5.28.25 Budget Committee Meeting/Board Work Session I Centennial School District 28J Livestream

001Hey, Regina, are you there? I am. Okay, wonderful. I think I got the live streaming working. It looks like it. So, just so you know, yeah, you can you can see it. Yes, it says custom link streaming. Well, it before it popped up and said that the uh information was being sent to the live stream. Okay, perfect. And I'm seeing it on the live stream right now. So, fill out the great, but I just want to make sure that um obviously we're early, so it's going to stream for a little while. Okay, which is fine. I mean, it is what it is. That's okay. I think I always want to be careful when we're live streaming when people come on what comments they may say. So, I'll just say just so everyone knows we're live

002streaming. Okay, that's perfect. I appreciate that. I just want to make sure that Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Wonderful. I'm going to check back out. All right. Thank you. Bye. Thanks. Bye. Hey Paul, just a reminder that we are currently live streaming. Okay, thank you very much. Mhm. All right, I'm promoting Pam to panelist, but I don't see her coming in. Oh, there you are, Pam. Welcome. Got it. It's one of those Where is that hook? Oh, yes, there. Where is the button? And I'm just letting everybody know as they log in that we are currently live streaming. Got it. Hello everyone. Regina, I'm going to go ahead and promote uh Rose. Okay. I think I already put her through there. Oh, sorry about that. Okay. There seems to be

003just kind of a delay between promoting them and them I think accepting. Yeah, that's pretty standard. Welcome, Rose and William. Just a heads up that we are currently live streaming. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Regina or Paul or somebody. Can you let me know if you can hear me? This is Missy. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Looks like we've got a great turnout this evening. We'll wait a few more minutes for more folks to join us. We are live streaming just for everybody's awareness. We've already begun the live streaming and I do believe that Jess is attempting to log in as we speak. Perfect. And I will be reporting here shortly just so folks are aware. Thank you, Missy. And I do see Jess in the waiting room. I think maybe somebody's trying to promote

004him already. He is. Yeah, I've promoted him. Wonderful. And I believe that's Karen under the Oregon Climate Action Hub. It is wonderful. Hello everybody. Good evening. Good evening. Sorry for the delay. Nice to see everyone. It's 6:02. Looks like we have a quorum here. So that is fantastic. That is good news. And recording is going. Everybody hear me? Okay. Yep, we can hear you. And recording has started and we are live streaming as well. Great. Well, we will call to order uh the meeting of the Centennial School District Budget Committee. It is May 28th, 2025 and we will get started at 602. Uh co can I have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting? Motion to approve as presented. All right. By Vice Chair Shields. Second. And a second. That is great. Thank

005you so much. Everybody in favor say I. I. Hi. Hi. Great. All right. So, item 2.0, introduction of guests. I don't believe there are any. Paul, do you know of any guests? We may have I do not. We do have a couple folks participants. Um, but they may be here for public comment later. All right. That's fantastic. So, we will move to item 3.0. Uh, we need approval of the minutes. If I could, uh, get a motion to approve the minutes from April 23rd, 2025. Or if there's any adjustments that need to be made, we can do that, too. I move to approve the minutes from April 23rd. Motion from Will Moing. Thank you. Second. Second. and a second from Rod Bcher. Thank you very much. All those in favor? I I All right. unanimous.

006Thank you all so much. All right, we will move to item 4.1, the budget review, budget process review. And I believe it is showtime for Paul Sutherton. All right, I will uh tee up the screen here if I can get a thumbs up that everybody can see my display. Don't need a repeat of a previous year, but uh Director Andrews pre please keep me honest if the display comes down for some reason. Sorry, inside joke for those of you that have been with us for a couple of years. I got about halfway through the presentation and uh it was not displaying. So, lesson learned. All right, so we'll jump into it. Here we are going to do an overview of the budget process to date. Uh then a summary of the 2526 budget. Uh here

007the punchlines in parenthesis. There are no changes from the proposed budget uh financially or otherwise. Uh and then there's action items for the committee this evening. And that's as a reminder these are committee action items, not the administration. This is the the budget committee uh would be taking these actions. And so that's hearing comments from the budget committee. uh hearing uh public testimony, consideration of a motion to approve the budget, and then the committee's deliberation of that motion, and then ultimately a voting by the committee members to potentially approve uh the budget this evening. So just a reminder of the process that we engage here in Centennial. It is a communitybased participatory budget process with equal representation of schoolboard members and community members which determine the goals and the priority for spending of the district

008for next year. The district budget priorities were established by the budget committee by participation from schools, the school board and the community. And that all occurred during January and March of this year. Based on those goals and priorities, the administration drafted the proposed budget, which this committee received in April of this year, so just last month. And then we had an opportunity to receive your feedback, your questions, provide clarification, and just provide you ample time to review the budget so you uh felt confident in your understanding of what was included in there and where the money uh was being directed. Tonight, the budget committee receives the budget again. This time the approved budget, hears testimony, deliberates, and then considers approving the updated budget. Again, there are no changes, so it's just the the proposed budget,

009tax rate, bond collection, and bond collection. Uh, should this committee approve the budget this evening, the budget will then be forwarded to the board for final adoption in June. Just want to acknowledge the feedback, the the questions, the engagement, the participation of our community, our uh staff, this committee. Uh we received a lot of engagement and this continues a recent trend of folks giving thoughtful review and consideration and asking questions of the budget, which is fantastic. We deeply appreciate it in the business office and I know the school district at large really appreciates the thoughtful engagement and people turning the pages and digging into stuff and um and really being engaged with you know how the district is proposing to spend the funds afforded to us by the state. So thank you all for that

010dedication and our time. I know it's a it's a 200page document and it's not easy reading. So just really appreciate the thoughtfulness and the time that you all put into that and our broader community at large. We believe that the budget as proposed for you this evening. The 2526 budget is a very much a student focused budget. It touches and supports all the goals of our strategic plan including resulting in class sizes that are the same or in some cases even a little bit lower than last year. continues our supporting every student's belonging and well-being by continuing to support uh the district supports the school u social workers the 8th grade and 9th grade transition we have the native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders Latina O and X support grants additionally insourcing our FLS or functional life

011skills classroom serving those students in district which are our students and just supporting serving them in our community continuing to offer wonderful opportunities for student focus groups, student voice, student participation, no reduction in co-curricular activities, no reduction in clubs, no reduction in student council opportunities. Go forward touching on continuing to maintain our thoughtful long-term approach to budgeting what resulting in stable staffing, stable class sizes, continuing to be able to provide those enhanced electives and updated curriculum for our students and preparing every student for their future by maintaining highly skilled wonderful uh workforce supporting students and continuing opportunities for nontraditional learners through the virtual academy and then connection programs like CTE. and others for every learner. The budget as proposed uh tonight for your considerative approval maintains all co co-curricular activities as previously stated which and

012supports the CTE programs as identified here which was these two were additional priorities of the budget committee. So we believe in summary this budget speaks to all the priorities of the district as we're able to with the funds awarded. The result is elementary school average class size of 1 to 25. This doesn't take into account specials that would this is general egg classrooms. So music that is not considering music, PE, small groups, other specials which would only lower the ratio not raise it. Um and then at middle school and high school that is a staffing to student ratio because we know that those students are or those classes and sections are different at the secondary level. You may have a large PE class or band or choir and you may have a smaller specials class

013or a second and third year language class or a medals or something like that. So overall we look at the uh the licensed teacher to student ratio uh at the middle and high school level. It also affords a prep period uh at the middle and high school level and still maintaining class sizes right around the 30 number. Overall, we believe this budget maintains all critical current services to students, continuous leveraging of grants and special funds to support students, mental health supports, learning specialists, special education supports, smaller class sizes than we've seen historically in the district, and investments to close the learning gaps. It continues our investment in co-curricular activities and student leadership opportunities. It continues our investments in in improving teaching and learning environments. So, continues a classroom improvement fund, continuous uh investing in the

014spaces where our students spend the most time and making sure that those are supporting the learning that's happening there. It does use $1.9 million of our ending fund balance. I want to highlight that that's as planned. Our our fund balance is higher than anticipated. It's higher than the uh the board adopted policy at this point in time. So we have a thoughtful plan to preserve the supports for students that other districts are not able to provide are not able to continue. This is a thoughtful uh fund balance spend down plan over the next several years uh to get to a more normal fund balance. So it is a large number and in other districts you know that would be a cause for concern but we are in um stable financial position and I believe that

015you know our students need these supports and that's why we're proposing this with this budget. Overall, the administration informed by the Centennial Budget Committee as well as the Centennial community at large, staff and students. There are ongoing strategic plan engagement implementation sessions. respectfully submits for your consideration the 2526 Centennial School District budget for a total of 159,964,77 including the general fund budget in the amount of $99,613,216 and all other fund budgets in the amount of $60,351,491. Big numbers there. The proposed general fund permanent tax rate is $4.74.48 per thousand of assessed value and the proposed tax levy is $4,189,15 for the 2526 bonded general debt obligation payments. So separating and aside from the property tax rate is the uh bonded uh debt rate which is the 4,ion189105 to pay interest and principal payments on our

0162020 capital bond. So with that I'll pause for a minute and I welcome comments and questions and feedback from the committee. Great. Uh thank you Paul. Um let me call on each of you. We'll just do a roll call call kind of thing so we can all make sure our voices are heard and any um questions get answered. Uh so we will start with uh Karen Wolf Gang. No comments at this time. Thank you for all your work. Thank you. Uh David Lynn, no comment. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, MNA Jensen, no comments. Rod Betcher, hopefully just one comment. Uh, the federal government is in disarray about funding and the uh Department of Education is on its last legs, I think, or or if if the courts don't stop that. I want to know whether

017if there are decreases to the federal funding of any of the programs, how are we going to meet the need of those students? Are we going to reduce class size and have cuts or fill it in with district funds? Yeah, and that's a great question. What I can tell you is that um superintendent and business managers across the state and across the nation are acutely aware of what's going on in the news and what's being proposed at the federal level. Um at this point in time, we have not seen any of those reductions. Um and the continuing resolution and the um the bills that have been proposed so far have not resulted in large net reductions. we do see uh about a a 2 to 3% reduction possibly in our title u funding but that's

018based on the declining enrollment that we've seen um over the coming year or over the last couple of years. So, at this point in time, you know, we have a heightened state of awareness. Obviously, we're in a a good position as compared to other neighboring districts because of our fund balance. Uh, but make no mistake, we receive, you know, pass through dollars in many millions of dollars from the federal government. And so, that should that, you know, be withdrawn, it would have a a large impact on students. Um, Superintendent Owens, anything you'd like to add or clean up there? Yeah, I would just say we've had some preliminary conversations about that and fortunately we're in a position to have the fund balance that we do and um if the reductions at the federal level are

019more significant than what um Director Sutherton just spoke to, that's a conversation that we would revisit to see how we could potentially work to keep those services whole through the next year. um knowing that also we cannot um supplant services um from federal funds with local funds. And so that would be something that we would have to um discuss how to uh how to navigate. Um but in essence um if we were to see a federal shortfall we would be having some discussions about how to u maintain continuity of services so that we didn't have to make um drastic and uh knee-jerk reactions accordingly if that makes sense and would you uh let me see what was the question I had going on uh replace them with we can't replace them with district funds then

020so we're looking at reduction in force I suppose and therefore or someplace along the way the budget's going to have to change and can it be changed by the board at that point if and I know there's a dollar amount that you can go up or down but help me out with that one and help us. Yeah, essentially what you're you're raising is the concern of under spending and that doesn't require a board action. It's only if we exceed our appropriation if we overspend that the board would have to take an action. Nonetheless, we would consult the board and inform the board uh should there be large changes or large reductions in funding. So, Director Callahan, you looked like you were going to jump in with something. No. Okay. Oh, go ahead. Oh, thanks a

021lot, guys. Appreciate it. I'm done. Thank you. Appreciate it. Uh, Michael Newman taking way too long to come off mute to say I have no additional comments. Uh, just appreciation for all the hard work. Thank you. Uh, Claudia Andrews, nice job, Director Sutherton and team. Thank you very much. No comments. Thank you, Claudia. Uh Will my thank you uh one director 10 if you could remind me and the group um regarding uh the staffing levels and the impact u that retaining all the services I I I don't want to misspeak and say that in April's meeting or a different conversation there were some minor reductions through phasing out uh vacant positions or or bringing some um some contracts inhouse. Could you just uh refresh my memory on that as it relates? Excellent question. So um

022due to uh lower enrollment, we do have uh a couple fewer positions which is our typical process. We rightsize from year to year based on enrollment. So should enrollment increase uh we add. Should enrollment decrease we cut. Um as that's why how we're funded. Um, so there were a couple adjustments as you probably noted on function 1111 of the general fund for uh elementary uh teachers and then 1131 of the general fund for uh the high school level. separate and aside to help close the gap between um continuing the same services that we're providing this year with the services we're providing for next year. we did reduce and transition away um from a couple of um positions uh regarding freshman teaming and then uh another another position in regards to um MTSS and we're replacing

023that with a ninth grade 8th to 9th grade transition support to continue to support those grade levels. Uh the biggest change was insourcing of uh students from who were receiving uh FLS or functional life skills uh educational services um from the MEESD. And so we were paying um substantially more for them to provide those educational services for students versus doing ourselves because we lacked uh the space and competency and frankly bandwidth. I think over the last years struggling with staffing shortages and other things. And so we appreciate that their partnership and continuing to provide those services for students. However, it did come at a an added cost. And so by insourcing those services, that was probably the largest uh benefit to us of this budget. And we estimate a realized savings of 600 to $750,000

024uh next year by insourcing uh those services. Great. Thank you. So, just uh um making sure that I understood all of that. Uh so, the the net decrease in um positions was what specifically a number. Uh let me pull out the book. I don't want to speak out of pocket. Um well there's actually a net addition because insourcing those classrooms uh resulted in the hiring of or will result in the hiring of 14 educational assistants and two licensed uh positions. So that overall ad we will have more staff working next year uh directly for us rather than less staff working. Um so just overall on the net the headcount is increasing not decreasing. Yeah, the overall um reduction in force across the system in terms of because what Paul's talking about is net FTE, but

025if we're talking about how that FTE impacts the employees who are working, uh the net impact, and Paul, correct me if I'm mistaken on this, is a one classified employee who is moving from four hours a day to two hours a day by moving positions. Correct. Okay. Yeah, that that was that was where I needed the clarity. Thank you. No other questions or comments. Thank you, Will. Uh board chair Rose Salowski, you're up. Do you have any questions, comments? No questions or comments. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Pam Shields. Oh, I'm not muted. Um along the same lines of questions that director Marin um mentioned, everything we hear in the news is about reductions. Correct. And so I think one of the things and um I shared the same kind of concern and

026question will that you had was that kind of comparison to apples to apples when we hear things in the news if it's related to our partnership schools here in East Ma County. We know we're doing better but oftentimes people will say things like well know we lost this many or we didn't lose that many. And I think messaging and ha having something to say specifically about staffing is important. And we might want to craft something for us to be able to state so that or or something that we can point to specifically because the um budget book is so complicated and you're really good and your team is very good at explaining it to us. But when we get out at the grocery store, the question still remains, well, how many people are losing their

027jobs? So, if there's some kind of a crafting that we could be doing to help with our u messaging out, that would be I know that would be appreciated by me because then I could literally, you know, refer to it and refer people to um a location where our budget exists, which is on our website. So, it's more of a suggested um more to this process to help our public and ourselves explain it to the people that we're responsible to report to. Thank you. That's wonderful feedback. Thank you so much. I u I think that's a great idea and I'm sure we can come up with that for you all and and put that on our our website as well um where we keep the budget so our community can find it as well. So,

028thank you for raising that. Can I jump in that really made me think of something direct vice chair Shields um and that was as I was going through that big document. One of the things that really impressed me was as cuts were being made like little checks here and there, uh the district did a really good job of maintaining um services to students versus administrative services. So where they did have to take cuts a lot of times it was in the administrative areas versus directfacing student supports. And so I just wanted to um make sure that I recognized that out loud to the district that that really stood out to me as I was going through the board book and that is really impactful. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um I

029see Amber is in the meeting. Uh, Amber Topham, do you have any questions about the budget at this time? No, I do not. Thank you very much. Thank you for making it. And I don't have any questions. I do want to take a moment to thank all of you uh for your engagement and your participation in the budget. Uh, it was lots of questions outside the box and inside the box and I want to thank you for your engagement. It is uh really nice to see all the questions and the answers to those questions. Uh thank you all very much for your uh engagement with that. And I also want to say thank you to the business office for answering all those questions and going through them and crunching and dissecting all these numbers in

030the tough financial period. Um and you know shaving where you can shave and knowing what you uh can't. So, I want to uh uh send uh appreciation to all of you for that. Uh any last uh committee questions or comments before we move on to public testimony. Okay. I'm not seeing any hands raised. I raised my hand. What's that? I was muted. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Rod. Uh I I wonder if it would be possible to to the to give to the budget committee who was sort of out of the loop when they when you guys go back into session from the school board uh a copy of what uh uh Vice Chair Shields talked about uh and having those out uh to us so we can keep uh getting educated as the

031year goes along as to how thing what things are going on in a kind of a budget sort of way. That would be nice to have keep yourself u in touch. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's the intent of chair Harden to continue our updates in the fall. Uh we that was a new thing we started this past year where we convened the budget committee uh in November. So after we had the start of the school year and we had the finalized results financially aid for this year um and we're we know what our funding is and for next year. So convening in in November um and then keeping you um up to date in between I think is great. Uh it's a nice cadence to be able to uh meet in November and then January

032and then April and May. It gives you four different kind of touch points throughout the year as uh funding and and enrollment and adjustments happen. So I think that's Chair Harden's uh interest is continuing that. Chair, I don't mean to speak for you. No, you're absolutely right. the follow through is is is important to me. This is uh the second of four meetings during the budget season as I call it. So, by all means, um uh everybody's participation in November is valuable. It is uh I find value in seeing how the budget is versus um what we plan for because we really don't know how much exact money we're getting, which is a separate soap box of mine. Um but that is a a different challenge as I see it in our system and process

033that we uh need to need to follow. Um anyone else any other hands raised? I don't see any. All right. Uh with that we will move to item 4.4 public testimony. I see a couple attendees and feel free to raise your hands if you would like uh to comment or ask questions of the if you have any public testimony is the formal word for it. Please feel free. See three attendees in not seeing any hands raised. Regina, did you know of any other public testimony taking place today? No, we had no requests for public testimony. Okay. All right. I'm not seeing any hands raised of the attendees, but we'll pause for another minute just to make sure. I would hate for anyone uh to not have the opportunity to share u testimony or comments. All

034right, I think that's enough awkward silence. Um, thank you all for your engagement. And so we'll move to uh on from public testimony to item 4.5. This is deliberation by the budget committee. This is an opportunity kind of a open forum for us uh to discuss anything. Is there any other comments uh that anyone would like to share? Uh go ahead, Amber. I I don't know if this pertains to anything, but I do want to do a shout out uh to signs being put up over at Palutes uh in the back and front of the extension to the main yard. Uh that it is not a dog park and that to please clean up after your pet and it's still a public school uh use. I really appreciate those signs going up. All right. Thank

035you, Amber. Okay, everybody. If there's no other questions or concern, we're coming down uh the really important part. Um we will move on to old business item 5.1. Uh we're looking for a motion to approve the budget. Is this where we read that first, Paul? Uh I'll read this slide and then it'll be an opportunity for uh a member of the budget committee to potentially make a motion on the next slide. So um by statute and according to MMO County Tax Supervising and conservation commission, the three critical elements of the motion are to approve the general fund total budget, approve the general fund property tax millage rate, and approve the total levy for debt service. The debt service total levy listed below and the next slide allows for 5% for discounts and uncollected property taxes.

036Uh this is the motion. So if there is a budget committee member who would like to move for approval of the 2526 Centennial School District budget as proposed, they would just read this aloud. Do I have any volunteers? Oh, you go ahead, Karen. All right. I would like to move for approval of the 2025 2026 Centennial School District budget as proposed of $159,964,77 including the general fund budget in the amount of $99,613,216 and all other fund budgets in the amount of $60,351,491. Also, the general fund permanent tax rate of $4.7448 per thousand dollar of assessed value and a tax levy of $4,189,15 for bonded general obligation debt. Great. Do I have a second? I'll second. I'll second that. All right. All those in favor, please raise your hands and say I. I. I. I I

037All right. And I don't see any uh I think that was unanimous. Uh well, thank you all very much. That is a really big deal. Um so the committee has approved uh the 2025 2026 budget general fund tax rate and tax levy for the bond. Yay. Good job everybody. Uh, thank you very much. Centennial appreciates it. Um, we will move on to item 6.0, new business. Paul, we have any new business. Uh, just to uh remind everybody that we will convene uh in November and we do uh we have one more step on this budget which is to bring it forward to the board for formal adoption in June. So, um, you're welcome to attend. That will, uh, be virtual as well, I believe. Um, so then we'll ultimately have the budget adopted for the

038school year and to move forward. So, I've got my follow-up items here uh for presenting the or preparing the summary page as Vice Chair Shields uh suggested and then um connecting with you all for the um calendar for next budget year so we can nail that nail down that November date. All right, great. Thank you uh to you all. Really appreciate it. And with that, unless there's any last thing, uh, we will I would like like to have one thought, one thought. I know I'm overstepping my bounds here, I guess. I would like to see uh comments from the the um budget committee, those of us who are the citizenry uh have comments about the process that as it unfolded this year and so that we can keep contemporaneously moving forward with what get information

039gets around to the people um how it's done the just just how we worked. So I I guess I would just ask that if anyone has any comments about that, not to be pjorative, but just to say this is what I would have liked to have seen, it would have made uh the comment the uh budget more um usable for me and and uh that sort of thing. So anyway, that would be my thought is just to allow comments to come in about how the process um hit them. by all means. And if you have uh comments, you can send them to me or you can send them to the budget at CSD28J email address. Um either way, uh we will make sure and get those issues uh brought up and uh addressed. Bros, Jess,

040what worked and what didn't work. And we're always looking to um find a great way for us all to stay engaged. Thank you, Rod. Uh, anything else. All right. Thank you all. We will adjourn the meeting of the Centennial Budget Committee at 6:37. Thank you everyone. Good team. Have a great Appreciate you all. Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll be using this same link for the board meeting. Correct. And so the board meeting begins at 6:45 as presented. Think that we should be able to meet that deadline. Everybody just pause yourself for a moment. See you in a bit. James, your picture is in the Outlook. I saw that Christine shared that with me today. Yeah. Cool, huh? My mom went running to the store, but they don't provide the print copies in the

041store. anymore or as much. So, she's gonna have to get a subscription. Yeah, she can have mine though because she won't get this version of it if she subscribes. Oh, I see. My mom's been collecting those since I was in high school. Good on her. That's a good mom. The challenge is you collect these things for your kids thinking they're going to want them later. Apparently that's not true. I'm just finding that out as I'm trying to clean out some closet space. How are we doing on time? Good evening board members. I've been asked to chair the meeting this evening. So I'd like to get our recording started. Good evening. This is the Centennial School Board meeting of May 28th at 6:45 p.m. This is a work session meeting. So, the first thing we need

042to do is approve the May 28th board meeting minutes. May I have a motion to approve or any comment about any kind of um additions, corrections? Motion to approve the agenda. Are we doing agenda or board meeting minutes? Agenda. You know, I said that the I think I said board meeting agenda, but who knows? Okay. All right. So, so Jess, you're approving the agenda for this evening. And second on the agenda. Woohoo. Got it. So, whatever I did, let's approve the agenda. All those in favor indicate by saying I and showing our hands. I I I. Thank you everyone. We do not have any uh guests tonight. It looks like that everyone in the normal and customary. Yes, that's in attendance. And so I don't see anybody on my screen. Okay, good. Thank you. Approval

043of the May 14th minutes. May I have a Motion to approve the minutes from May 14th. Second. Got the first and our second. All those in favor of approving the minutes for May 14th indicate by saying I and show of hands. I thank you so much. The minutes have been approved. This is a work session of the board. So, we do not have u public forum at this time. So, we're going to go right into reports. I'm going to assume we're going to stay in the order. So, 5.1 Centennial Virtual Academy update. And I guess I do. We start with Meen or do we start with Superintendent Owens? Oh, let's start with me. Okay. Um, yeah. So, we uh weren't having school reports this year, but as I believe I previously mentioned with Centennial Virtual

044Academy being a new and innovative program within the last five years um and the board um adopting only last year to maintain that into continuity. We thought it prudent to bring back an update after its first year of being established as a program um in perpetuity uh to be able to provide a report for the board um to be able to hear an update. So um I have director Callahan here and I'm not sure if we have Dr. Ramberg um available this evening or in the gallery. Nevertheless, um we have Director Callahan who will represent uh for all of that report. Thank you, Superintendent Owens. I believe um Dr. Ramberg is here. Okay. He's not here. He's not in the waiter now, but he was planning on coming. I did confirm that with them earlier

045as well. Okay. Um if uh let me see here. Missy, can you project his slide deck? I can I can get us started here. And if need be, we can flip the order if we'd like. Let's do let's flip the order because he might be great having a little difficulty getting in. Who knows? That's all right. So would um Dr. Cassuda for roadmap 27 endofear update and district department improvement plan report be ready to go? Where are you? There you are. Yes, I am. I'm ready to go. All right. Thank you. And again, um, Superintendent Owens, if you want to introduce anything before Dr. Cassita gets started. Yes, thank you. I'll ceue this one up as well. So, we have, as was mentioned, an endofear update in a district department improvement plan report. Uh, these

046are two separate concepts, but we decided to um enlist them under one banner. So, I'll let Dr. Katsuda orient us to both of those uh topics and go ahead and take it away. Okay. Excellent. I think the the slideshow which is partially recorded and will partially be managed by me live will speak for itself. So I'm just going to launch right into the slides here. Uh make sure that everyone can see this. Can everyone see this? Excellent. Okay. Uh so I am pleased to present the department operational department uh board update for this school year as it's related to their the implementation of all of their strategic plans their improvement plans. Hi my name is Tasha Katsuda and I serve as the assistant superintendent of Centennial School District. It is my pleasure to introduce progress

047report on the district operational department improvement plan priorities. Guided by our district strategic plan roadmap 27, we have embarked on a comprehensive process of evaluation, goal setting and continuous improvement across all departments. This work is essential as both operational and instructional departments provide the critical service supports and systems that shape and enhance the learning experiences of every student in our district. The process for designing department improvement plans involved the review of the strategic plan strategy map and identification of key connections to department work. Once connections were identified, departments established department priorities as well as key metrics to monitor progress or growth towards those goals. Following department updates will provide you with a highle overview and progress report regarding the department improvement plans going beyond an orientation to the goals we provided last year to an

048update on the goals, growth or improvements made and what the next level of work is. Hi, my name is Suzanne Cummings and this has been my first school year with Centennial School District serving as the assistant director of transportation. Our team of 35 is a dedicated, hard-working and collaborative group. We implemented a successful labor management committee this year that meets regularly to improve communication and alleviate pain points within our department. We currently transport over 40% of our students to and from school each day on 24 routes in vehicles ranging from vans to big buses. We also provide transportation for dozens of district field trips each month. And we have provided extensive transportation this school year to our afterchool sun programs. One of our highest priorities has been and continues to be recruitment, hiring, and retention.

049In the last two years, our employee retention rate has doubled. To help offset the driver shortage, we have contracted three drivers from a neighboring district for several months to minimize the need for all of our office staff to drive each day. Our department runs the intra district mail service or pony route. and we operate a full-ervice shop that repairs and maintains all of our vehicles as well as the fleets for dining services and our maintenance department. Our focus this school year has been to support the district roadmap 27 goal of every student's well-being and inclusion by improving our collaboration with other departments and district families. We've actively inspired our staff to be engaged and supportive through monthly student management trainings, establishing better rapport with their students and improving the culture on our vehicles, which positively

050impacts student attendance. We were able to support the new PreK for All program this year and look forward to increasing that access next year to our youngest students as the program expands to several more campuses. Thank you for recently approving our update to the supplemental plan so that we can expand transportation access in the fall to more students within the Oliver Park Lane and Patrick Lynch walk zones. Our goals include partnering with Safe Routes to School and other district professionals to increase bus ridership to over 55% in the next school year, continuing to improve our driver education and retention, and to improve our communications with the entire Centennial community. We are actively working to decrease the use of contracted services by increasing our staffing levels. Thank you for your time and all that you do

051to support our mission of safe and accessible transportation for all of our Centennial students. Good evening. I'm Kim Burns and I have the honor of directing the incredible team of dining and nutrition services here at Centennial. As a part of our strategic plan, our team continues to grow and evolve. One of our main priorities this year has been staff growth. We've expanded our focus on professional development through targeted trainings, including departmentwide sessions, regular manager meetings, and our future leaders program designed for staff members who want to take their careers to the next level within our district. To ensure our voices are heard, we've launched staff committees, including menu, safety, inspiration, and future leaders. These groups are shaping real decisions made here and building leadership across our department. Another key priority has been stakeholder engagement. This

052year, our coordinator met directly with students at every school site to gather feedback on their meal needs and their preferences. We've also partnered closely with our Sun program to expand after school and summer meal offerings. Our WOW working on wellness committee hosted another successful event in February bringing district-wide wellness awareness and activities to staff across the board through the implementation of two wellness grants. Finally, we're proud of the work we've done to provide culturally responsive and locally sourced meals this year. Some highlights includes taste tests at several sites. CMS did a recipient of a smoothie grant. Continuations of such favorites as cotty cotti chicken, schwarma, and fish tacos were a great hit this year. We did Oregon raised steel head with some local Mary and Berry compost. Our turkey on gratitude day was from a

053local shampooie farms. We're doing fresh beef burgers from a local farmer along with Tamuk cheese. Each day a daily variety of fruits and vegetables are from Oregon farms here and locally sourced. These offerings not only support our local agriculture, but also reflect our commitment to culturally inclusive, highquality meals for our students here at Centennial. Thank you for your continued support as we nourish our minds and bodies of our students across the Centennial community. Hello, my name is Tina Cberhill and I am the payroll and benefits director for the Centennial School District. I have been with the district since 2009. I'm one of nine staff members that work in the business services department that are available year round to provide accounting services for the school district and staff members during the hours of 7:30 to 4:30.

054Some of the services we provide are accounts payable, accounts receivable, district budgeting, full service staff, payroll, benefits, and additional services for the district's current 850 employees, which include full-time, part-time, and seasonal staff members. We've been working toward the development and processes for implementation of training materials for the departments and the buildings to help each building and department navigate financial matters successfully. In addition, we have completed training for new staff, attended workshops and training meetings, and are developing training guides, which will be available electronically or hard copy for staff to have easy access to information and procedures. The business services department is also in the process of implementing a new payroll software that will work with our accounting software and a small test group now further testing over the summer and a goal of full use

055for all staff members, buildings, and operational departments when the new school year begins. The new software will streamline the process, eliminate paper timekeeping, record and process payroll information clearly and accurately. This will reduce the time it takes employees to complete payroll duties while assuring accuracy and transparency. The business service office is committed to being a supportive part of the district and always available to our staff members, vendors, and to our community to answer questions, provide information, and give outstanding service. My name is Frank Decker. As I wrap up my 13th year as technology director here at Centennial, I'm proud to report that the IT department continues to provide outstanding service to teachers, staff, and students. I'm excited for the future as we strive to improve the customer service experience even more. This year, we maintained

056a network uptime of over 99% and a monthly service level above 95%. One of our primary focuses this year was building out our new Synergy Analytics tool through a multi-level pilot. This has been entirely successful and we have now rolled out this amazing tool to all our district administrators, principles, secretaries, and more. We also added a new position this year, a digital content support specialist to complement the curriculum department's new technology TOSA position. This expands and streamlines online application support for our teachers and staff to ensure that they get the access and support they need promptly. As we head into summer and next school year, we are confident that we will successfully navigate new challenges like AI and education and issues with student Chromebook devices. Our team is professional, dedicated, and prepared to meet the

057challenges to come. Thank you. Hi, this is Joseph Brown, facilities assistant director. Under the department leadership of Brian Van Djk, we manage just over 1 million square feet of building space and a staff of around 40. This includes trades workers as well as custodial workers. Our department is open from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, as well as responding to emergencies and supporting sporting events outside of these office hours to ensure that our buildings are safe, secured, clean, and to best support our community and our students education. Our department's goals have grown from previous years that we have met our objectives. For 2025 to 2026, we are focusing on creating a more transparent and communicative department. Positive changes in the employment climate have allowed us to move away from creative staffing strategies as

058we now are completely staffed and to instead focus more on training, development, and retention strategies for our existing staff. Our next level of work will be focused on increasing standards in all areas of each of the departments we oversee. This will include building out handbooks and training materials as well as developing and utilizing partnerships to make sure that we give our students the very best. Hey everyone, my name is Neil O'Donnell. I am the district safety and security coordinator for Centennial. This year, the safety and security department's improvement priorities were to improve the flow of communication, to increase our training opportunities for our team, to support our students and all our schools at all levels, to focus on the team being seen, known, and heard, to implement our search policy, and finally to onboard a

059new safe routes to school coordinator. To make these improvements, our department started by first looking at the name of our individuals on our campus safety team and changing the name from campus security officer to campus safety liaison. Thus putting a focus on safety, safety in our schools. Our campus safety liaison being a trusted adult to our students, being able to build rapport, being able to listen, being able to help with repair and create resolution. We also increased our training by offering a full week of training in August for our campus safety team and additional training throughout the year on topics such as equity, deescalation, and scenario-based training. We put a focus on rapport building with our students, knowing our students by name, and meeting them where they are at. And as I also said, we

060brought on a brand new safe routes to school coordinator who has hit the ground running, has began to build our program to be a model out here in East County that we can hope to share with our neighboring districts. As we look to our next level of work, we look at being able to complete the manual that has been built for our campus safety liaison team to continue to build on the training opportunities for them. And for our safe routes to school program, we hope to continue to focus on the goals that are within our grant and finally to create our own safe routes to school web page for Centennial School District. The human resource department's important priorities are recruitment, hiring, and retention of highly qualified, diverse staff reflective of our students and community, development

061of effective human resource systems, structures, and practices, and development of a healthy and inclusive staff culture. This year, we made strides in strengthening our workforce and deepening our commitment to equity and student success. We expanded recruitment and outreach efforts and transitioned to an online hiring system, improving both efficiency and responsiveness. We also increased targeted instructional coaching for new teachers, sustained staff affinity groups, and facilitated monthly professional development for all staff centered on foundational equity principles and now shifting toward real world application in our classrooms and community engagement. We use insights from our 360 survey suite to track perceptions of support, inclusion, and school climate. And we'll be using this data to help us make more informed decisions into the coming school year. We're especially proud to continue developing our educator pathway for students of color

062at Centennial High School. Participants earn college credit through paid Portland Community College courses taught by BIPAC instructors, receive free summer triet passes, and gain valuable experience through paid internships as educational assistance in our elementary summer programs. In partnership with MESD, we also continue to support classified staff of color in taking paid university coursework as they pursue teaching credentials. Looking ahead, we are focused on streamlining our human resources and personnel systems to increase efficiency across the district, allowing school leaders to spend more time where it matters the most, supporting teaching and learning. This year, both members of the communications department were new to the district. As such, our department's improvement priorities were focused on observing and continuing ongoing work while identifying areas for growth or refinement. First, our top priority was to support the ongoing implementation

063of the roadmap 27 strategic plan with a specific emphasis on raising awareness of the year 2 focus areas. Next, our department worked to improve and refine communication strategies already in use by the district. This included critical updates to district and school websites, improving user experience, functionality, and accessibility, as well as improving the overall functionality of the parent square experience for staff and administrators. Finally, we focused on broadening our communication and engagement efforts with the larger Centennial community. work we expect to continue expanding on in the 2526 school year. To make improvements, our department worked with schools and departments to identify needs at all levels and to address those needs through an approach focused on problem solving, responsiveness, research of both past practice and best practices and collaboration. Our next level of work will include three

064major areas. First, we will use targeted staff training and coaching to expand the communication skills and capacity at the school level, supporting the work that school teams do to engage their own communities of stakeholders. Second, we will focus on even deeper collaboration with district departments to elevate the strategic work happening districtwide. Lastly, we will refine internal systems that inform our communication processes, always looking for ways to address gaps or improve the quality of our communications. Thank you for your interest in our district department improvement plans. For more information about these plans, please visit our website at www.csd28j.org. All right. Uh so that was a a compilation of reports from all of our operational departments uh just to provide you an update on their work as it pertains to their improvement plans and the goal setting

065that they're engaged in for and looking forward to into next school year. Are there any questions? It was fun to hear everyone's voice. I I very much enjoyed having people comment about what they are doing in their department using their voice about what they have been doing and what their goals are to improve. So I appreciated that approach. Um not that you don't give really good reports, you do. But it's just nice to hear it um from each individual. Yeah. and and I really appreciate uh even though I didn't request this because we were trying to keep it short uh an overview of their work and what it looks like, how many people in their department, we often don't share that. So people really don't know the scope and depth of the work that our

066various operational departments are engaged in. And so um there will be a recording of this on the district website on the strategic plan page uh hopefully next to last year's report so people can see the progress we made. Thank you. Other board members comments, questions, you're good. I'm looking around. Looks like you're good. Great work. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Cassida. So, um, let's move to report 5.1, the Centennial Virtual Academy with Director Callahan and Dr. Dr. Ramberg. Looks like we've got Dr. Ramberg with us. And it looks like he might be still in the office. Unless he liked the Centennial paint palette so much he uh wall in his house the same color. What if it's both? Uh Mr. Owens. So I want to just kind start off by saying um in the past

067three years and under uh Dr. Ramburgg's leadership, Centennial Virtual Academy continues to evolve and adapt its program to uh align with Roadmap 27 and to meet the community needs. So with that, I'm going to hand that off so Dr. Ramberg can uh can lead this report. Fantastic. Thank you, Mo. Get you all to the presentation here. [Music] All right. Good evening. Can I get a thumbs up that you can see and hear uh the cover slide of Centennial Virtual Academy? Mo, are we looking good on on your end? Yep. Fantastic. Well, I'd like to thank uh each member of the Centennial School Board for having me and CVA in this evening. Uh I'd like to thank any CVA staff that are joining virtually. And without further ado, let's get you caught up on what's happening

068at Centennial Virtual Academy since we last met. Centennial Virtual Academy uh serves each elementary, middle, and high school uh in Centennial School District. We offer virtual, synchronous, and hybrid schedule learning opportunities for students. Uh current enrollment, it's about 25 students at grades 2 through 5, 50 at 68, about 200 at 912. And then you'll learn a little bit more this evening, I hope, on our learning lab, which is a collaborative opportunity between CVA and CHS. Um, our instructors at CVA do the grading for an additional 400 courses or students visav the learning lab. So, more on that to come. Um, I will mention with enrollment at CVA, we're a little bit inverse. So, while some on ground schools will sort of peak October, November of the school year, we that might be our lowest point

069and then we'll kind of build as the year goes. And so, uh, students will join us for a myate of reasons. Um, you know, health, uh, other, um, but we tend to increase as a year goes on. So, it's just kind of a a fun little note. Um, see here. So, CVA really tries to be responsive to the current needs of each school in our district. And uh in my uh much work with Mo, I've started to we started to term these years as iterations of teaching and learning. Um and being adaptive and flexible is just that. And so in my three years here, each year has looked a little bit different. Um this year, none no different than the others in that they're different. Um we like that. That's where innovation tends to sprout.

070So, for this year, uh, we integrated all staff into levels K8 into Meadows Elementary and 912 into Centennial High School. And I've got some fun photos of that here in a minute. We focused on relationship building with our on ground staff, participated in staffwide PD, integrated into PLC's, uh, and co-constructed the CHS CVA learning lab. Um, and then we've additionally tried to build bridges with our middle schools and elementary buildings beyond our host uh at Meadows. And at this time, I would like to thank uh Principal Miller and Principal Klingan for their welcoming uh welcoming us into the space and curriculum director Mo Callahan for helping uh us through this iteration this year. So, so sometimes a picture can tell a thousand words. Uh, if you look at the bottom left, that was kind of

071our start. Uh, we were able to get new carpet in there. So, that was an improvement from the beginning. And then looking up left, you kind of see the finished product. And you'll notice the different teaching zones in there. So, we have room for four adults to work in here, plus a secretary half day. and some of our instructors are on on Zoom working with students and families as much as six hours a day. So, we've had to set norms in these spaces, but these um semi-permanent walls have been a help in noise, etc. On the right there, you'll see uh that was just a couple weeks ago for on ground state testing. And again, thanks to Meadows for for hosting us and so we were able to find a a large enough space for

072our in that day was our middle schoolers coming in. Um, one funny uh anecdote related to that uh prior to this uh teachers were halftime or part-time home, part-time on ground. When they came in, you know, there was a lot of grumbling about the space and these details. And then at the midyear evaluations, I intentionally asked everybody and amazingly better warm and now at this point teachers will often say they're very protective of their cubby and enjoy their cubby. You'll see in the next slide the high schools they've kind of personalized them and that um it's really went went well and been an increase in in morale um from the start of the year. So I consider that a success. So here uh we have uh two room conversions that happened at the high school.

073Uh we'll start there at the lower left. That was formerly an electronics lab. Uh for those of you that have been around, that was a that was the cleaned out version there. So looking ready to go. We converted those student desks. You'll see there at the lower left looking up to kind of the finished product. We've got a nice table uh for staff meetings and other other families coming in. And then each teacher's got a little section of that student work area towards the back. Moving over to the right, the before picture is lower. Pretty traditional classroom. Um a little bit cluttered. And so we asked students what they would want in a learning space or a learning lab. And one of the themes that kind of emerged was um I'd like to do school

074work in an Apple store. And so we did the best we could. We raised the table, got high chairs. Uh we've got some more coming in terms of uh noise dampening in that space. It's very echoey. Um but the kids really like the space and it feels different than any other classroom at CHS. And so it's kind of a nice been a nice addition. Highlights in student voice. uh K5 we are proud to see our uh student survey data at 91% uh in areas of belonging our star reading is looking good at 70% at benchmark 68 attendance has been a real strength uh they've glombmed on to that instructor I think she has almost 90% attending daily daily advisory that's a new feature that we offered this year and we've been working on critical literacy

075standards across uh core core areas there. 912 uh less D's and Fs in trimester 2 with an increased number of students and a focus on star reading and crit critical lit standards. Last year we had um a 91% grad rate and that was for students that were enrolled with us for two or more terms. So I like to say that CVA particularly at the high school level is one of the only places that you can go to bend the time continuum. So in other words, if you've got more credits than trimesters will offer, that's one area where we tend to get involved and help them to earn those credits to walk across the stage. Student voice. Um I love these. Our second to fifth graders, we asked uh for some feedback in preparation for this.

076Uh they enjoy Zoom drawing and fun Fridays. This one's kind of my favorite. I like math. I like adding two-digit numbers with one-digit numbers. Uh, my anxiety is not through the roof when doing school with CVA from home. Um, up to the high school, middle high school. Mentally doing better online than on ground. I enjoy school events, the CVA welcome back event, and I can get more work done and can have a job, being able to be flexible in school and work. Similarly, I asked staff for some feedback on what's going well and and what you all might want to hear in terms of progress and successes. Um, at the K5 level, I've noticed an increase in fourth and fifth grade participation during Zoom. Uh, increase in attendance consistency over the year with an increase

077in students asking for help. and knowing Miss Regallet, uh, she's worked really hard on compliment student to student and setting the the tone and working on SEAL with with the K5ers 612. Um, meeting with individual students and families to help them create a plan for success in our CVA program. More students passing than in previous trimesters, making progress. And I was going to mention on that one, um, you know, it kind of speaks to the customized learning experience that we really work hard to offer our students. So, if you've got a customized need, we really try to be a customized solution for you. Uh, lastly, this year has been focused on building stronger foundation for student success through relationship building, data to inform decision- making, and collaborative professional learning with the CHS staff. So, kind

078of working on that integration piece. Our next phase of work, continued work in literacy and course skill development. Um we've really liked the regular synchronous learning opportunities. We're doing daily advisory at each level. That's going well. And then continued focus on um connecting and relationship building including SEAL. providing our students and caregivers um more academic rigor combined with excellent communication and then um in-person access to instructors. So if you look at that continued development of the CHS CVA learning lab including um CHS students being able to go off-site and access curriculum and see online learners to come on-site and access adult support. So that's kind of what their next phase is to kind of hone in that that hybrid of both. And then lastly, work in collaboration with uh curriculum and student learning to increase

079our learning response and implementation of effective educational use of AI. Um that is something that we are on the front lines of that work and I've got the right team with us to implement that successfully. I think that is a really busy year condensed. Uh so thank you. Um and I'd like to ask if there's any questions. So board members, if you just want to Yeah, Jess is doing it. Raise your hand. So Jess and Claudia, please start us out. Yes. Uh, thanks for the presentation. Great job. I appreciate it. So, the student count is roughly 275 across the district, 25 elementary, 50 middle, and 200 at the high school. How many students go through it in the hybrid form? Like maybe take one class or two classes. How many students are going through it?

080Yeah. um if you don't consider learning lab learners um hybrid, right? They're they're taking they're scheduling a class, arriving to that room, the Apple Store room, and doing a class. If you don't consider th those learners as hybrid, even though they're technically hybrid, we've got probably 20 low 20s. I think we've got the potential to serve many more. Um what I've thought about at particularly at the 912 level is that that um approval and revocation of approval, you need to make sure that they are um capable to do that. It's a it's a uh you know, you're letting them you're loosening up the the reigns for them to do that work, which is is possible, but it shouldn't be a um granted right for everybody. They got to prove that the ability to responsibly do

081so. So So checking in, checking out, that kind of thing. Does that make sense? So, if a student were to take an elective, they have to be approved to take that elective. CBA. If they wanted to, no, if they could sit in the learning lab and do it, easy peasy, they could enroll full-time and do it without approval. If they wanted to say check into the learning lab and leave campus to go to work and then finish that work later, I think we would want to make sure they're responsible academically enough to do that. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Claudia, thanks for the presentation. I was kind of curious how many students you're going to graduate this year. Oh, good question. Um, we have I I could get I think it'll

082be 76 or 80 right in there. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. Other board members, David, Will, Rose and James, David's good. Not hearing anything else. Yes. Oh, Rose, are you there? Just all good. Thank you so much for the presentation. That was great. You bet. Superintendent Owens. Thanks for the uh report, Dr. Ramburgg. And like you said, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I appreciate the incorporation of the visuals so that we can get a deeper aspect in terms of uh what it looks like on ground. Um you and I have talked about this a little bit before and so um I uh don't mean to put you on the spot in a public setting, but um as we look at the enrollment in um primary grades in particular and we roll

083up K and one to next year to K12 potentially not having any students enrolled, the question is what do you um see as the feasibility of continuing to offer those grade levels if we don't have enrollment or what if we have oneoff enrollment and we have one kindergartener but not any other in the primary grades and you have one teacher that's on on the K8 span. Um I was wondering if you're comfortable speaking to that at this point. I am and thank thank you for asking that. So one of the things that I had in my notes and I didn't mention is egeneuity is provides curriculum at grade level reading level. So, as you get up to 912, if folks, you know, they can have the content, but they've got to be reading reading on

084track. And so, you know, we we need to kind of prioritize K2 on ground with an effort to do that. Um given our our limited enrollment and an importance of of learning to read first on ground, we will always well we will as of next year and continued should you choose to continue to have the ability to enable K2 but in order to be fiscally responsible you know we'll monitor that demand and maintain the ability to do so. But um ideally we'd love our our K2s to come on ground and and get some of that foundational reading established. Does that answer your question? It does. Do you see the need for any formality from the board level or is that something that you feel like you can manage uh within the context of the program

085in terms of um adding a a oneoff K2? Is that what you mean? Or um or having more of a formalized stance of not enrolling at K2 is more of my question. Yeah. Um I don't uh necessarily. I'm happy happy to to whatever degree it would would be uh the preference here. Um my K8 instructor is among the best. Uh we've talked about uh some of those scenarios and I'd like to take a year to to kind of monitor monitor and and you know our license at that level is a K5 license. So you know we don't you know we whether we do 35 we can always we'll maintain that ability. Now, just like a if you consider a potted plant as as a a first grade, you know, if you kind of let it

086sit there without tending to it, updating curriculum, that kind of thing, it'll, you know, it'll sit in that constant state just as it would on ground. But, um, like I said, the ability and cost would be a flat, if that makes sense. And if I could just add one thing, um, as Zach mentioned earlier on, um, our department and Zach work very closely together. And so, you know, these situations or scenarios that may arise, we would be working together on that. I do have a question about space. So, does everyone um if you if I come into a building, do I come into the same space even if I'm the sixth grader? Oh, or do I go to the I was confused. I guess I just got a little confused at the very beginning. Where

087where do I go? Yeah, very good question. So, if you are a uh kinder through 8th grade or a third through 8th grade next year, you will come to Meadows Elementary and we are working with them to uh refine those policies and practices. But as you saw in the state testing photo that those were middle schoolers at Meadows in the beautiful new gym. Thank you. Uh so yeah, that'll be your home base. Um and then 912 is uh really appropriately and graciously um right there at CHS. So um we that is a buzzing room. I had to go in there at 5:00 to get it empty to take those photos. So it's just it's constant. And this might be a question then for um Director Sutherton. We have maintained money in the budget for classroom

088improvements etc. are we doing as we look at CBA and maybe the unique needs that they have that are maybe different than um what our other programming is is how do you incorporate something like a CVA programming into our building and our class improvements that's that boggles me a bit I'm sorry Vice Chair Shield my audio cut out for that last kind 15 seconds. So I got the first part of the Yeah. I just want to know how I know you are on a continuous improvement. Um and so how does something like a CVA that is moving, changing, it iterative, whatever that word was. Um right what how do we deal with that in the budget? Yeah, I think that's a great question. And at this point in time, the u the changes that's been

089expressed uh to the board this evening in the report regarding K2 has been incorporated into the model for funding for next year, it's reflective in that student investment account of not needing that uh educator at the K through2 level and combining the the 3 through 8 level. um in regards to physical spaces with the classroom improvement fund as you were speaking to um their spaces or the spaces that are utilized by Centennial Virtual Academy at this point in time are part of our collective inventory of all spaces in the district. And so um you know while the use of the room may change over time and that may influence when it is uh when it's the time to update that room. that may inform how we update that room, but the updating to that room

090would maintains its space in line um because it's that it's that room and that part of the building regardless of what the programming is in that room. Does that make sense? So, they're part of the overall plan. Well, with the mentioning of the, you know, like the sounding um dampening there, that's something you wouldn't know necessarily prior to being in the space. And so, that's just something that gets worked into renovation as the need arises as a understanding of what is needed arises. Correct. I mean it could move to maybe to the top of the list. Just curious to me because it is new program. Yeah, for sure. No, great question. And we continue we hold a small amount in the overall maintenance budget for those kind of emergent issues that come up uh the

091non- capital um issues. And we worked with Dr. Ramberg this year on um finding some fire retardant uh insulated sound panels. Um and he came along he was able to come alongside with some funding through um I believe the grant uh high school success grant utilize some um some funding there. So u those are always things that we're going to look at. Um you know um those how how do how are we supporting the learning spaces and things that involve emergent needs. Um, so cafeteria noise at Parklane was an issue last year and we worked with some sound absorbing panels there as well, right? And so those just kind of things come up u unforeseen items whether it's CDA moving or you know uh larger than historically normal enrollment at Park Lane and then therefore

092more kiddos in the cafeteria, right? Kind of thing. So um we have that um a placeholder in the budget. It's part of the the supplies of maintenance to kind of hold some of those for those emer needs for things that are break down or unexpected needs. Thank you. Other board members, anything like one last burning question before we let Dr. Ramberg go home? Looks like no rush. Uh, Superintendent Owens, any last comments before we move on? Nope. We just appreciate the report. the board's engagement and interest in the programming. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you sincerely. Then we're going to be moving on oh to Superintendent Owens, your um year end report, please. All right. I usually like to tell you uh what size of report you're in for, and all I can say is

093buckle up. We've got a it's the end of the year, so there's a lot to recap. So hopefully it's a at least a fun ride. All right. Greetings board members. It is my pleasure and privilege to share with you a recap of the 202425 school year as a reflection of our shared progress during year two of roadmap 27. district-wide alignment on a shared vision, common goals, and unified direction of our district's educational effort over the span of 2023 to 2027 was the goal of developing our strategic plan. This past year has been characterized by a sharper focus on instructional coherence, systemic alignment, and deeper implementation of our district priorities across our schools and departments. We work to sharpen instructional practices and stay grounded in increasing the likelihood that each student experiences highquality teaching, a sense

094of belonging, and the opportunity to thrive. This report reflects the progress we've made together, how our systems have evolved, and where we're headed next. In the 2425 school year, the second of our four-year strategic plan, our work shifted from an emphasis on our roadmap 27 pillars to an emphasis on our goals, which you can see here on the screen. Our pillars are a means to an end. I wanted for us to be more focused on what we're actually trying to accomplish, which is our goals. So, this year, we focused on goal areas directly aligned with our five goals for student success. As we go through this report, you'll still see the pillars reflected on the bottom of many slides, and those continue to underpin our work towards our goals. The goal areas of focus for

095this year were belonging, literacy, attendance, and engagement. You can see to the left of each of these banners the associated goal or goals for each header. An additional area of focus this year was the profile of a graduate which was the development at which was developed as a part of the strategic planning process representing the skills and habits of mind that define learning experiences at school and that students should possess when they graduate. Instructional improvement efforts this year were centered on deepening coherence across schools and aligning sitebased work with district priorities. School improvement plans were refined to reflect roadmap 27 goal areas, layering in the year 2 priorities I outlined a moment ago. Progress monitoring and reflection are critical aspects of continual improvement and these have continued to be embedded into our plan through trimester

096data summits serving as structured checkpoints for implementation monitoring. Each summit brought together representative teams from all schools to reflect on student data, identify instructional trends, and to design responsive action steps. The final spring summit, which will happen tomorrow, will take a year and review approach to assess growth across trimesters and inform planning for the 2526 school year. Schools will use this time to look across formative assessment trends, shifts in attendance data, and perception survey data to plan updated instructional and engagement strategies for the year ahead. As an additional component of implementation monitoring, school leaders and district administrators engaged in instructional walkthroughs throughout the year using a shared observation tool aligned with roadmap 27 year 2 goal areas. Literacy was established as a foundational priority across our prek to 12 system through implementation of our literacy

097framework. Professional learning communities or PLC's focused on designing instruction with multiple entry points into grade level content and explicit connections to students language identity and interests. To support our instructional efforts, we also began implementation of critical content standards, a 2023 equity audit recommendation. Each grade level or content team identified two priority standards to prioritize for deep understanding and student mastery. Leadership teams played a key role in modeling this process, using protocols to unpack what proficient student work would look like, then using that clarity to adjust lesson plans and assessments. Collaborative learning through professional learning communities has matured this year. Schools used common planning time to shift away from isolated lesson planning towards shared development of core learning experiences, aligned assessments, and calibration of success criteria. Instructional clarity emerged as a key emphasis area this year.

098Teams used backward planning methods to identify clear learning intentions, to develop scaffolds, and to design purposeful talk and writing tasks. Work in this area helped increase student engagement and understanding. This kind of instructional coherence remains central to improving learning outcomes systemwide. In 2425, we took deliberate steps to deepen our commitment to belonging and engagement for each student. Responsive classroom practices continued across elementary and middle schools with new staff receiving foundational training and school teams reinforcing consistent expectations and routines. We elevated our attention to student attendance this year in an effort to improve connection and to reduce chronic absenteeism. Schools implemented routines and relationship building practices to promote regular attendance. Strategies included regular data review and leadership meetings, direct communication with families, check-in checkout routines with staff mentors, and schoolwide celebrations tied to attendance milestones. On

099the screen here, you might wonder why you're looking at a pink blowup doll. And that is part of uh principal Lisa Klingan at Meadows master plan of FOMO of kids having a fear of missing out by how fun school is and what sort of surprises are uh behind each day. And you might think that's kind of a wild strategy or at least I did. But she's seeing the best results we have as a district with um that sort of engagement. Roadmap 27 addresses the district as a system. So improvement extends beyond our school buildings into our departments that support them. Throughout this year, we continued holding a series of sessions with department leaders throughout the district to develop and refine departmental plans articulated with roadmap 27. As was reflected in the prior report you saw

100this evening, all district departments such as technology, transportation, dining services, campus safety, maintenance and custodial business services, student services, curriculum, and human resources have a specific plan articulated to the district's strategic plan. Equity is at the core of what we do in Centennial, and fortifying our equity stance this year was more important than ever. To that end, we continued engaging our entire district workforce in equity training as part of roadmap 27. To do this, we continued utilizing tools provided by engaging equity, which is a collaboration between West Ed and the Oregon Department of Education. Centennial responded to shifts in federal policy by reviewing and strengthening our protocols related to immigration enforcement. In advance of the federal recision on protections for sensitive locations, the district took steps to ensure our schools remain safe, predictable environments for

101each student. In January, the board adopted a new proclamation reaffirming support for each student and family, emphasizing dignity, safety, and legal protections. Key actions this year included staff training on roles and responsibilities related to immigration enforcement, reinforcement of furpa and sanctuary law protections and family communication and multilingual resource sharing. Staff were briefed on these procedures and families received messaging reinforcing these commitments and exploiting the support systems available. This work served as a tangible affirmation of our goal to create a safe inclusive environment where every student can thrive. We also continued convening the district equity leadership team which has uh supported the development of professional learning offerings, reviewing and providing input on specific district policy and practices and providing supporting input on improvement plans regarding instructional equity. As is reflected in board book this evening, Centennial

102has taken steps to formalize and strengthen the structure of our district equity advisory committee in alignment with Senate Bill 732, requiring each district to establish a district equity advisory committee to help ensure that policy, budget, and system decisions are informed by the experiences and perspectives of historically underserved students and communities. This evolving committee builds on the foundation of our previous district equity leadership team and reflect Centennial's ongoing commitment to system level equity and authentic stakeholder voice. We look forward to expanding its membership and deepening its impact in the year ahead. We also continued staff affinity groups for staff of color and staff who identify as LGBTQ2 SIA plus creating safe and supportive spaces for connection and dialogue. We also expanded targeted supports through student success plan grants totaling close to $1.3 million over the next

103four years focused on improving outcomes for Latinx Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander immigrant and refugee students. Switching gears, as you'll remember, a key finding of the 2023 equity audit was the phys physical condition of our facilities and how conditions had been a deterrent to making students feel appreciated and valued. As such, facilities investments reflected a continued commitment to providing safe, modern, and climate resilient learning environments. To that end, key capital projects during the 2425 school year include the Centennial Transition Center renovation funded by the board reserve fund set to open in fall 2025, seismic safety improvements at Palute Elementary in summer 2024. Additionally, this year, Centennial secured an additional seismic grant for Oliver Middle School with work scheduled to start over the summer. Classroom improvement funded uh updates, which involved renovations to classrooms at Patrick Lynch

104Elementary and interior corridor painting at all schools in summer 2024. Additional projects are slated for this summer at Parklane Elementary, including the renovation of five learning spaces, consisting of three general education classrooms, an EL classroom, and the music room. Last summer, 104 new windows were installed across 52 classrooms at four schools, including Patrick Lynch, Parklane, Palute, and Meadows on Southgate facing classrooms using ESSER pandemic relief funds. You can see the before picture on the left and the after pictures to the right. Ceiling and lighting replacements were made in the C CHS main kitchen. A covered play structure was added at Oliver Middle School. Parking lot repaving and striping was done at Parklane and MS. A digital reader board pilot at CHS and more recently at Butler Creek to prov uh improve family communication, excuse me.

105Additionally, this year through the Portland Clean Energy Fund or PAF, Centennial received over 11 million in combined funding to support schools located in the Portland city limits with replacement of aging HVAC systems with energy efficient models, installation of mechanical cooling to support learning during heat events, two electric buses, and studentled greenhouse gas reduction projects, including Oliver Middle School's food forest. which was recently featured here at the board meeting. And we're not done. This summer, we have the previously mentioned seismic upgrades at Oliver and classroom improve improvement funded projects at Parklane Elementary. We will also be dedicating classroom improvement funding this summer to painting all large learning and common spaces that were not painted in recent years, including gyms, libraries, cafeterias, auditoriums, and band rooms. We also intend to add a covered play area at Park

106Lane as well as to upgrade the Palute Playground in partnership with the Multma County Preschool for all as well as construction excise tax funds that we receive. To cap off our facility related efforts, this past week, Centennial was honored to receive the Gresham Area Chamber of Commerce's TRIRL local first award. This recognition reflects the district's commitment to investing in the local economy through the 2020 bond projects. From initial planning to construction, Centennial prioritized the use of local contractors and businesses, ensuring that the benefits of public investment extended beyond school campuses and into the uh broader community and affirming our belief that strong schools and strong local partnerships go hand in hand. And thank you to Director Andrews for her encouragement to uh help secure that award. This year marked an advancement in our commitment to

107the profile of a graduate. As I previously mentioned, a visionary framework that outlines the essential knowledge, skills, dispositions, and interpersonal competencies our students need to thrive in an ever evolving world. Rooted in roadmap 27, the profile of a graduate serves as a guiding star, ensuring each student is future ready. In January and February, we convened three design retreats with a diverse group of 40 to 50 stakeholders, including students, staff, parents, and community partners. These sessions focus on establishing an instructional vision, articulating student outcome progressions by gradeband, and planning for demonstrations of learning. District and school leaders then participated in three sessions to refine the development process to ensure alignment with our strategic goals. Educators across the district engaged in review sessions providing valuable insights that shape the profiles implementation strategies. On January 30th, we hosted

108a forum at Centennial High School inviting families and community members to review and provide feedback on the profile of a graduate plans. In addition to the in-person engagements, the district hosted a virtual community partner forum. This session broadened our stakeholder reach by engaging nonprofit leaders, higher education representatives, business partners, and social service providers. Participants offered insights into the skills and disposition students need for success beyond K12, affirming the importance of competencies such as communication, adaptability, and social responsibility. The culmination of these efforts is a cohesive plan that integrates the profile of a graduate across all schools and grade levels, ensuring each Centennial student has the opportunity to develop the critical competencies outlined in our graduate profile. This plan is in the process of being finalized and we will be determining a phased implementation plan shortly.

109If you've been around school district work long enough, you will know that the winter and spring of an oddnumbered year means it's time for legislative advocacy. And this year was like no other. Shaped by a unique and challenging landscape, the district faced the prospect of simultaneous reductions at federal, state, and local levels. A convergence of funding pressures that threatened core student services and school operations. dog. Sorry. In response, Centennial took a proactive approach, engaging at every local of uh every level of government to safeguard support for students and upholds essential programs. At the local level, we collaborated with the city of Portland to preserve funding for Sun programming. Facing potential cuts, we work with city staff and the mayor to reinforce the critical importance of Sun services. These collective efforts helped inform the city's decision

110to maintain Sun investments, ensuring continuity of services. At the county level, the district partnered with other East County school districts to advocate for the preservation of Sun programming and school-based mental health supports. Following coordinated efforts, including written testimony, public engagement, and ongoing communication with county leadership, I learned this afternoon that we were successful in advancing amendments to the county's uh proposed budget. I see director Wright cheering there. Uh these amendments, co-sponsored by multiple commissioners, including the chair, would restore critical funding to keep mental health therapists in schools around the region. This promising outcome reflects a strong unified voice across districts, ensuring students will continue to have access to essential mental health services in the year ahead. At the state level, we've been working diligently with elected officials to urge an adequate state school fund allocation.

111Our messaging has focused on explaining the dynamics of why districts are in the process of making budget reductions. This has involved the development and circulation of briefing materials used with legislators having advocating for sustained investments in K12 education. This afternoon I learned that the joint ways and means committee passed Senate Bill 5516 which allocates 11.36 billion in the state school fund for the 20 2527 bianium. The 2425 school year also marked the continuation of a new bargaining cycle with the Centennial School District and its various employee groups. This year, Centennial began negotiations with CA for successor agreement to the 2022 25 agreement. The parties engaged in a more traditional bargaining approach rather than the interestbased approach used in the prior three successor bargains. The teams have had eight bargaining sessions essentially every other week and

112have reached tenative agreements on a number of contract articles. Additional bargaining sessions are scheduled in June and I look forward to learning about further progress the teams are able to continue to make and the best I could do for a photo on this slide was the one from 2022 when we finished our uh bargain in June and we're in a celebratory mood. The work of public education continues to require resolve, clarity, and shared purpose. While we have more work ahead to realize our goals, the 2425 school year demonstrated the power of alignment, persistence, and care. What we saw this year was a shift from developing systems to using them. We made space for collaboration, trusted school-based leadership, and honored data as a tool for growth. students and families were engaged more intentionally and across our

113system there was a greater shared understanding of what quality instruction and inclusive learning environments require. While we're still in the midst of planning for the coming year, I can say that we will continue building coherence across our classrooms and departments, deepening implementation of the instructional core, and advancing the profile of a graduate in intentional and meaningful ways. On the capital projects front, we intend to revamp the long range facilities planning process as a step down in the mill rate will be here before we know it and it'll be time for the board to consider another bond. Overall, we will continue to follow the roadmap we've established for continually impro improving our collective practice and service of Centennial students. I appreciate our educators, leaders, support staff, families, students, community partners, and the board for your continued

114partnership in the success for each Centennial student. It's been my pleasure to feature this work. I'm happy to address any questions. And that concludes my superintendent's report. Wow, that's a lot. Nice job, board members. Let's just go around and make sure everybody has an opportunity to um speak to the end ofear report. Not just all it's the work of all staff here in our district. It's nice to see it highlighted in such a way. Um I wrote down everybody's name, so I'm just going to start with my with everything in writing here. Jess, your name just happens to be written down there first. So let's start with you. Yeah, thanks for the report. Uh lots of things going on and lots of progress being made and I always appreciate seeing the facility the continuous improvement

115with the facilities and uh the just the constant um improvements that we try to achieve there as fiscally we can uh seeing upgrades there and in you know playgrounds windows the CTC building all that uh there's a lot going on with facil ities and I want to uh thank you all for for everything for all the efforts on in that front. Thank you director Harden Claudia Director Andrews. Yeah, I was realizing as as you were going through that that we need to be paying attention because Rose warned us that we need to take the information and any other information we have as we prepare our superintendent evaluation for our next meeting. So, thank you. Um it was all helpful and what a breadth of um work has happened in the last year. It's just amazing.

116No questions. Director Morren, Will, are you there? There you are. Thank you. Yeah. Awesome. Uh I'm still still slowing down into uh second gear here coming off the highway. The wild ride there. Superintendent Owens posted for us. Uh no, it's great. I mean, you know, as the newest board member uh this past fall, it's been absolutely amazing. And um you know quite honestly a real delight to see everybody's work going into um everything we're trying to accomplish from the top to the bottom across the entire across the entire district and and see it accurately and you know perfectly summarized in uh this end of the year report as well as um Dr. Ketuda's uh report earlier too. it just really helps uh remind me why we do this and looking forward to what we'll do

117over the next coming years as well with with the leadership that we have. So, thank you, Chair Salowski Rose. I'll just echo everyone else's thank you and I really look forward to uh digging into this a little bit more as we put together your evaluation. Superintendent Owens, thank you. Director Lynn David. No questions at this time. Very happy to see the progress and I'm just excited to get started on every all the next steps. Thank you. So, um, yeah, very comprehensive. Appreciate the report. I know that you always provide these for us for our own review and edification even after the fact because that's a lot for us uh to process as it was as you were going through I was having um those aha moments like oh yeah aha that's right we did that

118too. It's kind of amazing to see it in one report. So really appreciate what you p pulled together. Any final um comments for us, Superintendent Owens? No. Appreciate the engagement and interest. All right. So, board members, it's um a minute to 8 based on my clock. Can we take a 10-minute break because we do have some work to do and we've already been at it with the budget meeting prior to this. So, um let's get back here at 810, please. Thanks. It looks like we're all getting back in place. Shuffle a few papers here. One more minute. I am here but remaining off camera. Thank you. All right, board members, we're back after our short break. And Director Lynn, you're looking particularly comfortable this evening on that. I'm assuming the back porch. That's nice. Yeah,

119it's a very nice night. It's it's a perfect night for that. Absolutely perfect. So, board members, uh we're ready to go into confirmation items and I would entertain a motion to approve the um confirmation items as listed. Motion to approve the confirmation items. Second. Thank you. Moved and seconded. All those in favor indicate by saying I and or show of hands. I I thank you so much. That was quite a list this evening. We're on to old business and we're bringing back for a second read the expulsion uh policy JG. And Superintendent Owens, I believe you're going to walk us through this. Yeah, I'll just try to keep it brief. Um there was a request to um see about the possibility of providing an expanded definition for when an expulsion could apply specifically as it

120pertains to um serious injury to someone other than another student or staff member. I sent in my weekly update to the board some of the OSBA research that had been done a little bit over a year ago on that topic um because I had vaguely remembered us doing some research on it but we weren't ready to bring the policy back at that time and essentially um if I was to encapsulate that um guidance in a nutshell doing so expanding the definition beyond students and staff would expand the policy beyond what is um legally authorized in statute. And so the board would be introducing um an expanded definition of what would qualify for an expulsion um beyond what's legally allowable. So that's you know the basic on it. I could expand on it, but I'll leave

121it at that for now. Um that being the thrust of the research, I might leave it at that because it the policy and the accompanying AR um and flowchart have already been discussed, but I'm happy to address any questions the board might have on this topic. Board members, I'll just open it up to questions. I won't pull the room. Just um Claudia, Director Andrew, I see that you've unmuted yourself. Yeah, I just want to say thank you for bringing that up. I remember the com, you know, the interaction and the research that you had done. It just was quite a while ago and I appreciate the refreshing my memory. Other directors, then I'd like to call for a motion to uh adopt this new version of policy J as presented. Motion to approve policy JG

122as presented. Second. Do you have a second? Second. Will seconded. Oh, Will. Thank you. I just Well, you're on the bottom of my screen. That was hard to keep track of. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. All those in favor of approving the policy as presented, indicate by saying I or raising your hand if I can't see you. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much and thank you, Superintendent Owens, for the additional research. That was very helpful. It's good to be reminded of these kinds of things as well. So, under our new business, we have uh first read and um director Callahan, I will ask well, first I'll ask for director, excuse me, superintendent Owens to maybe do an introduction if necessary, but director Callahan, um in since we don't approve ARS necessarily, but we do

123review them. Um are we com we are combining 7.2.1 with 7.2.11? Is that correct? We're just doing the whole report. Yes. Yes, at the same time. That is correct. Cool. And um Superintendent Owens, is there anything you need to do in terms of introductions? I would just say you're in very capable hands with Director Callahan, so I trust her to be able to walk us through a couple of things before she does that. Number one, you'll see as the policies are listed, first read of policies, but not with option to adopt. That was something that we had decided previously that when it was a work session, when policies were being introduced, there's not an opportunity for public comment. And so it would only be fair for this to be held over to a future meeting

124where there is public comment in case the public has some sort of um something they wanted to weigh in on. So that's why it's just a first read for tonight. And then second is um good luck explaining the 7211 with all the octopus tentacles of AR's director Callahan. Good luck. Okay. Thank you. I'll try to make this as comprehensive as possible. Um tonight we're pre presenting a revised instructional materials policy as a first read. This update provides clarity and aligns our approach with best practices in education. The core of this policy emphasizes the board's authority in approving instructional materials. A key change in the proposed policy um includes uh a comprehensive definition of what instructional materials are. It breaks down into four areas. Core instructional materials. These are primary resources for a course. For example,

125digital curriculum or textbooks. Supplemental instructional materials. That's the second are additional resources that enhance learning. The third area are school library materials, resources available through school libraries. And the fourth one are class classroom library materials. These are resources that are kept in individual classrooms. This updated policy also clarifies that it does not cover classroom activities unrelated to instructional materials which helps focus the policy scope specifically on the selection and the use of the these defined materials. Another s significant addition is the explicit commitment to selecting materials that are inclusive to all populations represented in our diverse society, ensuring ensuring respect regardless of identity categories. It also states that materials under reconsideration would remain available during the process and will not be removed for discriminatory reasons. So that is the policy itself. And so I'll just

126pause for a minute um and take any uh questions before I go into the ARS directors. If anyone has a question um they can just speak to it. Seeing none, director Callahan, I think we can move forward. rate. The ARS, the administrative regulations, uh, connect to those definitions of the instructional materials as defined in the policy. Uh, to support the updated policy, there's a series of them, AR1 through AR6. These ARs provide procedural how-tos for implementing the policy and are considered new and optional, providing updated guidance for our current times. I'll start with AR1. This details this this is the instructional material selection and it details the overall selection process for all instructional materials. It lays out the steps for choosing materials that are diverse, relevant, and meet the needs of our students. It clarifies

127the superintendent's responsibility in ensuring these procedures are followed. Establishing a transparent and consistent approach for selecting resources across all cate categories defined in the policy. So the second one so the first one is really about a selection process. AR2 is uh if there is a request for reconsideration of core instructional materials. So moving to this AR establishes a district facilitated process specifically for concerns about core instructional materials those primary board approved resources. This regulation provides a formal multi-step process for initial concerns, committee review, and ultimately board review, ensuring a consistent and centralized approach for these foundational materials. So that's just regarding core instructional materials and those are the materials that I bring forward to the board for uh approval. Director Callahan, Director Harden has a question for you. Uh yeah my question is uh core

128is that like English math science or what is core what isn't core yeah so the for Oregon OD they have a list of their adoptions would all be considered core so they go through a rotation it's language arts social science science math a health um I know I'm missing two world language and one other that's not surfacing right now. Um, and so that all of those would be forwarded brought to you for adoption or for approval and so therefore would be considered poor. Can you then give me an example? Maybe I should have phrased it this way. What isn't poor? Well, that's a great question. I would define core as you know uh an essential uh content that all students uh would experience in their educational career. Okay. As opposed to an elective. Okay. Thank

129you. Ready to go to AR3? Okay. The AR3 is based on a reconsideration of supplemental instructional materials. So it outlines a distinct school-based facilitated process for addressing concerns about supplemental instructional materials. These are additional resource uh resources teachers might use to enhance their learning. By handling these at the school level, it allows for quicker, more localized resolution while still providing a clear pathway for review. of which the director of curriculum and student learning learning would likely be involved. Uh AR4 reconsideration of school or classroom library materials and they put these two together. Uh it's very similar to AR3. uh details a school-based facilitated process for reconsidering school or library materials, classroom library materials. This regulation emphasizes student choice and reading materials balanced with clear parent and guardian oversight. It provides a structured procedure for concerns

130from informal resolution to committee review recognizing the unique nature of library collections and individual reading choices. The last two AR5 uh is a standardized request for reconsideration. That's the the form that an individual who would like to request a reconsideration of materials would complete that form. And AR6 details the process for the independent adoption of core instructional materials that are not on the state approved list. Um and it provides that clarity for unique curriculum needs. Um I brought um a high school science was an independent adoption and we followed uh the process virtually the proc essentially the process that was is laid out in this AR is what we followed last year. Director Lynn, did you have a question? Yeah, I was waiting kind of to get through three, four, and five. Um, I mean,

131um, when I'm looking at this, when I opened it up in my board book, um, I thought about, you know, people trying to get ban, uh, books banned out of the library. And so, when I looked at AR 3, four, and five, am I please correct me if I'm wrong, it eliminates any kind of notification to the board and it eliminates the board as the final arbiter of the decision. Yes, that's correct. Um, and the reason for that is it goes to um or let me let me phrase this. How do I want to phrase this? Because you do not approve those materials, then it it keeps it local at that uh level, hoping to resolve that at that level. and then it would come to uh likely the director of curriculum and student learning

132and and if if need be we would continue on and well if it was something that would something as serious enough to go through this process what was the reasoning between by you know eliminating that the board you know could potentially even know about it and that the board would not be the final decision maker I think that's a good question for me um it really The distinction is about AR 2 which is the reconsideration of core instructional materials because you do approve that. Um it's not to say that that it could not rise to those others couldn't rise to that level. Um no I'm not I'm not talking about anything that would rise to core instructional materials. a parent a parent finding a book that that our approved librarian has approved and put in

133the library and then it going through a process where that book is then removed and we don't know about it and we don't have any decision making. Yeah. I don't necessarily going through that process doesn't ensure a removal. Yeah. And I would just add to that to Director Lynn to your question point. I think that that's um for the board to deliberate. Uh because I if I'm tracking what you're saying and I'm looking at the ARs that you're referencing here, the choice making that OSBA has provided is a distinction between the superintendent and the board. And when Director Callahan and I took a look at this policy last week and we're talking about the decision points there, one of the things that we talked about was where does the decision to incorporate that material exist?

134as she had mentioned and if it's board approved to have that material then that appeal would go to the board. If it was locally uh decided then that decision would be locally decided. However, if the board would like um to have enhanced agency or for that to come to the board instead of or in addition to the superintendent, I think that that's well within your um uh jurisdiction to um determine if that's something that you want to see different. Well, I would love to I would love to hear from the rest of the I'd love to hear from my fellow directors. Um I would love both. At the bare minimum, I think we should at least be notified in the policy um because then we can then for decide in the future whether it's, you

135know, something we need to be more involved in. Can I ask a clarifying question potentially, Director Lynn? No, actually maybe it's maybe it's Superintendent Owens and Director Callahan. Let's say if it was upheld, right? Somebody comes with a concern, complaint, whatever about a book in the library. And we've seen so much of this, right, within the news media, right? And so our process here says that that at that decision-m point where it was put into the library is where the decision would be made whether it was kept or taken out. If it was taken out woo the you're saying that before the action is taken we should be notified of that happening the affirmation or the removal right is that that's the decision where or at least at a minimum we would be informed of

136that well going on I don't want to speak for director Lynn but I'm going to speak for director Lynn and see how it fits um I I to what I am inferring his interest is is he does not want to see the administration banning books and having the board have no agency in that process. And so um whether it be the library instructor or the school-based administration or the superintendent and then the board having no awareness that we're in the process of banning books for whatever prerogative there is. And the board has a different opinion about that. But director Lynn, I'll let you speak for yourself on that. Just wanted to see if I was understanding your viewpoint. You got it. Great. Thank you. Would the um Oh, I'm sorry. Well, go ahead. Oh, you

137can you can finish your line of thought. I can wait. Okay. Then would if you if if at these other AR levels like you were saying David about the 3, four, five, you know, that levels if it was affirmed. No. where the book remains, the supplemental materials remain a community member or parent or whomever, what recourse do they have? Do they use the complaint procedure then? So, that would eventually potentially come to us. That's that's just a I'm I'm looking for the extension of the of the of the process if it were to occur. That That's what I would anticipate. Um, we have a lot of questions. Director Morin, uh, well, uh, your question, please. Thank you. Um I shared director Lynn's uh concerns and um I guess more from a process perspective that if

138we have different decision makers or final decision makers on the issue whether it comes or goes, stays or goes um then we're we're allowing inconsistencies um to pop up. And so something could happen at one level and you know then it's brought to you know say it's something that's decided upon at a local level but by by the school or the superintendent's office and then it gets brought to us at the board like hey did you all know that this happened and you know we don't know that it happened. Um, and I think to director Lynn's point there, providing us notification that it's happening so that we're kept in a loop seems to be um, uh, you know, something that we that we could write we could have um, done and then it would be

139at our our choosing to, you know, get further involved or not. It's kind of the way I see it. Thank you. other board directors. Um, yes, Director Harden. Oh, how many requests for reconsideration of instructional and library materials have we had in the last year or two? Zero that I know of. Okay. Oh, actually, there was one recently. Is there there was a supplemental material, a movie, was there not? Yeah. And chair. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. And I know with, you know, regarding health and sexuality, parents have the option to opt out. Is that also a option in other categories, in other materials? Well, I think you have to go back to the definition of these materials, right? So classroom library materials are are materials that the teachers would select to to supplement their their

140materials. uh school library materials. I know she our librarian goes through a a a very specific vetting process in terms of you know bringing um collections in supplemental instructional materials that can be done at the district level but honestly um most supplemental instructional materials are identified in the classroom or uh amongst um a department or a grade level. And so what what those three areas basically are that you know the our policy around supplementmental materials are that the building administrator is aware of what the supplemental materials are that are being used. But when you think about the vast number of classroom materials, library materials, supplemental instructional materials, it would be uh overwhelming. It could be overwhelming to think about knowing all things are happening across the the district, but clearly the building administrator should have

141a sense of the materials and and what's what's uh what's being used. And then the role at the district office is to have a very clear understanding of those core instructional materials and the supplemental materials. Um, so that's kind of how that breaks down. And the purpose, you know, one of the big purposes of this revision is to ensure that the materials are inclusive of all populations and that that they do um that they will not be removed for discriminatory reasons. Right? So that's why, you know, we're going through and they're providing this process to look at these materials. So to in my mind and having been someone who has gone through reconsideration process, it's really elevating the voice of the community to process this not just two people or not just a parent or

142not just a teacher but how do we do this collectively to build understanding and to ensure that it is inclusive of all populations. So I I guess I see that entirely different and in my mind as a director of curriculum and student learning. Should the parent be dissatisfied for whatever reason that there is the complaint process to to continue on and in the position I hold, I work closely with the superintendent to inform him of what's happening and knowing that he he or she would be doing the same with the board. Silowski. Yeah, I would say that in my opinion a lot of this really does boil down to operational management at which point I feel like the superintendent and his team can really manage it. I do feel like if um if there was

143a book removed that I would like to know about it, right? Um and um yeah there would be a process there. I think that my question and I hate to complicate things more but you know I love to complicate things more. Um at what point do we involve this new district equity committee into the review process? Where are the pieces like as I'm as we're having conversations now I'm thinking about oh so we've got this equity committee. Where do we embed them in our process to ensure that their voice is is getting a chance to review these things? Um uh uh assistant superintendent, where did you go? Yes, you there on my screen. Yes. And actually that is a process uh that we would be working on and collaborating on uh between the committee and

144the board in terms of how they uh provide their advisory guidance to the board uh regarding policies. So that has uh that would be co-constructed in terms of the process of that but it is uh a fitting topic. It's one of the topics is listed uh that the equity advisory committees can u advise on in the OAR so's excuse me. Thank you. So this is our first read. We approve policy and then um I mean we have to adopt policy. I don't hear questions about the policy. I'm hearing questions about the AR. Is that correct? I just want to make sure when we leave this if we have direction to give to um the superintendent and other directors that we're clear about where we where we would like to see board um in in at

145a minimum being informed about process. Oh, but okay. I'm going to ask specifically though. Do you have board members any concern about the policy that we will be reviewing in our next meeting? There wasn't anything there that got us queried us. Okay. So then with the ARS we have voiced the concern about basically being informed and notified that something may be going on in one of our schools or in our library etc. And then how that the board would be informed or kept in the loop um is something that one we can control in an AR, right? And two, we would need um our uh cabinet members that are charged with this to review how that wording might come into each of the ARs that we've questioned. That's the first part. And then the second

146part with chair Solowsk's concern is that how any crossover with the equity committee might occur as it relates to curriculum. Did I get it? I'm good. I'm good. I think so. Okay, good. So, um, Superintendent Owens, are do you have any more clarifying questions for us as to what we would like to potentially see in edits to the ARS? Yeah. And not to complicate things further, but since we're here, um, as I look at AR4, and Director Callahan specifically, you might want to clue in on this. If you look at section five on AR4, which is on page four of five, um on 4K, it says the committee's decision. And so this is the reconsideration committee. The committee's decision will be the final decision of the district. That's optional language. At this point, as it

147shows here, that optional language hasn't been struck through. So that process could stop at the committee. If you allow for an appeal, then the decision point is where does it go? Does it go to the superintendent or does it go to the board? You don't even have to allow for the appeal. It looks like it can just stop at the committee. But then the question becomes what gets appealed because if the person wants a reconsideration, I would think that in almost all circumstances that reconsideration would be pull the book off the shelf. And if the reconsideration committee and I think chair vice chair shields this maybe goes back to the point you were making earlier. If that reconsideration committee says we agree that book should be off the shelf. It stops there. The patron is

148satisfied. There's no appeal to the board because everybody got what they wanted. Somebody wanted the book off the shelf. The committee agreed. So that process doesn't even go to the board in that um element anyway. So that appeal to the board is given the supposition that the committee disagreed with the complaintant which maybe both parties do agree and so that's just something for us to wrestle with as well. Yeah. If that tracks tracking for me other board members. Thank you. I'll if I have some more detailed questions I'll I'll send them along. Oh, that's a really good idea. That's a good idea. Board members, as as we think through this a little bit more, if you have additional thoughts or comments, um, to send them to Superintendent Owens with a copy to Director Callahan. Oh,

149well, and assistant superintendent I the three of you guys, I guess, because you're going to be coordinating this in some form or fashion. Okay. We'll talk about it as a cabinet. Okay, good. There was one other thing though that you when you were saying As director Lynn says, send it in later with the question. Um, do you need to u do you want board members, do you want to see other board members questions or do is it just okay to just send your thing in? It's kind I'm asking I guess kind of what we do. If you send the questions to me, I can feed them out in my weekly email. There you go. All right. Got it. Thank you so much. I needed help with doing that. Okay, so we have accomplished the first

150read. We have the questions. Additional questions that are coming will come via email to Superintendent Owens who will share out those questions with the greater body in the Friday missive. So I think we're good unless somebody has something else they need to talk. Okay, good. Then we are moving on to 7.2.2 two first read of policy A C and AC R non-discrimination Superintendent Owens. All right. Uh my interest here and this is why you're seeing policies for me the last couple of meetings as I like to clear the deck on my policies in any given fiscal year and I'm trying to get that done. So what you'll see here is first read of policy AC and a AC non-discrimination and civil rights. The high points here I believe are two. Number one, there were amendments

151to amendments to title nine regulations that are incorporated in this policy in AR. And then there was also the inclusion of civil rights in addition to non-discrimination. So those are the two headlines. I'll go through um some of the things that I see relative to the policy that I believe would be of the board's interest. Um you can see in policy AC um itself they add um and civil rights in addition and non-discrimination in the title um it indicates that the district does not discriminate in on any basis listed below and then it gives those protected class factors um that are there. Um, there's language that was struck through by OSBA in terms of the board directing the superintendent to designate the civil rights coordinator and make the contact information available because that information is

152now reflected lower in its own section on page two. It indicates in that section language as far as the position titles. And so those individuals as are designated in the way that I'm proposing it here are the assistant superintendent and director of student services. The reason why is that these processes parallel and track between civil rights and title 9 fairly closely. The assistant superintendent and director of student services are already our title n coordinators. the assistant superintendent takes more of a staff bend and the director of student services is more student uh focused in terms of their coordination but they work well. So it makes sense for the civil rights coordinators to be those same individuals because of the um parallel processes there. And the final thing that I see relative to the policy um

153is that on page three of five on section number eight, it talks about satisfying the training requirements and it gives the distinction of listing it in the policy as either satisfying the training requirements in the OAR and leaving it at that or listing out the variety of training requirements. As we know, training requirements can change and I'm sure the board would not want to see this policy pop up regularly if there's a nuance change. My um way that I tend to operate is just to refer to law rather than detailing law and policy. And so that's why you see my recommendation of the choice just to be to follow the OAR but not list all of the OAR's requirements because that would be something we would be doing by virtue of following the OAR. Uh

154the f uh the last thing I'll say just peeking at the AR is that you will see in the AR on page one there is a list of potential additional responsibilities for addressing reports and complaints that can be found in the following policies. You see them listed down 1 through 12. The reason those are listed is because there's a variety of complaint mechanisms within our policies and one incident or complaint may track several policies. And so there's requirements relative to all of those. And you'll see within what's there is that there's some choice making in terms of making sure that what this AR reflects is tracking how we've already named our policies and those are what our policies are named. And so that's why it's preserved that way. And I think that's all I have

155to say about this. Hopefully that all made sense. So I recommend the board consider as a first read and let me know if there's any questions. Directors, do you have any questions because we'll be taking this up at our next meeting. Looks like you're good. So we will see this again in our next meeting. So we are now moving to out of policies right and we are now moving into 7.2.3 review recommend and appoint district equity advisory committee and there's a host of people here. So superintendent Owens would you want to kick us off? I'll tee it up and then I'll turn it over to Dr. Cassuda and director Wright. And what you'll see here is the review, recommendation, and appointment of district equity advis advisory committee members. As was reflected reflected in my year-end

156report, this is um something that is a state requirement and um stipulates how uh the equity committee is constructed. Um as I've also referenced, this is a an evolution of our current district equity efforts as well. Um, and I'll go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Katsuda and Director Wright to um, give us more detail. All right. Um, I think much of the detail that's relevant for tonight uh, is in the board note. It's a review of our presentation of a few months ago uh, before we engaged in the process of uh, districtwide and district communitywide um, recruitment uh, for the uh, district equity advisory committee. Um, and so I invite you to uh read the board note and uh we'll simply say it's recommended that the board appointed the district equity advisory committee

157members as listed. You'll see the district equity advisory committee members uh will also have um a role or uh yeah I guess you can call it a role whether it's student staff or community member next to their name so you can see um how they represent and reflect our district community. So, um, board members, ah, uh, director Lynn, I would like to move that we adopt the equity committee as presented. And we'll second it. Question before I ask for the vote. Just um, clarifying question about the budget person. Is this in addition to the current 77 situation? No. Uh it says there in the board note uh the budget committee is not required to include a member of the district equity advisory committee until a vacancy on the budget committee occurs by a member who's

158not also I didn't read well sorry that's my fault. Okay. Sorry. All right. So, we have a motion in a second to approve it as um the equity advisory committee and membership pending approval of those individuals who are listed as the initials. Yes, we're waiting confirmation from them. So, I didn't feel comfortable putting their full name out there. Got it. Okay. So, it's been moved and seconded. Um, all those in favor indicate by saying I or a hand so I can see what we're doing. I I I I All right. All board members have voted in the affirmative. Thank you so much for that. So 7.2.3 has been approved and we are down to future agenda items and superintendent that's usually you. All right. Our next meeting is scheduled in person on Wednesday, June 18th.

159Um, and that is after school is done for the year. And there's quite a bit that we have on that agenda. So, we have Director Andrew's final meeting um for her term and for her tenure. Uh, we have an introduction of our Pleasant Valley principal, Christina Anderson. We have the Centennial High School spring sports recognitions, the 2526 budget hearing and adoption. Um, you've heard me say this the last couple of times, but they just have gotten kind of punted each time. The construction excise tax rate and the meal prices. We have the second read of policies that were introduced this evening. And we have an executive session for the superintendent evaluation. That's what I've got on that. I'll send some information. I have a um self-reflection I've done for my work plan um that will

160work in tandem with the report that you saw this evening um that will give you insight as to my reflection on that and then um executive assistant Gindle will send out a survey um with instructions on how to complete that survey. So, you've got a couple of things coming your way in a little bit of time to work on that with a deadline that will help chair Solowski be able to aggregate all of the information in advance of that 18th board meeting. And if we can get this all accomplished by the 18th board meeting, we will not require another board meeting uh to adopt the uh superintendent's appraisal. So, I just appreciate timeliness and getting taking your time and and really putting the thought and effort into those uh forms that Missy Grindle will be

161sending out. Thank you, Director Andrews. So, are we also going to get an annotated copy of your evaluation um metrics? I believe that's all in the uh questionnaire like it's like this is the metric kind of right cuz you had two goals and then there's the eight goals that that come from the OSBA uh process and so are you going to also besides the presentation you just gave us and the others that you mentioned I didn't hear though that there's going to be an annotated version of that for us to review there. Um, yeah, good question. Uh, there's an annotated version of the goals themselves. Um, in terms of my reflection on those goals, it hasn't been press practice to annotate the state provided rubric areas or close to OSBA provided rubric areas. Um, as

162I think about that, I can do it. I think it would be unwieldy to do it. Um and so okay but we'll get that cop we'll get a copy of that right. So we'll get a copy of the metrics and the definitions around it but it won't have annotations about my reflection as it relates to you know my self assessment related to those particular metrics if that makes sense. Right. But we have to do something on that. And so um but you will have an annotated version of your goals. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um, graduation. Um, yeah, we got it. We're going to show Missy, what do you need from us? Um, in terms of like, uh, how many of us are attending? Um, where should we meet, what time? Is that just

163kind of come out in an email? Uh, because some of us are new. Yeah. No, that's a great question. Uh, so yes, it is going to come out in an email. And since the group is not going to meet prior to graduation, I will certainly get it out as soon as possible. And if you can't come pick up tickets for me, I will get them to you either deliver them or mail them or we can meet at the Coliseum. But parking information will come out once um I get that information from Emily up at the high school. The tickets will be there and so more information to come. Or you just follow Dr. Cassuda who knows the secret door that I didn't know for god knows how many years and I can wait at the

164door and let you in. So there's a door. I think the hardest part is actually finding the secret door to get out of the coliseum at the end of Good point too. But yes, for bringing that up because it definitely is on my list. Yeah. Well, I felt silly. Anyway, car pooling is always recommended because it's just a nightmare in terms of parking, etc. Um, go to the order board members. Anything that's on your list? Well, I just I hope to see people at the uh Parklane Park grand opening on June 12th, 3 p.m. right after school gets out. We should have a big community presence. Um, and again, it's an amazing park. Um, like I tell people like I walk through it and it's like the first time growing up in Portland that I

165feel like like this is a park for the the community, like an investment in the community and not something that's kind of been run down for 30 years. So really encourage people to get out and enjoy it. Nice. I drove I drove by and it is amazing and I wish I would have had more time to get out and walk around, but I'm really looking forward to the 12th and getting a chance to really see the whole thing. It's it it it is really impressive. On that note, there was interest by um Director Lynn and Director Moing to have a presence there. And so I'm um not completely sure where we are on that communication, but the high points are that there will be a booth set up and there will be um hour increments

166within that time for the Parklane Park celebration for a district staff representative to be present and then also a sign up opportunity for board member if interested to be able to um have some time at the booth as well. And so I don't know um Chief Andre or um executive assistant Gindle if you each have sent that or where we are in status but I wanted to preview that as it relates to that topic and would it be helpful for board members to indicate one that they're going to be attending and two what time they might be available and that would go to Missy. We have a sign up sheet that will be circulating if it hasn't Missy is nodding. So yeah, it'll be circulated soon. Um and we do have some district staff coming

167as well so that we can have people on hand to talk about our summer meal programs, the safe routes to school program. Um so we're kind of working on different elements of the district that are current and relevant that we can represent and talk with our community about. Um but we would definitely love to have board members alongside of us during that. It'll be a doc. I plan on getting that out on Friday as we normally do with our typical cadence sift for Friday communications. So, I will send that out on Friday for folks to sign up. Perfect. That's a lot of things on Friday, guys, right? I mean, graduation, superintendent evaluation, celebration. So, um you know, open it up and and read with more clarity than obviously I read on some things. So, anything

168else? Are we good? All right, everyone. Can I say one thing for the good of the order? I just want to appreciate uh Vice Chair Shields for stepping in whenever I am having a rough day and I have too much going on. Um, she just is always willing to step in and so I appreciate you very much, Vice Chair Shields. Thank you. I appreciate that. And you don't see the panic on my face when I go, "What?" But uh I'm I'm fairly, you know, adept at doing some of these things and I will always step forward if you need me on anything that you guys need for. So you know that you guys know that about me. All right, everyone. It's a lovely evening as we can see with Director Lynn's background. So if we've

169got a few moments that we can go out and enjoy what's left of the evening, let's do so. So uh we're adjouring this at my clock says 8:58.