it's been a really exciting time to coming into PPS and see all the energy around these two teams
006and all of the athletes and Scholars and Poets and musicians that we have and I'm sure I'm forgetting naming the group uh but these particular two teams that competed in the state championships I unfortunately was out of town when those final Games took place but I heard many many exciting comments and were captivated by the strength in these two teams and following the final scores our senior director of Athletics Marshall H Haskins is here this evening to introduce both the coaches and their teams all right here we go here we go to be here uh to celebrate um the successful a winner athletes um I'm glad that we're able to celebrate them and I'm glad Dr I mean director Holland uh I recognize that there's some other athletes who need to be recognized as well
007and hopefully we can get them here in the next two and three board meetings um otherwise I'm going to get a lot of emails at the for sure bring them all bring them all uh but tonight we do want to celebrate the the the success of two of our teams um first I'd like to introduce uh principal Wilson from Benson High School to come down uh and I I like to acknowledge the athletic director Jessica Russell she might or might not come down but hey Curtis you guys gonna come gu not he's not gonna say anything okay so with that being said I like to introduce Eric Knox uh he's been here before as a state champion so I know he's a little disappointed for second but uh second is better than 50 53rd right
008so Eric can you come down and say a few words on behalf of the very successful F High School team come on down team yeah come on down [Applause] I I I get emotional when I think about my girls um I'm reminded of a quote that says what we are waiting for is not as important as what happens to us while we wait 10 years from now nobody's going to know if we want a state championship or not I was just down at Oregon State where I played and uh we celebrating a coach who recruited me there and it was a bunch of my teammates none of us talked about games we won none of us talked about Awards nobody talked about who went first round who played in the league any of that we
009just remembered us and what the process me and when I think about these girls who live in what USA Today calls the whitest midsize city in America say that being black and being black and female representing not only their Community but the state in a way that often times in girls basketball in this state doesn't typically see black and brown girls these girls did it with such Pride such dignity such Grace it were joy to coach and when I think about them I just think about the moment when you're coaching and you have that game that is the defining moment of who we are and the character built inside of us that embodies the spirit of what we want ultimately all of us want when we're educating coaching mentoring young people and Our Moment was
010when we played clacken his high school and clacken high school hadn't lost to Oregon team in two years they had never one kid in the country nobody thought that they could be dethroned our girls hadn't beat them all all through high school and finally prior to us getting on the bus getting ready to play in the semifinals with all the OD stacked against us the moment for us was them understanding that they were enough that they didn't need to do any extra anything to go there and be clist a team a school that's far more resourced than us far more celebrated than us far more seen than us and to see these girls show up on that stage with the bright lights on a college floor in the semifinals at the state tournament and to
011do what they did was our state championship and I wanted them to walk out of that building so that they always remember no matter how many goliaths they gonna face in their life you ain't got to do anything extra just be the beautiful brown black girl that understands who her power is and that she recognizes that she is enough to not only win a ball game but to win life and that's that's that's greater than finishing first at state for these girls to move out of PPS out of these school districts all of them are going to college some of are first in their families to to be and do what we know they're going to do Beyond this and create a foundation for that to happen is beautiful and so can we celebrate cuz
012all of us wrestle with are we enough in life to have these girls represent the pill the P to see that fan base and to see girls basketball elevated because of these girls who had to play with that kind of pressure because they don't just play for the community they play for a wealth of young black Middle School and great school girls that come and are inspired by them and end up wanting to go to a p high school so let's give our vincon high school girls basketball team they follow so before you guys hold on we going to take pictures but I wanted I want to give you guys a certificate and it says outstanding a athletic achievement recogn recognition is presented to binon girls varsity basketball team for outstanding achievement and Stellar sportsmanship
013for the 20 2023 24 basketball season by the Portland Public School Board of Education on April 2nd 2024 and I was at the games I seen the sportsmanship I seen the class that you guys did and I am honored as a fellow alumni bu Tech to present you guys with this and we take a [Laughter] picture e [Laughter] a yeah I gota I gota you got to know who their names are say their name say their Nam here we go so we're gonna start with our our our sophomores let where's our oh we got one freshman I forgot let's give it up for London D step forward London next up is uh Jaden young let's give it up for our sophomores J young Helen Johnson [Music] marar m one last one we got let's bring
014up another sophomore real quick Michaela let's give it up some love for Michaela go let's give it up for our seniors our fearless seniors Liv Olivia Heath yeah let's give it up for Mariana hashimy and arm step forward let's give it up for Trinity Alex and let's give it up for First Team all state mahogany Chandler Roberts and then I want to give it up because we can't do this without our coaches and uh I I was hoping one of our other coach is going to get here but he's not going to get here so let's let's give it up for Kenneth cookbook yeah let's give it up for our other Fearless assistant precious Alex and then my right-and man Dexter lur let's give it up again thank y'all for coming and thank y'all for
015celebrating our ladies deserve it y deserve it what Eric uh I think you said I want to reiterate that um for that group of girls uh many of them going to college to play basketball but many of them are just going to college they're all on track to graduate they all have very good grades they're all represent what we want student athletes to be so can you give them another hand [Laughter] please um our second team that we like to celebrate um from the true north you know okay at least har and I know okay all right from uh from Roosevelt uh as Roosevelt rough writers and their principal ktie parman can you come down principal parman and um with her um I'll give them the mic but with them uh one of the neat
016things you have when you have a community that really supports uh their school you're in which your state representatives want to come and celebrate with you so tonight we have a state representative Nelson from North Portland who'd like to come down and say a few words am I supposed to speak now or are you supposed to speak all right good good evening Cher Hollands member of the Portland Public School Board uh I'm state representative Travis Nelson and I'm here tonight because like everybody in this room I'm extremely proud of the accomplishment of the Roosevelt High School boys basketball team um North Portland we um are just extremely proud of their accomplishment I know that they did not make it to the final goal but that said making it to the state championship is a phenomenal
017accomplishment and we give our congratulations and thanks to the boys basketball team and their coaches good evening H thanks for having us here tonight I want to make it really clear that we are the Public School state champions in boys basketball um and I will tell that to the Central Catholic principal and I see her in a couple weeks at a meeting so it's public record uh I just want to make sure that you all know that these young men are have been phenomenal on the court but also phenomenal off the court so these folks that you're going to meet tonight are leaders in our building they're leaders in our classroom they're leaders in our community uh every single time there was youth basketball at Roosevelt High School these young men were there keeping score
018talking to the sixth seventh and eighth graders and I'm so proud of our coaches because they're not just building a 912 program they're building a 612 program and the boys at George middle school and asra and Cesar Chavez and Oley green talk about wanting to come up to Roosevelt and play for Coach law and that's what we want to build in North Portland so I just want to say congratulations to all of them and turn it over to coach law yes we'll turn it over to coach la well uh good evening every Everybody uh it's an honor for us uh to be here and uh one thing that we really focused on as a team when we started putting this stuff together when I got got higher um is we want to be committed to
019being better man um and that was and that and that was our biggest goal we wanted to use basketball as a vehicle and a tool and a resource to be able to do that um and also just change the trajectory of what people perceive of us in the north when they think about the North and our kids and St John's and the area we come from in the demographic and uh the households and the in and the inner city stuff that we in the low incoming families and that we serve right um and we want our kids to feel like there's opportunity in the North and the only way to do that was to change our trajectory right and we wanted to send set that tone not and not just changing the trajectory for our
020community but um you got to be willing to change yourself in that process um and and and that was that and that's what I'm most proud of this team about um trud towood KNX uh spoke to earlier about about the girls is like um we wanted to be uh exemplify being pillars in our community um partnering with and collaborating with our teachers in the buildings with our counselors um it really touched my heart we met with our counselors this year just to see where our guys was at far as getting into college and just making sure our underclassman was on track to graduate right that's that's truly important to me as a leader um in the North Community and when I sat down with the counselors it really it really bothered me that they said
021they never ever had a coach come in didn't even care about these things for this kids and so if we're not caring about that how are we really invested into their success right and so we need to be a zipify that stuff as adults as mentors um as advocates in these spaces for these children so they can dream big again um mental health is at all-time high right now and we understand that and uh and so we did a lot of different things around um tackling our wies and and and and and and and digging deep into our inner s to figure out how we can be our best assets to our communities ourselves and and be a percent better each day um one thing I'm most proud about this team about is not the
022fact that we got to a state championship game um since 1949 which was a historical in itself uh but the biggest thing that I was proud about is is just the individual growth and characteristics of every every young man that I'm looking at um a community service Community Service events and as you guys know it's hard to get these kids off the game and be a part of their communities these boys showed up to all those eight Community Service events whether that was picking up trash whether that was um tree lots whether that was going back into the uh our neighborhood schools and sitting down with young kids and sharing their middle school and Elementary experiences um leading skills and drills for those kids and um so that's the things that that are way more
023important to me um when we walk into school buildings and uh teach teach are telling me that they realize a whole different walk and our athletes they're showing the time showing up the time on class they're all on track to graduate um they all have increased GPA uh we set a bar for our GPA to be a 3.0 because unfortunately we don't think 2.5S get our kids anywhere um and so um one one thing that really stuck to me was just the the feedback from our counselors but just also from our from our administratives and our teachers teachers I got several messages this year about how these guys were showing up in the classroom and doing things that they never simplified up until this year you know these things were challenges for them you know
024we know the phones are a big things the phones wasn't a big thing for us right um that wasn't an issue for us right um and so what I just want to say to everybody man if he if if if there's a will there's a way right but we got to demonstrate oursel a lot better how we show up and what we give our kids access to and so I'm actually I'm absolutely excited about um the opportunities that we were granted this year because of the way these young men behave you know I mean like letting letting a young lady in the door is important to us um letting a senior citizen come in that door and hope that door is important to us um the way we talk to and communicate with each other
025is important to us um that's why our kids are thinking that they're nothing at this point some of them don't want to be here um and we go through a lot of different mental health battles because these kids don't have a consistent figure in their life and that's what I wanted to be I said whether I be a father figure a brother figure whatever figure I need to do man I'm here to do God's work and get these kids across the finish line and so uh we're honored for PPS to let us be here today and be present um I can't thank these boys enough um even on a public speaking thing we know these these boys they just want to talk through their phones right these guys got up and spoke in front of
026several people right and every time I challenged them to be better they stepped up for me and I'm I'm forever grateful I'm committed to the true north True North is uh near and dear to our heart um it's a it's an area that changed my life when I was trying to figure out who my why and my purpose was in life when I moved back here from Texas um and try to find my feet and uh some of these same kids told me coach law this is a purpose for you uh your purpose is us and we appreciate you you appreciate you never giving up on us you appreciate you being by our side and uh the biggest thing that stuck to me man is when we when we lost that championship um just how
027they came and embraced me with love and told me man you changed my life and that's what we want to do man we want to change we want to use basketball and sports is a tour to change these kids' life and make them think they can do whatever they put their minds to and that's bigger than any Championship can ever speak for so and as you're going through this stuff the last thing I say it takes away from a lot of your family writing you just it's The Never Ending Story right but um when you take a chance to just breathe and re-evaluate and look or reflect over the whole season I was just like man I'll do this a whole another year again over and over over again because you know what I mean
028uh you know I I have the differences with the ladies about I lay them coming in at home right I I have I have the the sleepless nights right and getting back up and going to do the 9 to5 and and I just couldn't do that without the energy and the input and the effort in the willingness of this group man this group has truly changed the trajectory of the north to where students feel like they're part of something greater um like Katie had contested to we've been in Middle Schools this year these guys have been big brothers to the younger um ladies in ladies in gentleman in our in our community and so um when they see these guys it's like man I'm going in the stores now I'm going I can't go anywhere
029in St John's Portland without people just honored and privileged to tell me about how great these young men is and what they mean to the nor and they don't ever want us to leave anywhere and we and I told them man we here for life and so thank you guys we appreciate you guys um and let's give a standing ovation for this amazing group of young men oh yeah so we have a another one here certificate for the um the boys team and I am honored and humbled to be able to give this to the Roosevelt boys basketball team as a self-proclaimed honorary Roosevelt [Laughter] alumni but it says for outstanding athletic achievement this recognition is presented to the Roosevelt boys varsity basketball team for outstanding achievement and Stell sportsmanship ship for the 2023 24
030basketball season by the Portland Public Schools Board of Education on April 2nd 2024 and I'm going go a step further to say these boys put the state on notice that everything that you thought was okay everything that you thought this is how it's going to go that day is done Roosevelt is in the building we F to change the whole game and wait till you see us next year you thought you was ready you better get ready hey hey hey hey know s and uh last but not least we want to introduce this amazing team um and so first we'll start with our uh underclassman um our super sophomore series Owens uh we got uh next our uh a junior Omar Eno Mr M um another another Junior we have is jahil brown and another
031Junior Mr second state all team Mr defensive player of the year Owen Nathan and this is one of my guys I tell him uh all the time we G we gonna actually start a business together man he has great etiquette uh Joe West just still sending one going through and I and I forgot my guy my God Mr scap came over for scapo and just growing tremendously minut going to be a key piece remember I told you this today a key piece to the reason why we get back next year Matt Betty um next this is my guy man he's been he's been a part of the north man ever since I've been a part of it has been really true has been going through the grind um since day one continues to show up
032continues to put in the work continues to do what's asked of him and I just really appreciate this young man and a really sacrific for the team we thought he might have had a broken reib um off a charge he took um but man he was a he was a true warrior man and this is who he is man he sacrificed tremendously for this team for the greater good and I'm forever grateful uh Griffin Griff Griff my bad Griff I got to get their names right y'all I never hear the end of it um and then next uh next is my guy man we uh we go through ups and downs man it's like a teeter TI with me and this guy man he's been around with us since day one and I the privilege
033to coach this kid since uh since fourth grade I believe um and he's man he's the true zopier man if I wanted to look for a friend that's really my friend I would I would look to this guy man Malachi Burns this next guy I like to call a late broomer but uh he's a true Hooper we call him the 1V one specialist and that's my guy uh John Fernandez man this is a guy that I've been knowing um before him coming over to Roosevelt this year um I've been knowing this kid for some time I used to work in Oley green for for about five six years and um got to spend some time with him on the Middle School grind and just got to see how much he grew and mature um used
034to always talk to him about how the way to control his emotions and it would make him a better player and he did just that for us this year my guy DJ D re uh man my next guy man is the most underrated but persevere that I've ever seen in my life like everything that's been thrown at this guy he continues to fight he continues to strive for more he continues to get in the gym and just say man I don't care what the narrative is on me I'm writing my own story in my book right um and I'm going continue to do that regardless of whatever other people think right I'm going keep persevering and pushing on and that's my guy C du Mr chance white uh this next person man we we we
035we experienced a lot um in the past year man and overcame a lot and it's truly what I'm saying to you guys like sometimes man um winning games in a and and the fashion that these guys did and and playing basketball doesn't really speak to the testimony of this team and this gentleman was really uh a facing some adversity and some challenges um and we had some rough patches just being being honest and so to see him still sitting up here and getting the opportunity to go play college basketball and the FL rde scholarship when he just didn't really know where we was headed at Point time because like I said basketball can throw you a lot of curve balls too um so for all those guys that um think they too small to do
036anything uh this is a guy that can tell you man height don't matter it's the heart it's the personality it's the characteristics the way you treat people right it's the experience when you encounter people man and this dude is a near dude special dude to my heart and I'm just happy that we got him across the finish line and he's on the greatest things because he's a well-rounded young man and we all face some things right and even when we Face our dark marm man we got to help people see the light and so we call this guy the engine of the team uh utrilla Morris and lastly uh Mr State Player of the Year a offensive player of the year first team offense we so happy when he told us he was coming back
037for Arizona we we had to celebrate um and he's just been a true pillar in our community as well too and having an opportunity to coach a lot of these kids you guys espec thing about this team is right A lot of people have to go recruit to make this happen this is this is people that's been a part of True North since since day one and been in our community since day one they've been playing for our Feer teams they've been representing Roosevelt Community for years so this ain't just something that we try to put together for the north this is the north that you're looking at and and and and this guy truly told me I said you know he had coaches from all over trying to recruit him to come play basketball
038right and I asked him I said do you want to do you want to go be a part somebody else history or do you want to make history and uh and and they their response is like man we want to make this different we want to change The Narrative of the north from High people receive us right we want to change history in general and that's just what happened and uh we couldn't have did it without this man he's like the leader of this team he's the glue guy he's the one that's going to reach out and make sure guys is feeling good and they all right and and and reach out to his Bros and just really glown as a leader used to be a quiet guy um some guys used to think he
039was cop but that is not the case this dude has a a True Heart and he really cares about the North Community in this and every and and and what our kids and our next Generation have to come and he wanted to leave a legacy we wanted to leave a legacy and we doing just that but um Terence heel and uh some of my coaches are just busy because we we're super proactive right so we catching up with the workload so unfortunately man we want to shout out to all our coaches uh that are not here but um the coach that is here man has just been a not only just uh a great coach and a great asset to this team um but has been a really good friend for me and the type
040of friend that's going to tell you when you wrong right not just trying to uh glorify you with being right or just being a part of something right and it takes having people like that on your side to continue to make you be better and keep things in perspective and making sure that our kids and our community is getting the best experience and so I work with a lot of people on this race and sometimes I'm just used to doing it all I know some of us will be in that situation like I'm willing to wear every hats CU that's how passionate I am about these kids um but this guy came right in and said hey man slow down you got a staff how do you need to utilize me how can I be
041doing this I'm here for you my bro are you okay and often times in this work World um when you're just a doer people don't understand how this stuff impacts you on a day-to-day basis too so it's good to have some real ones in your life that's going to say man I'm here to support you too and let you know that I care about you and how you feeling and uh and I want to be a part of this greatness right I want to be an asset I just don't want to be here in the shadow so couldn't have did it without this guy man uh my guy Veron [Applause] o once once again true norf is a real thing we ain't going nowhere we're here to stay and give these guys some love they
042definitely deserve it uh one more thing fellas uh La last but not last but not least we want to shout out I want to shout out our principal KD um our athletic director Willie Williams and when I tell you man that that guy had a red carpet snack service for the referees that ain't like none other I'm telling you we doing something different over Roosevelt minut and it's just not this basketball team man it's our partners it's our teachers it's our admin we are working together collectively for one goal man to build better Community build better Youth and make sure they're getting the things they need to be better people in life and we are forever forever grateful thank you so so as our as our two teams leave I just want to say a
043couple things first um this is an example of what sports can do for a community can do for a group of kids all all kids from both these teams are going to be student athletes in college and that happen because they I want understand they chose PPS they chose V they chose Roosevelt I want to say that again because he used terance as an example terance every private school every public school try to get him to go there he went to his neighbor school right that's what we want to have happen and they talked about the 6 through2 model Eric and Jamar both exemp what we want to have happen in our youth program as it goes on to high school second thing I want to say is how about those two coaches they are
044remarkable and they're examples of they're just two of many coaches that we have in our league that put our kids first whether that's spending less time with their families or bringing them families with them into the gyms whether that's for going vacations getting up at 6:00 a.m. during summer long when they're not getting paid for the commitment to change the lives of kids um and then the last thing IID like to just say is to you as a school board um we're just so thankful for the support that you given Athletics and I'm sure you're going continue to support continue to support Athletics in a major way so we can continue to provide these type of opportunities for our kids and then you can celebrate their Excellence thank you awesome oh man I Che your
045hes go ahead so I don't want opportunity to pass without recognizing that a lot of the achievement of our teams are built on a vision that uh a our athletic director Marshall hin had of building middle school programs giving middle school kids opportunities to play in their neighborhoods and so they'd be ready to go on to their neighborhood high schools and that was a dream of Marshalls 10 to 15 years ago and before that we had no middle school programs um a lot of people moving student athletes moving out of their neighborhood schools and Marshall really has built a program um that gave um built a super strong foundation and um I think gave kids opportunities that as we heard tonight that extend Way Beyond the court so I just want to thank Marshall all
046right all right so next on our list is um inter superintendent H Dr hus would you like to give your report I would thank you chair Hollands and I don't think there's anything I can say to follow that the themes that I'm hearing are Excellence commitment and choice to this community and we have a lot of work to do I'm about halfway through my inome time here but I want to say that I find an enormous amount of talent and potential in the community beginning with the leaders of the community and the Educators and especially the students and I'm very appreciative of my ability to help them learn and grow so I just really want to focus on the positive I think it's a great evening thank you thank you next we have student director
047Silverstein do you like to present your report well first of all I want to thank all the students who attended our annual um District student Summit on March 7th just for context for people who don't know um so as student representative I be the District student council which is a group of representatives from all the DPS high schools and one of our most important things that we do is we plan an annual student Summit which is a dayong event where we invite PPS high schoolers to come and attend um learning sessions where which are student L and we talk about different aspects of the district you know like maybe how PPS works or what Title Nine looks like in PPS um and then this year which is a new thing we had a resource Fair
048where we invited Community organizations to table during lunch and students were able to sign up for volunteer opportunities and then after lunch we also had a panel so thank you to the board members who sat on that panel and answered questions and thank you to the staff as well and then also thank you to the board members who just attended um not to be on the panel but just to see what was going on students really enjoyed that and they appreciated you know just like sitting in the sessions meant a lot to have that support um and I think this is a really really great opportunity because something that we've seen in PPS is that students are pretty isolated to their schools we have school-based identities I would say but I do think we have
049struggled with a shared District identity and we've heard this from numerous students that the student Summit provides an opportunity for you to get to meet students from other scho rules you know if you want to talk about District issues in that setting that's great and that definitely happens but also just to meet them and to know what goes on there um and I thought this was really beautiful a DC member described student Summit as a moment of togetherness and I really think that is what it is um so I'm glad there has been consistent support for that and I really hope we can continue it um but I also want to say I think this is something well also DC members brought this up as well that we should make more consistent because part of
050being student centered is at having student Le spaces um and this commitment to student voice can't be a one-off event we need to continue that throughout the year so this is an amazing opportunity we really appreciate it and we know that it's going to be a part of continuing that um we have DSC helping to expand that role um and thank you to all the support from the board um additionally one thing I did want to acknowledge because I think it's important it's showing it matters to students on March 15th there was a student walk out in support of Hallin um I think it says a lot when students are walking out and we're getting to that point um and I think students really just want there to be more of an open dialogue um
051because I have heard from students and there are very perspectives on this but concerns are arising around censorship and an increase in hate speech so I think I just really wanted to make space for that because that was a student LED initiative and students really deeply care about that and that has been a continued commitment it's not a oneoff there is active ongoing support their Instagram accounts so I do think like making the district aware of that thank you um I would just like to say I was an ATT 10B at the summit and that was the most organized day I I think I've been to in a long time and I've been to a lot of mes so they and I said did you really knew it all and they did it students did
052the whole thing and it was very very well done and very fun for me thank you I I also intended and it was amazing I wasn't able to go for the whole time but I learned something there and that was this concept of an open door policy um where you say I have an open door policy you can come in any time but the balance of power sometimes puts the burden on the person with less power to come and approach somebody with an open door so the reframed it as an empty office policy in other words if you're a leader you should kind of be out in the community but I also wanted to um I just came in when I heard your comment about an entire School community and I think it's really I
053really You' said this before and we are just kind of one big Community we're a conglomeration of lots of little communities but it's we're one school community and I hope I hope to just always keep that friend thank you great great up next um we have student Comics Miss brha do we have any student signed up we do Alice D Leo hipper Diego Romero and Calypso cber all right so before we you guys can come on down um before we begin I would like to review our guidelines for public comments this will be for our students and regular public comments first board thanks you guys for taking the time to attend this meeting providing your comments um public input informs and improves our work we look forward to hearing your thoughts Reflections and Reflections um
054our Board office may follow up on board related issues raised during public testimony you also request that excuse me complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendance office as a Personnel matter if you have additional materials items you would like to provide to the board superintendent we ask that you email them to public comment all one word pps.net that's public comment pps.net please make sure when you begin your comments today that you clearly state your name and spell your last name you will have three minutes to speak you will hear a sound after three minutes which means you will have 30 seconds to wrap up your comments all right ahead where we want to get started first okay uh I suppose I will start hello I'm kpo or caler short copper I'm one of
055Frankie's peers at Franklin High School and I'm one of the co-founders of a large inter School community of Portland Public Schools students for justice in Palestine and thank you and that is what I will be here to talk about tonight hello PPS board members I come here today on behalf of students and the community to demand that you take substantive action to address the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people that has claimed the lives of at least 33,000 people we have sat and waited for you to act of your own valtion and we have gotten not but the crushing weight of your silence you claim that the that your goal is that a graduate of Portland Public Schools will be a compassionate critical thinker able to collaborate and solve problems and be prepared to lead
056to a lead a more socially just world and yet you refuse take even the smallest steps to see this actualized our demand dly as students for Justice in Palestine are direct and threefold first we call on you to act as your position implies and educate on the history of Palestine settler colonialism and Zionism so that we might learn from these actions next we demand you do what you have done previously and repeatedly and issue a statement condemning this ongoing genocide again you have been ongoingly and crushingly Silent on this issue and third we demand that you put your mouth where your money or we we demand that you put your money where your mouth should be and divest Portland Public Schools from all companies participating in and profiting off of the ongoing [Music] genocide specifically
057we ask that you end your contract with Shi International and any at all companies marked by the BDS or boycott divest sanction movement now these should not be that difficult of Demands you have released statements previously you teach if you want to work with money ending contracts frees up money but I suppose you would rather spend more money to put military training in our schools well you but if I need to elaborate on why I think this is important uh there's one Ted Talk that I've seen repeatedly in school and I think it's very appropriate here it's a really good Ted Talk which is probably why I've seen it so many times but it's by chimra and gozi adich it's called the danger of a single story this carries a very important message it talks
058about how if you only get one story you see books as only about British kids drinking ginger beer how how you be Africa as only people living at huts and how you can view an ongoing genocide wrongly and as though it were a war or against terrorists when 33,000 people almost all of them even by Israel's inflated numbers only 9,000 of them were Hamas that is an unacceptable amount of Civilian casualties and you have done nothing you have not spoken out we demand action on that and my time seems to be nearly up so please change [Applause] this thank you my name is Diego Romero I am a student representative on the climate crisis response committee um and I'm here to present a letter on behalf of the climate crisis response committee dear interim superintendent
059and members of the Portland Public School Board as members of the climate crisis response committee we submit this letter requesting that you consider funding additional project management staff to support the implementation of the climate crisis Justice and sustainable practices policy we understand that the district is weighing many factors for this next year's budget and is being required to make hard decisions on Staffing we see the work of the ccrp as crucial to the success of students staff and our Brader community in not only addressing the impacts of climate change but also improving health and safety at the most recent CCRC meeting which is climate crisis response committee our student committee members reported a sobering reality that young people in our schools are feeling hopelessness that goes far beyond the malaise we might consider typical to
060the transition into adulthood these feelings are caused in part by feeling powerless in the face of climate change this should not be the news any of us um to any of us because it has been widely reported that young people are experiencing vast challenges um that previous generations have not the unprecedented conditions ranging from health and environmental crises to social and political upheaval are having deep consequences our students are telling us that the work of the ccrp is of critical importance to them the damage the January snowstorm caused to several buildings is example of the pressing need not only uh because of the disruption it caused um to the loss of use of buildings but also to the mental stress of disrupted learning weather events like those in January be it Wildfire smoke meant extreme
061and prolonged heat or cold are more frequent because of climate change and we'll continue our students need us to find Solutions now we have an enormous opportunity to build on the work of the ccrp by continuing to innovate and by resourcing the work through a combination of thoughtful calculated and continued Investments as stated in the 2023 CCRC board report increasing staff capacity is critical to the success of this policy specifically PPS needs more capacity to manage the sustainability and climate resilience infrastructure project envisioned by the ccrp and work to secure funds for implementing the plans both crucial roles for the possibility to become reality PPS is a national leader having already invested in and making remarkable progress through climate crisis response policy we should acknowledge how truly inspiring this policy is and work to ensure
062is enacted we are here to say that there is hope and opportunity please support and fully resource the implementation of the ccrp thank you thank you hi my name is Alice and I go to LS Elementary your choices to cut teachers at schools are affecting me for example our library assistant Miss Tori is an amazing member of our school but her position as library assistant is being eliminated Library assistants don't just feel bookshelves with books they fill our hearts with memories Miss Tor reads us books about fun things and hard things Miss Tori teaches us history about racism to telling us to be proud of ourselves by reading books she knows the names of every student at Louis second a music teacher is named Mr J last year his position was threatened to be cut
063but our principal fought back and saved him this year his position was threatened again but he was saved he may be threatened again next year why are you so trying so hard to cut him many of the musicians I love including Stevie Wonder and artha Franklin I know because of Mr J who plays their songs for us Mr J teaches us about more than music he teaches us about musicians from all cultures Mr J has a after school club called Bo and beats that has taught years of kids many kids love that after school program including me because some of Mr J's hours you will take that away from me and many other kids many teachers I have learned to value and respect have been cut cutting teachers means bigger class sizes at Louis we
064have two fifth grade classes with 30 two kids in each class this causes stress for the teachers your choices are not just affecting me your choices are affecting my whole school and other schools too my teachers are not just teachers but part of our community like the great ARA Franklin that Mr J taught me about you should r e s p e c t teachers [Music] [Applause] my name is Leo hiard I'm 11 years old and I go to kyos PDX I have cereal policy s policies hard my disability makes it hard for me to walk and run and affects my hating as school kids B me adopted PE teachers make me feel like I can do things other kids can do at PE I feel like and and makes me feel like an athlete
065I think it isn't fair to go without adapted PS they helped me and many other kids need help IC you to find focus on special education students I feel like Porton Public Schools is not caring about them as much as they should I suggest PPS to support and being Kindle to kids with disabilities by giving them all the time and resources they could possibly give cutting adapted p teachers would dism kids health exercise and health regimen I think that the district should find different areas to make hearts if I'm going out of your way to make it so special education kids don't have the right education going too far all of us deserve the same treatment and respect and to have exercise and health and need special education kids need adop PE teachers because all
066children should have an education whether you treated like everybody else because a f because kids of a future of America no matter of their differences [Applause] oh man we got our Merchant ERS everybody else can go home we good oh man okay um once again thank you guys for your comment especially I love hearing from our our kids um next we got to move on to our second reading of of a policy um we have second reading of class SI policy 3.1 0.031 DP uh director GM would you please introduce this item thank you chair Hollands um so this is a policy that had its first reading in August and then um the committee took a break this fall we didn't have committee meetings um leading up to and during this strike um lots of
067um our staff and both here at the central office and in our buildings and um board focused on reaching a settlement um but when we came back um we um considered public comment that we received and um recommended that uh this be uh both first read and approved by the the full board it came out of committee with um a unanimous vote um essentially what the it's a very short policy essentially uh what this does is in the past class sizes that Focus option schools were not consistently aligned with neighbor good school Staffing guidelines and this new language represents the changes that have since we discovered that they weren't aligned um the district has made adjustments so this policy now um aligns with current District practice um which is that we have a district-wide staffing
068model um related to class sizes and class targets and um that's what this policy says that we just will have a consistent practice that um um those uh Staffing levels will be set at the district level versus at the building level and so we we did receive some comment um on it in committee and uh we considered it and we are recommending that the district continue this practice of setting District what the policy um aligning with the current practice which is Staffing being set at the district level versus um at individual School levels all right do I have a motion and second to adopt resolution 6890 so moved second director to pass moves director green seconds is there any board discussion J I was just wonder memb could you just summarize the comment the poliy
069uh we had some uh families that came and um advocated that the um some schools should have and it's primarily um from the Kelly Russian um immersion program that they should have um be able to set the Staffing at essentially they needed more Staffing um so it was it was less of where it was being said but it's was the classic um which we hear from most most of our schools is the sense that we most of our schools would like to have more Staffing and lower class sizes um but get again there's not a reason to have individual schools a class of individual schools setting their own Staffing levels versus and class sizes versus the district any other board discussion Miss Brash is there any public comment yes um we have M Chester and
070all right we have three minutes good evening board members my name is nasville Chester I'm a parent from Kelly Elementary School's Russian DLI I'm here to ask to equally allocate staff and budget in our Russian program at Kelly and vote for measurable and clear policy today on March 18th meeting one of the board members said that there is no difference between Russian other DLI or the focused programs this shows that you did not understand people like us or heard us our program houses the largest Refugee based community and we have no opportunity to develop our program support the community on the same board meeting it was suggested additional FP can be brought in and that new immigrants will not be stopped from entering the Russian program due to the class SI we had already provided
071multiple testimonies how the newcomers were prevented from entering the program in addition for our Kelly School principal FP can be only be requested for the neighborhood programs our principal said my hands are tight and she cannot create additional classrooms in fact for the even in the past prior to this policy I was never able to set the classroom for our Russian program our principal said there is no Clarity around how it is determined when adding additional classrooms and teachers for for Russian program at the start of the year we had 31 students in fact our principal didn't let the student from neighborhood newcomer inside the classroom despite the enrollment letter to the class side due despite the enrollment letter due to the class side in addition these newcomers are place to take an exam the
072process is not easy to to get enrolled in our program one of the issues are School P this is is no stop to handle all these new immigrant issues and answer their questions we had already provided testimonies about them in fact the budget cuts last year were only done in our program our neighborhood classrooms start from six 16 to 20 students and they had two reading interventions in addition they also had their um teachers a at this time our program has the large classrooms because we are the program we have no rights and our school stuff and budget allocation are not equally spread um during our first comment our District representative said our program Russian program starts up high but as it gets a higher grades students leave the program that is true we leave
073the program because we are not supported in our attempt to be bilingual as a result we are forced to leave the program as our education is not successful since there is no measurable and clear policy regarding our program there is no there is unwelcoming uh unsupportive undertone in our community in the school I would like to conclude urging Bo board members today to to vote for measurable clear policy regarding the D program thank you thank you all right all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes yes all opposed no hearing no extensions student director Silver Silverstein please indicate your vote Yes all right resolution 6890 is approved by V 70 with student director Serv Stein unofficially voting yes all right next up we have general public comment M Brash do we have
074anyone signed up for public comment all right since I've given already given guidelines for the comments earlier this evening I will not repeat all of them I just want to remind um PPS staff who give the comments that they may not provide testimony about students that could violate confidentiality protection under fura this includes testimony using information that could identify students especially in their school communities by use by the use of direct or indirect linkage such as school grade special education or other status please make sure when you begin your comments that you clearly state your name and spell your last name once again you have three minutes to speak um once you hear the sound after three minutes you will have additional 30 seconds to wrap up the comments this Brash do we have any
075public comments or can you call them up I me yes Clarence Larin senior an Cheno Lisa danan Lissa Poland hello my name is Lisa Don d o n e I'm in my 10th year as a PPS speech language pathologist this year on the assisted technology or at Team like many others who have reached out to you or in attendance tonight I have concerns about the impact of the proposed cuts to special education specialty support teams namely the feeding team assisted technology team SLP tosa who supports complex evaluations for culturally and linguistically diverse students adaptive PE and board certified Behavior analysts first the sped department is trying to make too many changes too quickly and without a clear communicated plan this will likely have a direct negative impact on our students it doesn't make sense to
076move toward a neighborhood School model essentially spreading the students in the district with the highest and most specialized needs across more schools and onto the case loads of teams that are less experienced in these areas while simultaneously cutting the staff who can provide supports the need for consultation and trainings will likely increase across the district with the implementation of the neighborhood schools model additionally speech language Pathologists who support the vast majority of these students will see a 10% rise in the number of students on our case load next year next the majority of the proposed sped Cuts appear to be impacting students with particularly High needs which means these students many of whom are supported by more than one of these teams will have their school experiences disproportionately impacted the cuts to these teams are
077being advertised as central office cuts which is misleading as we all work directly in schools across the district to support students and help their teams put plans in place to meet their specific needs whether that be to ensure that they can eat safely at school without choking communicate their basic needs and build social connections with peers using a communication device access their education given the appropriate supports and tools or to ensure that students from diverse or non-english speaking backgrounds are being accurately identified for special education I've also been told by sped administrators that they're cutting these teams because we need to build capacity in buildings but how does cutting the few sped support positions we have in the district support this goal when I go to schools to support AAC or communication device users I'm
078not working in a vacuum I involve the student and the team my goal is to provide ideas that will benefit the particular student as well as leave their team more knowledgeable than before my consultation collaborating with past slps on the assisted technology team increased my AAC knowledge eliminating these supports will likely decrease capacity in buildings especially given the rapid advances in technology occurring today and the ever evolving nature of assisted technology finally it's incredibly frustrating that after nearly two months of asking for clarity around the plan for feeding an at and the impact on school-based staff we're still met with so many unanswered questions even Mr buono's memo and presentation to you on March 5th does not clearly lay out how feeding and at needs is documented in students legally mandated IEPs will be met
079starting next year I understand that administrators have a lot on their plates but communication is a crucial leadership skill and the lack of communication with staff and the larger Community is not inic ative of capable leadership to claim to want to embrace and emphasize the expertise of our school-based professionals and then completely disregard the input that we give in our areas of expertise does nothing to repair the broken relationship that has been festering festering for years between student facing staff and Central administrators managing the district's budget must be a nearly impossible feat and I do not envy the position that you are in but I fear that the propos proposed cuts to these special uh or these critical sted support teams has the potential to cause real harm to many of ppss most complex students
080as well as our ability to recruit and retain highly qualified special education staff thank you for your consideration thank you good evening uh my name is an shano c h n o t I'm a teacher at Clarendon Head Start in North Portland and I've been a PPS parent for the past 15 years I'm here to advocate for the art enrichment program in headart while reductions in art FTE are happening across the district our art program has been completely eliminated teacher Julia and teacher Tara have created a highquality curriculum for our youngest artists reaching 600 students every week they travel between nine schools and 36 classrooms every every week bringing all of their art materials with them Head Start serves our youngest and most vulnerable students our students are 3 to 5 years old and are
081living at or below the poverty line they are multilingual and are diverse in race and culture Head Start prioritizes enrollment for students there in foster care experiencing homelessness and that receive special ed services art is truly trans formative and healing for our students in our program we have many students impacted by trauma and poverty art is a medium that is accessible for all of our students art transcends language barriers and it is accessible for our students that are neurod Divergent and have disabilities our students are able to communicate and express their thoughts and feelings through their art many of these students are nonverbal or do not have anyone in their class that speaks the same language as them art gives them a voice and a way to feel successful and seen at school we always
082have students that struggle to find their calm and to self-regulate throughout the day many of these students exhibit extreme and unsafe behaviors but as the year progresses we watch as these students find their calm while using clay or painting to Jazz just yesterday I watched as every three to 5-year-old child in my class painted quietly for 30 minutes mesmerized using Sumi ink and a food day brush from Japan these these types of lessons are something that I as a classroom teacher simply cannot replicate I do not have the time experience or materials Tara and Julia have created lessons that are joyful engaging and culturally responsive our student our students learn how to use high quality art materials and have experiences with collage three-dimensional art print making oil pastels painting and Fiber Arts just just to
083name just a few but most importantly they see themselves represented every one of my students will tell you that they are an artist because every week they learn about modern and historical art from black brown indigenous Latino Latina and Asian artists we know that research shows that early childhood is the most important time in a child's life for brain development I ask you to please reconsider eliminating this amazing Pro program from our Head Start classrooms this is an easy choice and our most vulnerable students are counting on you thank you for your [Applause] time hello I'm here tonight my name is Clarence lkin uh l r k NS I am the President and founder of program called straight path think I'm here to talk about uh the Whitaker the Adams and Whitaker property that you
084guys voted on back in December I think um the program that I'm advocating for is called the black part organ black family Village AKA po black family Village building what our we're building what our community needs I know because I have attended I have attended and held Community meetings for 20 years on 4 7 Avenue we want a community center and a library we lost our anchor for the black communities in Cully and Concordia n that was the Adams and Wier School building we lost a to un poison them furthermore we lost 50% of the black community for a different kind of poisoning identification and displacement the majority of the new buildings on 42nd Avenue a property that was once owned by black people the community need to peel black family Village our young people
085need to learn be educated about the history of the black people in our community uh we need a community center and we need the job that the community center will bring Community the community does not need private sports complex that would take over friend here partk I'm fighting for black p in Cully and Concordia in the plasa Portland organization that that has required $350 million for a TI program to build up the Cully and black community and Concordia Concordia neighborhood association which also support the PO black family Village so I'm here to ask you guys tonight Gary and Herman you guys doing this Pro this project please find another location for your project this is this is you guys want to take over Park and uh and our track and the community is well used
086then I'm not I'm not a speaker but so I'm trying to get through this but what I would like for you guys to do is to uh is to to find another location for your project I'm I'm speaking for straight path in Prosper Portland concordion neighborhood association we are the second people in public public school we are the public and people so please don't disrespect us this way by taking over our part thank you guys for your [Music] comments all right um next we have our board committees and Conference reports as well as an update on the superintendent search um after board members we have provided their committee and Conference reports we will have a brief update from our search firm on the draft criteria for the next superintendent on which we will first which
087was first reviewed and discussed at our 5:00 pm um special meeting we had um before this one so I'd like to turn over to my colleagues to provide updates um on their committees and we will start with the audit committee I don't have anything to report to the audit Committee in fact we canel our next meeting and have not reset don't have a new date all right um next is our policy committee thank thank you um so now that we're back in full swing we are um actively considering a number of policies um all of our our agendas are posted we have tonight um second reading that came out of the committee and we have um three first readings uh that will consider the diploma policy districtwide advocacy and fundraising and the junior Reserve officer
088training core military careers um in addition I should note we have a meeting on uh April 11th in which um I would encourage people if they have a point of view on any of those committees to submit public comment we'll be considering it we'll also have an expanded public comment at that meeting um we normally have five slots but we'll make um allocate slots for um each of the policies so that um people have an opportunity if they want to um directly comment to the committee um I also want to this isn't a committee but um we have the I want make a plug for the local option that's okay oh you got that okay talk about the great I thought you interest to great I'll let you do that gotta all right next we
089have the Student Success committee yeah I mean just a little continuation not of of previous stuff as well as some new stuff we um you know our always continuing talking about graduation requirements what it means to have a graduate degree um how do you increase graduation rate but also increase robust or rigor um that's a challenge that we forever have um one of the big discussions that we continue to have have is about efficiency based grading which honestly PPS is 10 years behind which everyone here admits um and uh how to implement that effectively and and allow us to be able to um provide equity and education for all our kids um the the most recent um meeting was very focused on the issue with the Japanese and Mander residency trips and trying to problem
090solve around that and we are bumping into a lot of difficulties and is something that we may have to have a separate discussion about in the policy committee um and um to try to figure out what we can do to to make sure that we are providing the best for all our students um there are the purpose of the policy makes sense to protect everybody um but you know it's also one of those things that we as humans are complicated and so is life and sometimes need a little adjustment so um I think that's something uh we should have a conversation about but yeah that's about it thank you all right um next is the facilities and operations committee um we had a discussion and we're here another update tonight about the Jefferson High School
091modernization uh we had a presentation from Wells uh planning um we talked about the bond planning and some of the priorities um that we're looking for for our bond planning and then we had a update a brief update about the profit Center um relocation all right so next we will actually talk about the local option Levy um I will turn it over to director ber ABS okay um so I just want to highlight for the community um once again we have um on the mayate ballot a renewal of our local option uh Levy and importantly it's a renewal it's not a increase in the tax rate um and that Levy uh funds approximately 650 teachers a year and uh produces about a 100 million dollars in revenue for the district in addition to um the
092funds we get from the state uh it's been referred to the May bot I want to thank um all the parents teachers School staff students elected officials who signed um on to um voter pamphlet statements in support of it and uh we're actively um raising money communicating with our school communities and um know how important this measure is to our um to our school community and the funding of our individual schools so we'll um have probably in the next couple weeks ways in which uh people can connect to to um our upcoming volunteer efforts across the district as we get ready for the May uh 21st um election thank you um earlier this evening we had a special meeting where the board had opportunity to review and discuss the draft for the criteria of the
093next superintendent on which resulted um from input received through Community engagement come phase of the process we have asked Hank haris to join us this evening to briefly share criteria the criteria for those of you um who did not tune in into the 5 p.m study session um we had I believe almost between 16 and um people who turned in turned in the survey um and so I will turn it over to Mr Hank Harris thank you chair Hollands uh forward good to see you again uh terms of us as well thank you uh I'll keep my remarks short since we spent considerable time at the work session earlier this evening but I do want to share particularly with the public um a deep thanks for the over 1,00 portlanders Who provided in input into
094the next superintendent criteria whether group focus groups or the survey um and that criteria is in draft form it is available on the website both on the district's Forge page and also on the superintendent recruitment page uh and there's also an opportunity of course to provide input for any member of the public whether that's the rep public Des testimony uh at next week's board meeting or uh even easier through through any email that you see on the superintendent search page so we'll look forward to that um other than that I want to I want to turn this back over to you uh chair Hollands to see if there are any additional board questions or comments that I could provide info no not at this time can you just give a brief overview of the findings
095uh yes um I don't have that screen up but give me one moment and I will be I will do that with you uh so in terms of the next superintendent criteria there are five key areas um that you'll see and these are these emanate out of what individuals who share with us what are they what are they hoping that the board will focus on in terms of the next superintendent criteria uh I'm looking from the side so that's why you see me turning my head to my monitor uh one is about authentic and inclusive leadership one is about transparent ethical and courageous leadership one is about experienced strategic and Visionary educational leadership one is about fiscal stewardship and advocacy leadership and uh one is about equity and cultural competency leadership uh and for the
096public uh if you do go to the Super if you go to either of those uh pages on the website whether that's the board page or the superintendent search page you'll see not only the next superintendent criteria which I just outlined is the dreams and aspirations document that's what that is but in addition there's an executive summary document which speaks about what we've learned about PPS at this moment in time in terms of what is what are the um what are the strengths of the organization and what are the challenges and complexities of the organization and so I encourage you to look through those as well awesome thank you um Mr here for the recap Miss Brash is there anyone signed up for public comment no there an opportunity for okay um so the board
097is scheduled to adopt the criteria that we will use at our nextend April 9th we encourage um Community come out give of the comment I would love to see this m out um for The Pick of our next superintendent as we for are some of the folks that's here to your individual um interest so that would be great if you guys can come out and we can have this time to turn out we're out picking our next superintendent all right so next we have um updates on the mization of Jefferson High School um this past December the board approved resolution 6802 which directed the superintendent to reassess the current site and building design so that Jefferson High School students and staff could avoid relocating to a swing site during construction the resolution called for the
098superintendent to return to the Board of Education with an updated plan to modernize modernize Jefferson High School uh superintendent hus would you introduce this item yes thank you chair Holland I'll be brief because the history of the project and what brings us here today was well underway before I stepped into the role in February I understand that the board has requested a plan to accommodate a target targeted student enrollment 1700 keep students and staff largely on the Jefferson High School campus during construction demolish the original 1909 building conform to the current Ed specs stay within the current 2020 Bond program and if not identify any anticipated budget coverage plan will not include collocation of the center for pla student Excellence har tubbin middle school or other unaffiliated to Jefferson High School programs uh we have
099our chief operating officer here tonight he's been working with his team but because of the number of presenters of other folks coming he's requested that I call Marina Creswell the senior director of school modernization to the Das and and she will introduce some of the rest of the people that will be speaking welcome the office of school modernization is here today with the Jefferson modernization project team heard the December 12th 2023 board resolution 6806 authorizing staff to reassess the modernization design and return to the board in 120 days of the new plan after tonight's presentation the next steps for the project will be to move the new plan into schematic design the additional funds to complete the project will need to be included in the some of the team members that you're familiar with were
100unexpectedly unable to be here tonight so we have shifted around our team representation I'd like to introduce osm staff Arman molasa and Kesha loer Who will provide tonight's presentation and who will introduce our guests from Boron architecture and Anderson Construction good evening didn't just one for all right good evening board thank you for the opportunity for our project team to present the status of jeffan high school's redesign or what our pre our project team has come to known as project pivot I'd like to start to welcome with some team introductions my name is Armen malaso School of office with the office of school modernization for Jefferson High School first with us is kha laer who's a senior project manager in osm for Jeffers and modernization also with us here today is Stephie kudon representing Bora
101lever design team and Brad Nile representing the Anderson Construction team in their Consortium Partners here's our agenda for this evening during this presentation we will compare the old plan with the new plan review Main components of the new plan show some conceptual diagrams for the layout of the new building discuss Athletic program impacts during construction look for feedback from the community on our community outreach plan detail the current plan for permitting and review the project schedule and budget I now hand this over to Kesha Who discuss the comparison of the old plan with the new plan thank you armont here we show the old plan versus the new plan uh the key to this change in Project strategy was first and foremost listening to the community's concerns surrounding the previous design requiring students to swing
102off site uh we heard that and have adjusted our design approach and so we now recommend building north of the existing buildings closer to Killingsworth as directed by the school board this will require building an all new building on the track and Fields and results in all new optimized fields for Jefferson High School when the project is complete this is a similar approach to the Lincoln organization next Slide the project team has been primarily in a process of information gathering as uh we reorient ourselves to building on the new on a new area of the site we have we have been careful to incorporate feedback from previous engagement with the Community we have also met with District departments such as Athletics security Jefferson Administration and Visual and Performing Arts for them to understand how the
103major zones of the building are accessed we also spoke with the city of Portland on requirements such as the cross block connection between the building and fields which is also a similar approach to lincol design the current program components have the main entry on Kirby the Arts programs activating the street on killing worth and maintaining Athletics Al commercial I'll hand this over now to Stephie from Bora Architects to talk about uh plan test fits thanks kha and good evening everyone um these layouts that you see on the screen are what we call test fit diagrams and we use them to test how the required program from the PPS education specification might sit on the area that we have on the site we also use these test fits to help us understand how many floors will
104be needed and thus what the cost and the likely construction schedule will be and Brad will talk a little bit more about that along with Armand um currently the test fits show that we will need a four story academic core which you can see on here in a really light blue on that screen um the remainder of the program will be approximately two to three stories uh the purple at the North side indic indicates the arts program along Killingsworth and the yellow along the right hand side um and along commercial is the Athletics program it's important to note this is not a design this is really an exercise that helps us understand how things will fit understand potential costs and helps us find challenges for the due diligence before we start the design process I'm
105going to turn this back over to osm thank you uh so one program area greatly affected by construction on our occupied site is Athletics uh we are still in the process of discussing program implications with of various construction and staging scenarios with Athletics uh but currently the plan is that the 1964 gym main gym building will be open for the entire duration of construction until the new gym is open and then but once construction starts the football field and track will not be available during construction for 4 years from the fall of 2025 through the end of summer and 20129 um and we are still studying options for the interim fields to the South that uh Balance cost schedule impacts and athletic program support to best serve the students and staff next slide here you
106will see uh what we have proposed as a community outreach plan and we are looking for feedback on this strategy from the board um in addition to our community updates that we have been emailing monthly which you can find on our uh Jefferson modernization website we've also been meeting with internal District staff Jefferson staff as well as students uh this plan UC see proposes to expand engagement outside of those traditional groups we believe that the design Advisory Group engagement today has been uh too limited to reach depth of the community that this project needs we are proposing to evolve our engagement beyond the dag and expand our Outreach to be CommunityWide this list this list represents the categories of community that we will be engaging with and are hopeful to work with the center for
107black Excellence advisory committee to engage with their partner organizations I will now hand it to Armand who will discuss the permitting process thank you kha um our new plan requirs different approach to land use and permitting the design still is required to be reviewed by the historic landmarks commission and requires a special conditional use review since our new approach will require a demolition of the existing 1909 building which is considered a contributing resource to the tont Conservation District there is an approval process for that demolition the hlc has indicated that due to the changes made to the building in the 1950s they will support the demolition if we remove the contributing status from the 1909 building the timeline you see here reflects a sequence to remove that contributing status there is a risk to the
108project timeline during the appeal periods or if the hlc does not approve the change in that status however we are still moving forward with this process and our next steps are to submit the application to remove the contributing status next slide this slide shows the anticipated project Design Land Use permitting and construction schedule building construction will begin in the fall of 2025 after we finish the new building and move students in to start school in new building in Fall of 2028 we'll demolish the existing building and finish the athletic fields the athletic fields will be completed and ready for use in late summer 2029 next slide this slide shows the budget and is based on the new hard cost estimate provided by Anderson Construction and is split into hard cost and soft cost you will
109recognize this format because it is the format osm used for every comprehensive plan for hard cost parallel elate parallel estimates were prepared and reconcil by Anderson Construction and an independent cost estimator rlb based on their review of the new site and building construction components the $47 million figure at the top is Anderson constructions Allin number for construction and they will be sharing more details of the restate process during this pivot per phase that number also includes all of the state required 1.5% green energy technology and our additional owner allowances included for significant RightWay improvements and abatement cost the soft cost are based on both leveraging design and Engineering work that has already occurred as well as planning for owner costs that reflect the latest cost data we have from recent projects escalated to current dollars
110there is contingency within the overall project budget that equals 10% of the total project costs based on requirements for new construction and the overall escalation of the hard costs that are shown here through the middle of construction are included in the hard cost estimate next slide please the slide show a further breakdown of current budget actuals to date and additional budget required based on the overall current budget estimate the additional budget required based on these costs is about $125 million above the current budget and funding for this project I'll now hand this over to Brad Nile from Anderson Construction who will discuss the detail dets of their estimating process next slide so I'm I'm here representing Anderson Construction and our Consortium Partners who are members of the Jefferson Community and these Consortium Partners further PPS
111is goal of opening opportunities for underrepresented firms they've been part of this process from the beginning and they have provided valuable insights through the team what you're looking at on this slide expands the hard C estimating detail with specific budget categories from the 1922 excuse me the 2022 estimate on the left that precedes Anderson involvement in this project and Anderson's most recent estimate shown on the right note that there are two years of evaluation investigation dialogue and dialogue that has occurred between these two breakdowns during that time we have continuously collaborated with the third party estimating firm responsible for the pricing on the left and reconciled our pricing with them at several Milestones throughout the project Anderson and our Consortium partners are responsible for the pricing on the right and we offer four key points
112regarding this process first we have approached our estimating work with a deep understanding of the intended scope including the PPS edpc PPS climate action plan PPS resiliency initiative the current structural building code code requirements which have changed compared to other recent high school projects and relevant and current hazardous material abatement needs for the demolition of the existing campus which were not included in the original estimate second Point we've selected key trade Partners note that this was through a competitive process they have been they have provided to us relevant and current pricing for the following complex scope associated with this project Mass Timber structure masonry exterior panel wall framing elevators plumbing and mechanical fire protection electrical fire loan audiovisual it and security these Scopes represent 38% of the current estimated direct hard cost note that these
113estimated Scopes represent current market conditions and these Scopes have escalated higher than the rates predicted in the in the 22 budget our Consortium Partners have also participated and provided pricing for the Scopes of a batement demition earthwork site concrete framing D and plastic and these Scopes represent 14% of the cost of work third Point we've accounted for the complexity and safety measures necessary to build the new Jefferson while the campus is occupied this contributes to additional General conditions and general requirements that were not assumed in the 2022 budget and finally we have used compounding inflation multipliers to forecast where the market will be at the midpoint of construction which is the August which is August of 2027 this is two years later than previously anticipated these multipliers include 7% for 2024 6% for 2025 5%
114for 2026 and 4% to August of 2027 as you can imagine those compounding inflation rates add to the bottom line and the additional two years of time has added significant cost to the project as a note if you were to apply these inflationary rates to the cost of Lincoln High School we would be very close to our cost per square foot represented here we have full detail available that elaborates on the cast cost categories that you see on this slide and specific specifically those with the greatest difference between the 2022 and the 2024 estimat I'll hand it back to osm thank you Brad and thanks again to the board for the opportunity to present this project pivot and we welcome your questions I have a question about that last slide um what what was the
115yellow maybe you said this and I was multitasking what what's the what are the highlights me so we we highlighted those because they are the Scopes that have uh where we have the greatest differential between the 2022 estimate and the 2024 estimate I had other questions about the schedule um I don't know if you can go back but there's um a type two land use review then there's a type three conditional use then there's a had to write it out then there's a type two land use and some of have appeals after them are those definite appeals or have we just added time into the schedule in case there's an appeal in case there's appeal needed we've added time for the potential appeal some of those could overlap uh there are processes that could allow
116that but what we're showing here are the various uh timelines uh and we like to submit after appeal period is over okay and I I I understand that this is a conservative schedule but is there is there a way to um to tighten up some of those land use to run parallel process we have talked or do they need to I think do they need to be sequential we've talked with the city about those questions and they really don't like it when we run them concurrently and then we found that that was not a critical path for the project for us to do so any other board questions so first I want to thank the team um for embracing the pivot um I know when first was like this is pause it's like no pivot
117because that still um projects Forward Motion which is I think what we all wanted and I know um when the community realized that students would have to leave the campus and what that might the impact that that might have on the student body that um this whole team really pivoted so um thank you very much for bringing forward um something that I think meets the needs of the community and um also complies with the edpc and builds a beautiful like um new facility for our students uh in Jefferson um so I want to thank you because I know how hard it was to do that if it wasn't just like hey come up with a new plan um I did have one question uh but two questions one is uh the I'm looking at the
118the one frame that had the second and third stories and I'm just wondering why in that one space there's not um so stack yeah that one why there's not stacking in the second and the second and third floor the third and fourth floors that it looks like you have um programming is it because it's the the gym and so there's yeah we don't want to put program over the gym and we don't want to a program over the theater so we really Consolidated the classrooms and tried to orient them so that they would have good light rather than glare great thanks and then the other question just wanted to confirm um that the plans for the exterior of the the the athletic fields that um we have a plan that is complies with title title
119n and for the Sports Programming that needs to happen there especially since we started tonight celebrating both our female and male um student athlet yeah we have uh both baseball and softball planned for we have four tennis courts and then we have the full football field with the track the baseball field is a multi-use field that also includes a soccer pitch size multi-use field so as far as we can tell this complies with title n thank you so much andk thank you again for the any other question comment thoughts I did have if everybody still I just have one more question um I just have a thought um I just appreciated the way you showed why there's an increase in cost because I hate saying that you and explaining it helps so thank you I
120just have one um last comment about the community engagement and the collocate has done an amazing job um talking to community members and students and teaching that class to the students that kind of design class and I hope that they'll still be involved in some of this expanded work uh with Community Partners and there's a lot happening though between the interstate Firehouse cultural center and the Soul restoration Center and there's this kind of um I don't know how to describe a necklace of you know string of um art organizations and Community Based organizations that are all kind of you know trying to bring a black art of Black Culture interstate and yeah the uh we're still developing the scope for this pivot with our design team uh fleshing it out but the plan right now
121is to involve collocate in cultural placemaking for yes for Jefferson High School and really helping to uh create the identity of the place um and keeping with the community and using them and their skills and How Deeply entrenched they already are in the community as the advantage in that in that exercise that's great I'm also really thrilled to see um the school fronting killing worth yeah it's really cool um I know there was a lot of push back but having a porch in an entryway um really is inviting the community in and shows the students that we care about them and I think it's it's really great thank you um this is not so much a question for the team more a comment to the board as one I made a few months ago um
122I'm supportive of building this high school for 1700 I think it's the right direction to go there the board has given that pretty clear Direction what we haven't really done is talk about what that's going to mean and I don't think the community is quite internalized what that means it means redrawing High School history boundaries and doing so relatively quickly and we know that will be a highly political and contentious process and so I'm flagging that for two reasons one I think the community should know as we're moving forward on this what that means but I think the board should also know what that's going to mean and we're going to need to do some direction to the superintendent relatively soon in terms of what that process looks like the timeline the engagement um because
123we're going to be redrawing boundaries for hundreds of households um in order to to fill Jefferson which is again I think it's the right direction the direction we should go um it's it's going to require some some bravery on the board just want to keep keep calling that out yeah I appreciate I I I live within the within within you know my kids could choose we could choose to go to Jefferson but when I attended Jefferson I had to live with my grandmother for a couple years so I could attend the school and I I feel like if you buy a if you buy a house in that neighborhood like it's been gentrified over the last four decades five decades you know you should send your kids to the school and the school should be
124as great as any other school to to draw the students in so it's going to be a hard process and I think you know I'm looking down 20 years when we have a full you know fully enrolled high school with people thriving and but you're right that's going to be a hard conversation I think it's worth noting we did pass a resolution um directing this um I think it will be the next wom um to engage in the process with establishing neor boundaries for um for the Jefferson Jefferson High School we did it at the Jefferson meeting that we had at Jefferson High School I thank you any other CL questions comments stops next STS question what are the next steps right we're going to head we're going to head into schematic design now okay
125thank you thank you thank all right next we have the first reading on three policies this evening one is the diploma po where do diploma policy 4.2.4 2-p uh next one is District y advocacy and fundraising 7.1 0.020 DP and the next one is the uh junior Reserve officer training corporate military careers uh 62043 DP uh director ber would you like to introduce these first readings sure thank you chair holling Hollands um for the record the uh first readings are essentially introductions and the second readings are adoptions so tonight's the introduction of three um policies that came out of the uh policy committee and um the first one is uh the diploma requirements uh okay so the first uh policy was related to diploma requirements it came out of the committee with the unanimous recommendation
126uh for first reading and the introduction uh the 2023 Oregan legislature enacted a number of changes to graduation requirements including extending um a pause on the essential skills requirement until 2027 additionally requir students beginning with class 2027 to complete .5 credits to personal financial education and higher education career path skills to satisfy deployment requirements um this policy was in the um both policy committee and that it went over to um Chong's um Student Success committee for some discussion um and um as he referenced earlier tonight discussion about um what what what should we require of our students for graduation um I want to be clear that um there's more work to be done around uh the diploma requirements around what our expectations are um for our students uh we wanted to move ahead with this
127piece because uh the legislature has acted and it's useful for our families and students if they look at our policy to see an accurate um depiction of what the graduation requirements are um but we expect potentially more to come from the Student Success committee um there wasn't uh any public comment on this particular um uh measure I will say um we had an earlier version that just removed the essential skills um but we decided because the legislature has paused it which that was a previous requirement graduation requirement um we put it back in and it's footnoted that um the legislature has just paused it because we want to um leave in the expectation that there may be essential skills or sort of base level requirements where the legislature May um restore them so so um
128that is the diploma requirements um policy that first read again if anybody wants to come in and it it'll be both posted and um also can come to the April 11th uh policy committee meeting if you want to comment on them okay uh the next policy is the districtwide advocacy and fundraiser policy um this policy came out of the committee with the support of a unanimous recommendation including the support of student representative um Silverstein uh to bring it to the board for first reading or introduction and into the public comment period This is a policy change has been discussed debated and worked on since at least 2017 uh it wasn't a rushed or secretive process we've had many public meetings where we've heard a whole variety of perspectives from our um community on on this
129particular policy and and the practice and just as background post develop measure 5 in the mid 1990s PPS supported the establishment of a districtwide foundation the Portland schools Foundation which was a driving force both in Salem and in Portland for better funding the Portland schools Foundation created districtwide calls for actions and results they generated actions in which thousands of Portland parents marched in the streets and marched on Salem they raised a level of the state school fund established the concept of a local option which were now taken advantage of four times which provides about 100 million a year for us uh the foundation in the 2002 and 2003 three recession that helped lead they helped lead the efforts to pass a local income tax search charge um so we didn't have to cut five weeks
130from the school year and have the Sur of school year in the uh the nation the Portland School Foundation also housed local school foundations which were allowed to raise funds for staff for their individual schools Portland the Portland schools Foundation uh was a leader in the state and ing stem to do more and better since that time and because of the efforts of the Portland schools Foundation our labor Partners thousands of parents the Coalition for the school funding now for school funding now we have a local option the art tax ballot measure 98 to pay for CTE several bonds providing more than $2 billion doll in funding including some that to pressure off our operational budgets which allows us to buy textbooks and pay for it with bond funds versus operating dollars we also have
131the Student Success act which created a new corporate tax for schools we still need Salem to do better full stop I think we all agree on that and because of our local efforts and the districtwide foundation um and the efforts that parents and our labor partners and community members joined in on in a collective action we now have our music PE C and all our schools social workers psychologists climate Specialists restorative justice staff campus safety Associates new curriculum lower class sizes and most of our schools and many other school-based supports that didn't exist in the late 1990s when um we started the districtwide foundation that also allowed for local school fundraising the transparent inequity that exists in some when some schools are able to pay for staff with individual School raise funds and others are
132not is apparent there's been a robust discussion about whether to continue to practice or to focus on a collective impact model and build out a more robust districtwide Foundation fundraising effort there have been many policy committee meetings um when this has been discussed and I want to thank director depass who ask that we hold focus groups to hear more from those we don't often hear from and because of that in 200 2022 roundtables were held from schools without foundations representing School communities with students who are marginalized staff invited community members and director green chair Holland also recommended parent leaders to participate in the round tables in addition with District staff a principal survey was conducted generally there was broad support to change practice from Individual School fundraising for their own schools and move to a
133districtwide fund fundraising platform in 20122 we had two full board work sessions on the topic and policy committee chair Lowry held committee meetings on potential changes as well on May 31st of that year chair Lowry um as we were wrapping up the school year was was not able to move forward with any recommended changes so via email she asked chair Holland and myself um to connect and talk through options for a draft Foundation policy and that she looked forward to our creativity and innovation in this daunting matter so a couple months later when director Holland became chair and I became the policy committee chair we had this as part of our committee work plan leading up to and during the strike our committee and most other committees didn't meet after the strike settled this topic
134was again on our agenda in the policy committee different options were considered that could result in more Equitable fundraising and Staffing supports for our schools over the past several months we considered two options one which retains some addal individual School fundraising and one that shifted to a districtwide fundraising model they were posted and discussed in committee the policy draft that we have tonight that it's been first read option number one shifts to a districtwide foundation model for fundraising for sta versus an individual School fundraising model PPS is a foundation that has a districtwide mission the fund for PPS which could serve as the districtwide foundation role or another 501c3 could also perform that role other changes including the policy elevating the advocacy for public schools as an important role once again for the districtwide foundation
135knowing that we're stronger together when we show up in Salem when we're Marching In the Streets we also know we also built in a process for how distributions from districtwide fundraising could be could be made based on a questioning committee from director San it also encourages parent and individual school school groups to register with the districtwide foundation to to um so that we can um again mobilize all of the various groups that U Want to support our individual schools and our students whether the're booster clubs ptas foundations um so that we have a really strong base that together we can um again not only go to Salem but also um advocate for public schools um together um schools that have the both that have the school communities have both the capacity to raise money at
136their own schools but also those that don't I also want to thank um a very important thing in this policy draft which we've had questions about it also acknowledges that all money raised by individual schools right now for this this school year will be allowed to pay for staff for the 20 24 25 school year so there's a long uh runway for us to shift to a district-wide foundation model I want to thank and acknowledge chair Holland for jump starting the process for planning how we could enhance and accelerate districtwide Foundation fundraising there'll be a draft uh planning process posted uh with policy committee materials next week and we welcome the community's engagement in helping build a stronger districtwide advocacy and fundraising capab abilities this can be a forward together the committee spent time reviewing
137other Foundation models in Oregon and PPS um and PPS was the sole outlier that allowed individual School communities to raise money to fund staff at their individual schools all other districts in Oregon again we the only District in the state that allows it all of districts either did not allow it or required fundraising for staff to happen at the district level and there be an equital distribution of funding to purs staff at all schools this is not a replacement I want to just be absolutely clear this is not a replacement for strong advocacy in Salem for better funded schools since 1997 when I chaired the Citywide Coalition for school funding now advocating for more robust Statewide school funding following adult me 5 I've been involved in every Statewide school funding measure including helping lead the
138building of the Student Success act we all need to work together because that's where our power is going to be and we'll have more equitable fundraising and supports for our students across the district we need to build a strong Statewide advocacy effort and PPS can has and can lead in that and we can also have Equitable districtwide Foundation fundraising that provides some additional local funds for schools at the next policy committee we'll have expanded slots for public comments on this public policy because I know that people have very strong feelings about this um and we want to allow um people to share their their thought thoughts um ideas and recommendations for us um and I just want to be clear we'll we'll have enough slots that um individuals on both sides of the issue can
139present um and then we'll also in the committee meeting consider public comment we've received all right so was just something a little different than we done before I know there are some board members who want to make comments around this so I'm welcome up for hear their comments um yes I do um the first people to contact me when I became a member of the board were Foundation people from both sides of the question both had reasonable Arguments for their sign both care about their schools and other schools in the district I have seen materials about the meetings last spring and um Julia talked about quite a few of those and that's when people started talking instead of blaming and I have seen requests for getting together with a group like Innovation studio and coming
140up with a plan for a districtwide fundraiser that would help everyone but this policy is not that it does not really help anyone at this point but it does take away whatever small amount might be raised for that extra pair professional or Library Aid that can make a real difference to a classroom or a school there is no plan for how districtwide fundraising might work there is no plan for how the money would be raised or how it would be allocated as one email I received stated if we raise money and don't know where it will go it is just another tax there is no reason to rush this process especially in a time when every dollar counts it will take time staff and resources to create an effective District w Foundation this policy change
141deserves a thoughtful process that includes all the voices in the community what we need is enough money for every school so that we don't need fundraisers at all we need to put pressure on the state for the qem and the federal government to get needed dollars promised for special education we also have a levy collection coming up on May 21st which has already been been mentioned and the bond in the fall let's put our energy there and maybe we can get to a place where there is less need for fundraisers at all but taking them away now with no actual replacement in place in my opinion will harm students thank you thanks um so I'll to start by saying I support changes to our Foundation policy as I've said before the ability of one Community
142to provide services at one school but other schools don't don't receive violates our racial equity and social justice values and I've always said and continue to believe that we should engage in a thoughtful and collaborative process to make changes to this policy and that's one reason I'm frustrated by the policies that's before us tonight for our first reading the process for developing this policy change was not thoughtful it was not inclusive and it was not collaborative it was not focused on building Community consensus or lifting up all of our schools but instead was focused on finding a villain and like so many issues locally and nationally people are intentionally separating into competing sides instead of working together towards a common solution social media contributes to and amplifies this Dynamic and we're all worse off as
143a result and tonight the board has a choice we can move this policy forward and contribute to that division where we can truly be inclusive and collaborative in a way that disrupts it our current practice around individual School fundraising has the potential to create inequities at the same time it Bears repeating that parents who have raised millions of dollars to provide additional services to PPS students and share 30% of those dollars with other schools have done nothing wrong they have worked hard to fill in the gaps left by our state legislature and they've done so in the only way they know how by raising money to add a part-time librarian or educational assistant or music teacher that benefits not just their child but the entire school including the underserved students who attend every PVS chair
144Holland made an effort in Spring of 2023 to bring the two sites together and despite my initial skepticism it seemed to have a real impact people on opposing side started meeting in real life it became clear that everyone wants the same thing for our kids and what we may disagree about how to get there the dialogue was and remains important unfortunately the Goodwill that was created by that meeting was lost in September when director bered was invited Foundation reform Advocates to submit a policy for consideration that did not include input from those who have concerns about what their schools and their students may lose that decision broke the trust that was being built and subsequently each side retreated to their respective Corners as a result we've wasted the last year amplifying divisions in our community
145instead of working to bridge them I asked the policy Committee in September to use PPS as Innovation Studio to engage in a truly collaborative process and report back to the board this spring in fact they would have been reporting back to the board right now I never heard back on that suggestion I've been asked why if I believe this policy should change that I don't support this change one of the first things that we teach public policy and public administration students is the impact of unintended consequences history is Rife with examples of well-meaning policy changes that backfired spectacularly this policy change done in this way will backfire on the district many months ago I said that our existing Foundation policy is racist by that I meant and mean that it contributes to the systemic racism
146that infects so much of our society and our district I stand by that statement but advocates for change have tried to use those words against me and argue that as a result I have to support their changes immediately and I want to tell a very personal story about why they are wrong so in March of 2004 my Mom married her partner of over 10 years and that may not sound remarkable to many people but prior to March of 2004 it had been illegal for same-sex couples to marry in March of 2004 the MoMA County Board of Commissioners decided that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the Oregon Constitution and so they started issuing marriage licenses many oregonians will remember what happened next with multiple legal challenges different rulings different interpretations ultimately M County's
147actions were struck down by the Supreme Court and those marriage licenses including my moms were revoked more importantly than that however in November of 2004 a ballot measure passed 57% to 43 % enshrining in the Oregon Constitution that marriage is between one man and one woman this is an example of unintended consequences the statute that prohibited my mother from getting married was discriminatory and it was wrong it did actual real harm to my family and while I appreciate the motivation behind the MoMA County commission's attempts to correct that wrong by doing so in the way they did they caused a backlash that turned what had been a statutory discrimination against the lgbtq qia plus Community into a constitutionally protected discrimination their actions made the situation worse for gazm lesbian and Oregon including my family now
148this board does have the authority to make this change and it will not be overturned by a court but if the change we make results in worse outcomes for our students including underserved students at impacted schools have we done any good or have we passed a performative policy that makes us feel like we've done something good as I'm sure mola County Commissioners fell but in reality sex back's the cause we were striving for I also want to address the argument that passing this policy change will somehow change the dynamic around State funding of Education there is no evidence for that and when I asked Advocates to provide justification for this claim they were unable to in actuality I think we have evidence to the contrary this community was incredibly mobilized and activated by the teacher
149strike last fall and a large contingent of parents traveled to Salem during the short session to advocate for PPS funding I greatly admire their efforts and I hope it results in something in the future but I want to point out that not only did the legislature not fund PPS is request for $30 million to offset the cuts that we have to make as a result of the P contract the legislature also cut PPS out of the summer school funding formula completely I want to repeat that the legislature also cut PPS out of the summer school funding formula completely funding that we were counting on to help offset some of the learning loss our children have experienced this year passing this policy change will not change the dynamic in Salem in the last policy committee meeting
150director Bim Edwards said that fundraising for staff is different than other fundraising because staff are quote the most important thing for student achievement I agree this policy change takes away staff from our students without having a pragmatic or practical approach to replacing them in fact when I asked Beth kavana how to respond to a parent who's concerned about losing staff she acknowledged so that a change will likely decrease Staffing for schools that historically raised funding for their kids and that's the rub this policy will take something away from our kids including the thousands of underserve students who attend those impacting schools that is apparently the goal and it does nothing to build a replacement system that lifts up all students we're doing the easy work by changing the policy we're not doing the hard work
151by building up the foundation why are we considering a policy that will take away something that we know is the most effective thing when it comes to student achievement with all of that there's a better path we can build a broad Coalition where everyone agrees on the problem and we get General consensus on a solution we can simultaneously build our districtwide fundraising apparatus in a way that grows the resources available to our students instead of reducing them it will take time effort and resources but I'm confident we can create a process that does that with that I'd like to make a motion tonight to direct the superintendent to create an authentic engagement strategy using the Innovation Studio report back to the board in 9 months with community-led co-created recommendations on how to move forward I
152also moved to ask the Student Success committee to make recommendations to the board within 60 days on how to empower and appropriately resource theps I'm not okay so we have a motion on the table is there a um motions I considered them together but so we need a motion in a second second need a motion which one are we second motion I put them together if the board wants to separate them we could but I put them together do I have to do a motion to separate them I I think if the board wants to consider them separately I consider that disc so so so this is giving meable Sor I think if there's any inclination to treat them separately they should be considered and voted on separately yeah that's fine um so I'll I'll
153revise I'll I'll make a motion um again the first motion would be to direct the superintendent to create an authentic engagement strategy using Innovation Studio report back to the board in nine months with community-led co-created recommendations on how to move forward is there a motion in a second um I move you move okay Mo um Mo director got second from director S I just do the names um all right all in favor a motion I'd like to speak to that discussion so we have had since 2017 dozens of meetings many opportunities for board members to come to the meetings to to offer offer things and again you you laid out a schedule which directed when you were the chair director Scott um to direct director ay or director low to come up with a policy
154and it was very clear we were going to she was going to bring something out of committee it was going to be considered it never came out of committee and it didn't come out of committee because we have this continual DeLay So and you've described this as controversial well disrupting inequities is never easy and it's often controversial but we should not further delay we've already had five or six years delay and I will just say for the schools that didn't receive so so the vast majority of our schools including a lot of schools in East Portland and North Portland that don't have any capacity to raise funds maybe they got a a little crumb that was left over in the one-third because we divided the one-third by a lot of schools versus the 2third that
155stayed out of school we had continuous delays and there's no need for further delay um I would say that we're the what we should be directing the superintendent to do is actually come back with a plan for last year all schools and probably the first time there was some Equitable discretionary Staffing was the covid eser money $8 million that went out for the first time lots of schools in my district in southeast Portland had an opportunity to do the things that other schools that parents when there robust parent fundraising could do like buy a part of a PE teacher or bring art in or have a you know EAS in all the classrooms nobody has raised the fact and we we know that's it's not going to be in the budget next year that what
156harm is that going to do to our students and so to me this is just a measure to once again de delay things and actually when I had a conversation with the I did have a conversation with the Innovation Studio they weren't going to start until January and they wouldn't have been able to bring anything that would have had an impact for the next year year um so I I would recommend um that we stay the course we've spent a lot of time in committee we made a decision to move this out director Hollands has provided us with a platform that um we can build on for a districtwide fundraising plan we have a whole year to work on it and so I would ask my fellow board members to um reject this motion and
157stay the stay the course any further discussion no just that um I appreciate you know the comments that you've made and I feel like our we're 170 years into the history of this district and seven years into the process and I think it's time to just rip the bandaid up and make this change it's it's and I appreciate you sharing your personal story but I'm also a graduate of this um system and and went to schools that did not benefit from the fundraising even didn't know about it and so we for the first time in history we have a board that's diverse racially diverse and we have an opportunity to make the change here yeah also just quick comment um I think I think your idea of having the Student Success committee explore ways to
158um organize and and fundraise is a great idea I I also agree with Michelle sorry um directed pass um that you know it it's part of human nature to when all your eggs are in one baset to go for it you know like I I remember a a musician I really respected and and one of his fans asked him like you know how'd you make in the music industry because it's so difficult and he said um you just got to put it all in and that's all you got because humans are survivors um and you know really stuck with me because it's one of those things where I think there's a lot of fear around this because it is change and change is always scary um I also want to put it out there that
159are I don't want to villainize anyone I know you mentioned this and it really hurts my heart the parents that do organize these fundraising and stuff you know they're allies they're they're people of amazing resource and they're fundraising for their schools are to be respected and appreciated um I want to bring them into the fold of a districtwide vision and this is why I want to talk about is a vision because it it's scary because it's changed but we also have to remember PPS is an outlier um there are other models for districtwide foundations that we could easily adapt you know so many districts across the country have a model that does successfully the thing with local school foundations that it it's a limit there's a there's a real limit to it there's only so
160much you can raise but a district-wide foundation when all our eggs are in one basket when everyone is working together it can be not only a fundraising group but can also be an advocacy group something that I you know when I go and talk to parents all across especially the Zone I represent which is a lot of low income areas a lot of parents don't have the resources to give um but there's so much Drive they they like the one of the biggest questions I get all the time is like we want to be part of a big Movement we want to help PPS and and stuff who do we go to and I can't really give a straight up answer and if we the the part of the vision that I I foresee for
161us is that um having a districtwide you know one group is not only can be a fundraising group but an advocacy group it can be a center point we can have you can you can imagine as much as you want and not only that um we can copy other people who have done it wellong right um we can have parents on the board teachers on the board you know and and and and and people are power and more people are is more power I use the wrong word are more power um uh anyways yeah thank you it's on public record so you can correct me later um so I I think it it is one of those situations where um again we are creatures survival if you don't just rip off the banding go for
162it there's a risk it can never get done and we don't realize the potential thank you and but and and I do think of the idea of student can be exploring how to organize and get advocacy is a great idea maybe there's even another Committee in here somewhere I just also want to um recognize as a single parent I was not able to participate in the fundraisers I couldn't even afford the tickets even when they were $25 um and so I was outside of looking in at the auction and all of them things happening and couldn't I couldn't go I I couldn't give a dollar um and so that's you know I feel like we need to include people give them a way to to participate that doesn't necessarily involve lots of money that they
163they can volunteer their time and attention so I appreciate your comments there I just want to make one quick comment because I completely agree that the schools that don't have the capacity to raise funds are the schools we should be focused on this policy does nothing to change that and that's my concern with it is that it takes away from schools that are fundraising without replacing anything at the schools that aren't and I think that's why it's a it's a for the district I'll just say it creates a district wide Foundation that will be the center like we we spend a lot of time looking at what other districts do and other districts have districtwide we have a districtwide foundation but it doesn't raise money districtwide to give okay well it needs re reformed because
164it actually has just that's what we need to work on I'm doing I'm just saying again I'll have posted a districtwide foundation fundraising plan and again it could be the fund for PPS and I know that you attended their meetings they have a very small board it's not inclusive of a lot of other um either our parents or our larger Community Based organ ganizations and we we can I mean I believe in I believe in the potential and I I saw it with the Portland schools Foundation they had 30,000 people Marching In the Streets right after measure five um and I I do believe we're way stronger together and there there is a potential replacement and again I want to thank director Hollings for Hollands m l Hollings um for coming up with a draft
165and I do think the partnership with the current fund board can be can be built on um so I don't think we're replacing with nothing and I will just remind you I will just say one of the things in this policy it does allow the inequity to continue for yet another year and at the same time all those schools that don't have foundations or get the $3 dollars are not going to get their eser dollars this year that $8 million we don't have a again so there there will be harm this year at the same time we're going to allow them to continue because it's the right thing to do people have been raising money all year and so I recognize that you don't just cut that off but I think we we need to
166recognize that Harm's been happening for a long period of time and I wish I wish everybody had had come to the roundtables and listened to parents talk about like it's we're like the pity parade um if like the crumbs that we get from the wealthy schools and like we're supposed to be satisfied with that and frankly they can buy like four or five EAS to support their students and at the same time we can't even raise you know we get like 10 could be 10 to $30,000 which doesn't allow us to like basically pay for anything and so I would just say that this it's gone on long enough and there's already been lots of harm and I would hope we we all represent the whole city not just the zones that we're from and
167that if you look at the districts the schools that can raise the most money they are predominantly the ones in the highest socioeconomic schools with the least diverse student bodies and there's not to say that they don't have diverse students but they have the least and then if you look at the schools they get the equity grants which are a pittance compared to what some of the other their schools raise they are predominantly students of color um predom they have large numbers of students who um may speak a different language at home and they also um are in some of the lowest Z codes in the city and then there's a whole group of um schools that are kind of in the middle they don't either can't raise the money but they also um don't
168get any Equity grants so they just don't have anything um so director Holland I would um chair Holland I would call the question and ask vote all right you last questions comments thoughts okay we'll go ahead and call the vote um right so this is the motion to refer this policy to The Innovation Studio to develop um to create authentic engagement Maybe actually it wasn't to refer the policy it was directing the the superintendent have like it didn't actually say anything about the policy okay I'm gonna ask director to read to read it again I'm happy to read it again but I guess I just want to make sure director B was that intended to say that you're G to continue to forward with this policy if this amendment changes do I well you're you're
169what you moved was you were directing the superintendent to run a process through process about this policy I just want to make sure I that's really clear on the legisla record that's we we still are having a first reading tonight hold on we've actually so can you please restate the thing and then we can it's a motion to direct the superintendent to create an authentic engagement strategy using the Innovation studio and report back to the board in nine months with the community like co-created recommendations on how to move this policy for all right all in favor I I all oppose no no no student director s sign no all right motion fails for the vote of 52 with director sste voting no all right was the second motion you did them together oh yeah okay
170all right all right any other further discussions thoughts yes so on the policy specifically um there two two concerns that I have and I'll State them now because um this is the time for board members to talk about their concerns so the policy committee can take them into account um one the parent committee is undefined uh it's undefined both in terms of who will be on it and exactly how it'll function I find that very problematic because they will have responsibility of of any funds that are raised through a districtwide uh uh found in terms of how to distribute them and the second one I'm going to be a little bit careful about this but um as a board we have a staff report that is privileged and confidential that explains a significant legal Challenge
171and legal issue with this policy um and so I think that's worthy of a full board conversation um that I think we need to do in the executive session I'm not suggesting we do that tonight but I am suggesting that um we schedule an executive session between now and the second reading where the entire board consider um the legal issues that have been raised by Council about this policy really quick question um I my question is wouldn't that be the role of an ad administrative directive it's like for for the parent committee well no just just I mean like because my understanding is the policy just sets the direction to what right and the how would be an administrative directive right for the parent committee legal issue because they're very the the the issue in
172the policy yeah that's that's one way I mean again the board the board could see that to the to the superintendent to decide what that like okay one one of the things that I would say is there's a par committee but that that language actually was suggested by staff which I Incorporated and I just added in that um there also be board support um so that um director San had raised um concerns in the committee about um parents raising money for districtwide foundation and not knowing how it would be um spent so based on um conversations with staff they came up with some recommended language which included the parent committee and um I then added the um approval by the board so there would be a sort of board check as part of that um
173I will say that I don't I appreciate your um you're raising an issue and I'm not sure I would agree with your characterization of significant and I would say that also um we're not going to pass a policy that has significant legal challenges um we will they will be worked out and the issues have been raised that may they may or may not be issues so I think we should let the we should let the process continue and if there's an issue we're also having a um meeting with the fund for PPS that if there's an issue yes we could have an executive session but there is not yet an issue and I don't know that I would characterize it as significant and I would um throughout the process um I will say that our
174general Council reviewed the the drafts and I very much respect having been the policy committee chair um for several years years that um I will listen to the advice in the Council of um The District's General Council so that we do things um in a way that don't jeopardize the 501c3 nature of whatever the district Foundation is so I I just I mean to your point you said you wouldn't but you did bring forward a policy that has significant leg issues and I'm going to just disagree with you and you're not supposed like frankly it's a privileged confidential we need to move forward okay hold on we need to move forward I was just being interrupted I was just looking for a little we need we we need to move on are you trying me
175we need to watch okay hold on hold on um we need to move on we need to move on so again a policy has come forward um that's been raised by um with uh significant legal issues and so go back director need we need to move on director vs we need to move on I'm asking the board to schedule a um I heard heard haven't heard the I've only heard director M well I don't know that's a motion that we're going to be that's not a motion going on but we need I I've heard your comments I want to check in with the board moving forward but right now we need to move on is that okay all right and let's move on to the next um first Reading Please the next policy is umon
176the next the next policy um that came out of the committee on a split vote um is uh policy 6.2.0 43 um and it does two things one it changes the uh name of the policy from Junior Reserve officer training Corp to to to Junior Reserve Office training core and Military careers um and it adds a paragraph that um States it's short so I'll just read it in consultation with an approval of the superintendent a high school principal May establish a junior Reserve officer training program that aligns with PPS academic standards and policies and administrative directives um this was a uh policy that director green uh brought to the committee and that we had um several committee discussions about and we also had a request for information um from committee members about um a number
177of things one um about the training for instructors in a junior RC program uh questions about the cost uh there were also questions about alignment with our policy and administrative directives um and our um and our academic standards uh there were questions relating to how other school districts in the state or maybe across the country um have either Incorporated uh have Incorporated uh junior Roc in their academic programs and we had a um Chris breida who is the um CTE I don't know his exact title but um he's the he's the CTE master um who uh had conversations with both districts in Oregon and also um in other states that had programs and he shared um how some of the programs worked in other districts and how specifically one um it worked in one Oregon
178district with the um as part of a CTE or crew technical education uh Strand and um you know things that worked and things that were challenges um and so we got a lot of information related to that and we had to think a good discussion um I also want to note that I think it's important to note that this actually does not say that we can have we have a program or it provides a process by which or how it would be done so the question that we've we've had is somebody if a high school principal wanted to bring a junior Reserve Office training program how would they do it so this really sets the guard rails for how that would happen there's a very separate discussion happening not that committee so I don't know
179all the details but in the Student Success committee um with director Wong around the standards for instruction the curriculum the cost um and so I assume like the what if there is a program and whether it meets our administrative um directives or policy and our academic standards that um that will be answered in director Longs committee again this is just answering a question from a school community of if we were to do it like under what circumstances and so the circumstances are and the guard rails are it's with the consultation and approval of the superintendent and it has to be aligned any any program has to be aligned with of course our academic standards policy and administrative objectives and again that came out of committee um with a split vote but with a recommendation to
180um move it to a first reading so tonight's the first reading again um we'll have an opportunity for individuals to comment um in uh the committee our next committee meeting and um I don't know director W if you want to add anything about your committee I don't know if this is on the agenda moving forward okay so I mean it was a while ago but we haven't talked about it in a while so there's no nothing new to yeah Julia I wanted I talk to you about I don't think you added it but I was wondering if we could add um that a survey will be to assess the support of the school Community before would become I don't know if you so my response to your email um my respon to the email is
181um I would like you to bring that to the committee and we could have a discussion about it I also would like to have um assistant superintendent or superintendent or the assistant superintendent for um secondary um talk about how they add courses because I think at high in high schools when the electives are added there's some kind of school surveys um but obviously we're not going to add we're not going to add a course that no students want to take um but I would suggest you bring that and I'm happy if just hand to me okay I will come you'll come okay perfect um we can have that discussion I just I'll notice um the superintendent we like to have somebody talk about how how we add forces um and what we do and we
182survey um we do is just a little more controversial than adding of course all right thank you uh director bws the policy proposed to be revised or resed will be posted on the board website um in the public comment period is a minimum of 21 days please contact um we have contact information for public comments will'll be posted with the policy the board expects to hold a second reading of these revised policies which is a vote to approve them May 7th and also know going to be committee meetings as well for um the public to come and express their um opinion about the policies on either side all right the board will now vote on the consent agenda on board members is any items you would like to pull for discussion I a question so
183what was the answer to a funding question I'm sorry was like the question about funding for the jrc prr like I know but what was the answer uh I think that the answer was that was in Dr Wong's um so the so it has a a model um and obviously that's like anything else that had that cost pardon that as with anything else um an allocation of school resources um it's decided at the school level and and it's not insignificant and I think that's a it's a great question and I would ask um that we what it what it cost we can fully understand that yeah than so thanks for the question chair Holland I just want to also make a note that I'm very much against having ROTC in our schools for lots of
184reasons um I just I just want to start with my dad who's an from Panama um he came here to finish his high school career at Central Catholic he was the first negro to graduate from Central Catholic he went right into the air force with a green card and um was denied food when he was in basic training and also the benefits of the GI bill when he got out of the Air Force and so that's just a personal story but also I talked to someone who volunteers with an organization that prepares black children specifically PPS black children for careers in green jobs and we were talking about this Roc and those jobs are going to continue to be in high demand and they're well-paying family wage jobs and unlike the military jobs that prepare
185you to work in the military but not in the um private sector um The ROC at the college level I've actually found someone that was advocating for it at the college level because the brain is further developed and you if you have a college degree you're entering you're not going to be in the front line of fire you're going to be enlisted as an officer and you have greater opportunities starting off so I just want to put it out there um that that's my feeling about it I might be alone in that but I feel very strongly that our kids specifically our kids that don't have opportunities elsewhere need Career Technical education that prepares them for jobs that are in high demand that pay well and that are local um especially as we move to
186you know renewable industry that's relying on renewable IND industry renewable energy okay I also do anyone else have any comments around the Jr jrc piece yes um I spoke with District student council about this and there were a lot of concerns um specifically about how the military has a pattern of targeting folks of color or people below the poverty line um and creating a pipeline to the military um yeah and just also there was a lot of concern about a lack of student engagement and there was like expressed desire for that to happen but many students um felt that that did not actually happen uh and just overall the response from District student council was overwhelmingly negative I'm also ask what what are we what are we you know I asked in the policy committee
187what are we solving what are are we trying to solve for if it's opportunities for people that don't go to college there's the blueprint Foundation again It prepares people that might not necessarily go to college for jobs in uh in Green in green energy um I want to prepare our students for jobs where they're not going to get killed and or or they're not going to come back with PTSD and be unable to work or you know my next stop is going to be the VA Hospital want to talk to people there that can't work that have mental health challenges that are that are wounded that are unable to product be productive members of the community and that they're sad about it that throwing themselves off the bridges over it and so that's what my
188concern is about the human piece of this let's prepare kids for jobs where they won't be in in the line of fire but rather they can be members taxpayers actually um so um people going into the the military for a lot of different reasons but that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about a jrtc program and what we're what we're looking at is providing kids options that may not be available to them we are please don't interrupt me please don't interrupt me I will make a movement that we get up and leave now I don't listen I'm not like everyone else we're we have hold on we have to be respectful please so we can hear everybody out we can't just hear one side of it okay we can leave we can take
189somewh else so so now so okay all I'm understand is you guys you guys are speaking out and just and yelling that's not going to solve anything as far as all right just let me fin what we're doing is and please make sure my mic the volume is right because if they're going to get loud then Herman green will louder we are creating well what what we're trying to do is create a dogmatic dogmatic education system one that does not teach our kids how to think but rather what to think we are talking about providing people with options now jrtc is not for everyone but it may be for someone and for those people that it is for we shouldn't be the ones that are standing up to say you don't need to do that
190what we are projecting in this space is our own opinion and our own bias we have issues but so because we have't issue we do not even want to provide the option for someone else to consider so therefore what we are saying is I know better than you so therefore you don't need to have this option let me make this decision for you and one day you'll be smart enough to make a decision for yourself that's the same thing that they said to black people when they were talking about oh you don't know how to work for yourself so yeah I would go there so now give kids an option an educator is supposed to educate not about your view not about your opinion because opinions are like underwear everybody's got them not everybody wears
191them some of them are clean some of them are dirty but they are yours nonetheless I don't care about your opinions it's an opinion it's an opinion I want to know about factual data so now so now the data it was but we're not talking about Vietnam so so we're going to we're going to move on we're going to move on from this so there is there there is a there is opportunities to have your opinions at the policy committee but we need to move on from this so now we're going to move on for we're going to move on to our cons agenda so that conversation is over now we're moving over to our cons agenda the board will now vote on the considering agenda board members there any other items you would like
192to pull for discussion we will set those aside for the next time we meet hearing none hearing none Miss rsha is there any changes to the consent agenda no all right board members are there any other items you would like to pull do we have a motion to Second and adopt the consent agenda second second is there any board discussion on the consent agenda all right the board will now vote on resolution 6883 through 6889 and 689 1 through 6893 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all oppos indicate by saying no student director of Silverstein please indicate your vote Yes all right consinity the pass we have next we have comments um tonight we'll have comments from our P president um Bonia H we made it um thank you hi
193Angela wga president of the Portland Association of teachers um normally I start with Kudos I'm going to start with uh gratitudes I'm grateful for the responsive nature of our interim superintendent Dr husk I've asked for a meeting to better understand the budget cuts um and the ma and the decisions that were made to make them so thank you for that um I'm grateful for our Educators support staff Community who continue to Advocate against these cuts and who demand transparency and Community input and as always I'm grateful for the Educators support staff custodial nutrition staff uh services staff that choose to work here every day um despite the working conditions that they have to endure um I'm here to lift up the voices of uh my members in the community some of the same voices who
194came to speak to y'all tonight um PBS contracted with a firm to send out a poll in January 2024 about the Portland Teachers Levy the results of which were released to The Oregonian about a week ago from that poll we saw PPS fames staff and student uh students and community members made it clear only 21% of respondents had a somewhat favorable or very favorable view of this school board of which 3% said they had a very favorable view of this board for comparison PPS teachers came in at 66% with 42 very uh percent very favorable PPS support staff came in at 68% with 46% very favorable PBS principles came in with at 44% with 133% very favorable and even P came in at 52% with 26% very favorable 50% of respondents believe PPS is on
195the quote pretty is is quote pretty off on the wrong track back and uh end quote and only 24% said that we were heading in the right direction when asked how satisfied are you with the Portland Public School District with how the Portland Public School District spends taxpayer dollars the net satisfied was 32% with only 6% fairy satisfied and the net not satisfied was 57% with 33 not satisfied at all why am I bringing up this poll well part of the PPS constituent engagement summary from The Firm it was different cont different firm um that heard from 1,823 students parents and family members PPS employees and community members mentioned that the top District challenge is about trust quote a breakdown in trust was highlighted across all groups attention should be paid to repairing and restoring
196trust with employees parents and families and Community by enhancing transparency communication and Community involvement in school and District decision making what we are asking for and what we've repeatedly asked for is transparency and meaningful Community input PPS has to be surgical with the level of cuts they are making we lost over 100 Educators FTE in the budget presented two years ago and about 70 FTE in the budget presented last year PBS's pattern of cuts to direct service staff is not something that was caused by a strike this is a pattern and we cannot continue to cut resources and staff that serve students and expect to meet the goals that y'all have put forth regardless of how often director Scott uses his position on this publicly elected board to disparage the union and thus the teachers
197who serve this District we are not the problem the district's priorities are the problem we have also seen communication shared with families and communities stating that these Cuts will only increase classes by one student on average and that cuts to Arts music library and dance will not impact student experiences and these things are just B blatantly untrue the numbers shared with reporters about the cuts per school do not match what Educators were presented at their sites in addition it undercounts students that are currently at these schools so how can we how can the district guarantee that classes will only increase by one when classes on average when classes are already above the numbers presented if an art teacher for example is cut from 1.0 FTE to 0.8 FTE that school's program is reduced by 20%
198losing a library Aid whose positions are eliminated across the district as y'all heard means that a school cannot open the library for book check out any day a teacher librarian or a media specialist is not at the school the current plan to make Educators whole includes splitting them across multiple schools this means libraries across the district will be closed multiple days a week how will students learn the love of reading and cement that love with their choice books if they can't access their Library we've also learned that more than 50% of our school-based restorative justice coordinators who have helped us reduce disproportionate discipline of our black and brown students have been cut conveniently this happened after they became unit members of P you have heard from special Educators multiple times but I would be remiss
199if I didn't speak up about the cuts to specialized special education services I encourage the district to reconsider the choices made by the administrators to cut adaptive PE the feeding team the assisted Tech Team bcbas and other specialized groups not only is it wrong to cut these Services it is illegal as many students have these Services written into their IEPs um individualized education plans IEPs that the directors have tried to demand case managers to review and revise to remove those supports luckily our special Educators know federal law and have refused to revise IEPs based on available programs as the law demands we write their plans based on student needs and team decisions PBS's own comprehensive annual financial report for the year ending June 30th 2023 shows that in 2023 spending on Administration Central support services
200and business support services grew faster than spending on instruction and spending as a whole the budgeted expenditures for purchase Services have increased and the district budgeted more than peer District on purchase Services the comprehensive annual financial report showed that the district approved or amended 60 more contracts in 2023 worth $27 million more than in 2022 we will not we will no longer uphold unjust school allocations on our backs educators will not and cannot make up for the over 160 FTE reductions of our colleagues as a special educator Jinder husak says in her email signature I refuse to run myself ragged to uphold a raggedy system PPS his own poll shows our community does not trust you does not believe the district is going in the right direction and does not think the board is a
201good Steward of our public funds please prove them wrong by increasing the transparency including meaningful Community input and ensuring that any cuts are happening as far away as possible from our students thank you shars I think it's really important to point out um inaccuracies when they occur and I just want to point out that um the idea that we can strategically cut $30 million this year um is misinformation and it doesn't help with the conversation publicly and the idea that we could strategically cut $70 million next year similarly um doesn't help because again it's misleading in terms of what the options actually are on the table so um you can continue to think I'm anti-union what I really am is anti misinformation and I think I'll be done in a second oh yeah and I
202think it's just really important I mean I I I guarantee that our um our uh uh the trust from the community would be higher if we engaged the irr responsible populist rhetoric part of our job is to actually make decisions that are going to benefit the district in the long run and I would encourage you to join us in that absolutely um I think it's really important to note that I didn't say uh completely absolutely uh undo every single cut what I showed was a pattern of cuts by this District of Educators throughout the last few years and I asked that those cuts be as far away from students as possible that was not me saying we can cut 30 million without losing any Educators or that you have to I I I want to
203push back on the mischaracterization of my words by you I think it's also really important um and I'll I'll be done soon too is that uh y'all have this position of power you're on a D in front of everyone you have the cameras on you it's important to to Steward that power respons and not use it as an opportunity to constantly blame the unions for advocating for their workers and say that we're in this position because of what the unions did fighting for things um that they needed in order to do their jobs well uh I've listened to several board meetings at this point where you've continued to put PS name in your mouth about how we are the problem in a lot of different situations or the fact that we had a strike was
204a problem it takes two to tango we wouldn't be at a strike if we could have gotten to a contract during the months that we were bargaining that we demanded proposals and y'all were lied to and told you couldn't give us proposals on a permissive subject CH Holland so I'm just gonna say that is all thank you for this time chair Holland Angela I just I'm looking forward to meeting with you I think coming in new it's a little easier for me to see I do appreciate we don't want inaccuracies in public we'll work through some of the details and we'll be sure to get back together thanks see you soon Angela all right me the journ no can you put us back on can you put us back on oh I heard a Jaren
205sorry yeah we did and then but I did send an email yeah um good evening uh my name is Elizabeth I'm the intern president of yeah we crashed again um if you had been outside meeting before um you would have heard from speech language Pathologists occupational therapists assist assisted technology Specialists or certified Behavior analysts adaptive PE teachers feeding Specialists par Educators and students families who all spoke about their concerns about Portland Public Schools provision of special education services these concerns are true with current Staffing levels and we're looking forward to a new year with increased class sizes fewer mental health supports and the elimination of key supports including the feeding team and assisted technology we've been told that our students will lose service will not lose services for these cuts that these cuts are just
206a decentralization of Staff resources last month the board was presented with a memo that said training including job alikes For Occupational therapists physical therapists and Par Educators had been provided to prepare staff for this decentralization my members have come to tell me that they have not received any training this year an RFI for the dates filed in the attendees of this training has yet to be returned to us I myself have spoken to the board on multiple occasions this year already to express our deep frustration that our unit's professional development was canceled for this year so it's strange to me to watch the board be told that not only has such train taken place but it's at such a level that our staff are prepared for the significant change in position and workload I have
207concerned about our staff's ability to serve students needs I'm concerned for the safety of our students who care has been delegated to underprepared and undertrained employees I'm concerned that the district would be this late into the Year and have no plan on what this will mean for students and staff who will be impacted by these Staffing changes and I have concerns that the information that the board is being provided with in these public meetings does not align with the informations my members are bringing to me so when we talk about enhancing trust with the district these are the sorts of issues that my members are concerned about thank you thank you any other Union [Music] Partners all right now me a j for