001Good evening everybody. Welcome to this work session of the Tiger Twalton School District Board of Directors. Tonight we are going to be meeting to discuss legislative priorities. I'm going to turn it over to Alex Powki who's going to guide us through the evening's entertainment. >> Thank you. So, this is an opportunity for the board to talk about its legislative priorities for 2026, particularly with this uh short session coming up. Uh there's a document in front of you that we actually won't really start to dig into until the latter part of this uh uh work session. It's based on uh some guidance from uh KOSA from Oregon School Board Association from a document that uh Forest Golf School District developed. It has input from our superintendent from a board chair. I want to thank uh Vice
002Chair Irvin for some input around the accountability measures which is something she's been deeply involved in. also our CFO uh Jessica C had some input here. So this is what we hope is uh in good shape to um uh guide you all in terms of potential priorities for this session. Uh as far as this work session, what we have planned is uh Morgan Allen from KO is going to lead us off with a look at the session that's coming up. uh Representative Bowman and uh state senator Naron Mistlin are going to talk uh for about 20 minutes after that about the priorities that they see and what what their vision is for the session coming up and how you all as board members can contribute to that and then uh roughly that last 20 minutes
003will be your chance to look through this ask them any questions that you have uh bring your thoughts to the table. So with that I'd like to turn it over to Morgan Allen from KOSA. Thank you, Morgan. >> Press the button. Okay. Uh well, thanks, Alex, and good evening. My name is Morgan Allen. Uh I am the deputy executive director at KOSA. Uh but before that, I actually spent six years at the Oregon School Boards Association. Uh when the chair was on various legislative and uh school board policy committees during my time there and actually several of the board members I've had a chance to work with over the years and have been involved with both OSBA and coast things. So, it's nice to see a lot of familiar faces here tonight. Um, and I
004think, you know, what Alex was hoping I would do is just talk a little bit about what exactly a short session is and sort of the parameters inside boards. Talk a little bit about the state budget. I'm sure from our legislators, you're going to hear, you know, sort of their thoughts and on the latest on that and answer some questions and talk a little bit about what some of the priorities certainly for KOSA. Um, I won't speak for the other organizations, but I think there's a lot of alignment around protecting school funding during the short legislative session. And that's pretty clear. Um, for example, I was just in a meeting this morning um that included OEA and OCA and OSBA in addition to many other of the K12 associations and organizations talking about the budget
005and and our preparations to collaborate together. So, um, feel free to jump in anytime and ask questions or interrupt me if you want me to dive down deeper into, uh, into my remarks a little bit, but I think I'll just start out. I think I always think of a short legislative session is a lot like a sprint. A long legislative session is a lot like a marathon. There's lots of fits and starts. Um you have to pace yourself or you'll burn yourself out very early on in the legislative session. But the the uh sessions that were created in 2010, the short sessions are 35 calendar days and they very much are like a win sprint and they are immediately get off the line go. The deadlines come very quickly. There are very short turnaround times,
006what we call chamber deadlines in both the House and the Senate for bills to have public hearings, to have work sessions to be voted on. Um, and you really have folks who have policy bills in particular really have to have their support uh lined up early on. Just to kind of give you a sense of how quickly the calendar goes, I really, even though the formal session doesn't kick off until February 2nd, I really view tomorrow as the sort of unofficial kickoff of the legislative session. Starting tomorrow, this week for three days, uh there are going to be January legislative days and all of the policy and budget committees are going to be meeting and talking about the bills they're going to be introducing. Uh and they're going to allow members to talk about any
007bills they're introducing and there's going to just be a lot of updates about things that are going to be relevant to the short session. This Friday is the deadline for bills to be presession filed. Again, the first official day of session is February 2nd, but probably the most important day, at least in my opinion, on the 2026 political calendar, perhaps other than election day in November, is going to be February 4th. That's when the next quarterly state revenue forecast is going to come out. And that is really what the legislature and the co-chairs of Ways and Means and the leadership are going to use to determine how much uh how many dollars in resources and general fund and lottery and other things they have available to balance the budget. And I'll talk a little bit
008more about the budget. But so again, 35 days goes really quickly until they have to adjurnn by March 9th is the constitutional deadline to adjourn. I think just generally speaking, and I'll just speak very briefly for KOSA. I think there's a lot of shared priorities, but for us, I think the top uh priority we are trying to convey to legislators is that um we really need this is a time we really need to center our students and protect education funding that directly serves our students. There are all kinds of challenges uh in our country and our state. There are budget challenges at the federal level that are going to drive uh down at the local level as families lose Medicaid eligibility as they lose SNAP benefits. Those things are going to show up in our
009schools. And once again, just like in COVID, schools are going to be asked to step in and support the needs of our students and the needs of our communities. Uh, I think another thing that potentially I'm not aware of a lot right now, but short sessions are oftentimes used to do technical fixes on bills that passed in the previous long session or little technical fixes. I think we'll probably see some of those. And then I think one of the things that I know you'll talk about as part of your legislative discussion tonight is there are definitely going to be bills that we like and we probably aren't big fans of on the policy arena. And so, you know, we're really going to be tracking and responding to legislation that might add new unfunded mandates, for
010example, or um you know, there have some unintended consequences on what's going on in schools. The short legislative sessions are a little bit different, too, because there are bill limits. There were more than 300 3,800 bills introduced in the long session. We tracked more than 500 at KOSA and we do a joint legislative report with OSBA and there were more than a hundred pieces of legislation that passed during the 2025 long session that impacted schools and ESDs and education in one way or another, but committees have limits of three bills. Individual members have limits of two bills. Of course, there's always exceptions and potential ways around that, but generally we're looking at a very uh much more limited universe of legislation that we're going to be dealing with during the session. And I'll talk very
011briefly about some of the bills we know are are going to be introduced this legislative session. I think you all know that after the passage of HR1 at the federal level. Uh the state went from ending the 2025 legislative session with the budget surplus to a budget deficit. Right. the changes particularly because Oregon's one of a several states that connects our income tax code to the federal tax code and those changes at the federal level really turned the revenue picture upside down again from ending with a pretty significant surplus to a deficit. Uh I'll talk I'm going to talk a little bit about the budget. We had a December revenue forecast. You probably all read about that. That actually it's always confusing even to me after doing this so long because the forecast the December
012forecast comes out November. The March forecast comes out in February. They always it's always a little bit hard to track it, but the December forecast did show a positive increase of more than $300 million. And I don't think there's any formal number, but I I'll just speak for KOSA, and we've talked about this at the the K12 funding coalition. Generally, what we believe, you know, sort of the the rough the very rough budget deficit for the general fund that the legislaturator is looking at is about $600 million right now. And that includes an actual deficit of, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of probably $80 million from budgets that were approved during the session. But the legislature, rightly so, the ways and means leaders state that's a gigantic budget, a $ 35 billion plus budget.
013They need cash flow. So, they need an ending fund balance. There's going to be additional wildfire costs. And um in addition to the lost revenue, the passage of HR1 requires the state to do certifications for new certifications and eligibility processes for SNAP beneficiaries and some of the human service programs too. And that's going to add significant cost. So again, that's not an official number. That's just kind of my as someone who's observed the budget for a long time that you know, we're kind of in the ballpark probably of $600 million plus or minus. And again, there's going to be other things that are going to come up. Um the other thing that we track very closely is the corporate activity tax which pays for the student success act. So that's the student investment account, high
014school success and and more than a dozen other really critical programs including things like child nutrition. That's still tracking positive, but it was down at the last forecast about $31 million. So the legislature uh closed the session with about a hundred million reserve for the student success act. And so that's probably now kind of in the 65 to 70 million range roughly, but still tracking positive. I think just very quickly a couple thoughts uh from looking at the revenue forecast in December. I think again that forecast was good news. The number was up, but we still need to be very vigilant in our advocacy and make a clear and convincing case to our legislative uh members that the needs of our students are growing. They're complex. They're challenging. We also know there are lots of
015really compelling competing budget priorities, right? There are lots of things particularly in the human service sector that uh are going to compel a lot of legislators and other folks to look at supporting, you know, families across Oregon. And again, we still have lots of uncertainty at the federal level on the budget. For example, we don't know what fiscal year 2026 for all of the critical federal funding that K12 uh is going to get, what that's going to look like. That could end up being reductions. We do know that even though that positive news in December, there's still a budget shortfall. Um, and again, as I mentioned, really that February 4th revenue forecast is going to be critical for uh what we're looking at. You know, one thing that is significantly different than, you know, there
016are a few people like me who have, you know, been around for longer than we care to admit. I've been around for the dot burst. Um, been around for the great recession and other budget issues. And I think one of the things that's really heartening is is after um you know several things over the last 25 years I think the legislature deserves a lot of credit for creating robust reserve funds. So the state has an education stability fund. The state has a general rainy day fund. Um just to talk a little bit about the education stability fund for a moment that's projected to have about $1.25 billion at the close of this bianium available to the legislature to use. it can be used for public education. It was um the Oregon rainy day fund uh
017is projected to have about $2.15 billion as of the last forecast. And I think you know I won't go into all the details for time here but there are economic triggers related to revenue forecast and employment um in order for those uh reserve funds to be accessed. They all they also require super majority votes three-fifths votes in each chamber to access those funds. But one of the things that's really important, you'll hear us talk a lot about how the education stability fund has been accessed nine times in the past. The uh other interesting note about the education stability fund is the governor can declare an emergency and bypass those economic triggers with those supermajority votes. So that's something we've certainly, you know, I've talked to the governor and her staff about and legislators about. As
018far as bills uh go, I think it's really timely that particularly the senator came in at the right moment. The first bill on my list is I know there's going to be legislation around school meals for all to try to close that final gap on funding for nutrition. I think even before the events that we've seen in Minnesota and closer to home here in Portland over the last few days, there were already bills in the works related to immigrant and refugee student protections, like adding those to every student belongs. There's also going to be a bill around requiring school districts to have policies in place to notify students and parents and families if there are ICE actions on campus. That's both for K12 and higher education. There's going to be legislation to codify federal Mckin
019Vento protections for our uh students who struggle with secure housing to codify that into um into state law as well. Uh and there'll there'll also be a few things um you know that we'll see along the way. Tomorrow there's going to be bill a bill introduced in the House Business and Labor Committee to make class size a mandatory subject of RB for example. So those are just a few of the bills that we anticipate seeing during the legislative session. But I think, you know, the message that we certainly try to convey to our administrator and superintendent members and and certainly this is something I know that my colleagues at OSBA are talking about is that we really need to um stay student centered and focused on the needs of our students and sharing compelling stories
020and data about what's going on in our schools and our communities with legislators. um we need to, you know, sort of sh talk about the shared values we have for our students and our public schools uh here in Oregon. And so I think just kind of given the nature of the time, I'd be happy to answer any questions or dive down deeper into any of those topics um on the budget or bills or things that we see for the legislative session. And I appreciate the opportunity to get invited here tonight and and hopefully um share a little bit of information about the session that's going to start three weeks from today. And um again, I'd be happy to answer any questions. >> Board members, do you have any questions that you'd like to ask? I
021would while you think about that, maybe like to invite Morgan. Um from your perspective, what are some of the best opportunities for schoolboard members to advocate around issues like school funding and uh related issues you've been talking about? >> Yeah. Yeah, and I c certainly in my time at OSBA and I think it's the same for our superintendents at KOSA. You know, the most important thing and and I'm glad to see a couple of couple legislators here tonight is just developing those relationships with the legislators that represent your school district and staying in constant communication, talking about what's going on uh in the in the the schools in the community. I know Tiger Twitton's fortunate to have some of the best in the business um representing your school district. So, you are a uh you
022know in in good position to do that. But I do think um I won't say the date for sure, but I would expect to see this week that um I think we are closing in on a date in February for a joint lobby day with KOSA and OSBA and the Oregon Association of Education Service Districts. Um so there's going to be opportunities for you to come down in person, but certainly um uh you know making sure that you're you know meeting with your legislators and communicating with them regularly uh is the best is the best path forward. So, is it true that all legislators by now have notified of the bills that they intend to drop their two or three if they're a committee? >> Yeah. To um the the again the deadlines come pretty
023quick. My understanding is that this Friday the 16th is the deadline for bills to be filed for the legislative session. So, many of the drafts exist. Actually, if you go on to the legislative website, most of the committees have their committee bill drafts as again each committee gets three bills. you can go look at those um right now. So, if you go on to the education committees or the um uh the other committees you might have interest in, you should be able to see uh the drafts of their proposed legislation for the session should be posted now. >> And so, the likelihood of a surprise one that hasn't been drafted yet is not very likely possible. >> Yeah. You know, again, again, the biggest difference I think in the short and long sessions is the
024number of bills, right? there's not unlimited bills, but I think anyone that's been around the process knows that there are uh opportunities to amend bills. There's always can be exceptions. I I don't know the specific House or Senate rules for introducing bills beyond the deadline, but oftentimes there are, you know, some committees are exempted. I suspect the rules committee perhaps might be exempted from, you know, bill limits, getting a nod from the the chair of that committee. Um, but I don't I you know there's not going to be uh you know more than you know again we tracked more than 500 bills that related to K12 education during the last session. I would be surprised if it's more than a dozen or so this session. >> Anybody else have questions? >> Okay. And again, I
025think just the last thing I would say, I think what you're going to, you know, hear from, you know, the K12 funding coalition again is, you know, we're we're asking the legislature to look at opportunities related to revenue. Um, and again, the use of the education stability fund, which again has been accessed nine times before, most recently during COVID in 2020. There's actually a part of one of the multiple special sessions in 2020 to deal with COVID. the legislature took $400 million out of the education stability fund to protect state school funding and other important things. So, >> excellent. >> Should we move on to the next part? >> Thank you. Um, well, as Morgan mentioned, we've got some of the best in the business and they're here with us tonight and that's State Center
026coordinator Ben Bowman. Very proud graduates of TTSD. We're always glad to have them here with us tonight, but also amazing advocates for students as as you all know. Um, we just were moving the slides over and Thor, does it look like we've got access to those slides? Looks like we do. So, >> we gave Thor plenty of lead time. He had about 45 seconds. >> He had about 12 seconds. So, so excellent work Thor, but I'll turn it over to >> Well, first, um, just a gratitude from the senator and I for making time in this work session to chat with you. Uh, and for everyone who's able to participate in the OSPA regional meeting. Uh, I we had an awesome conversation at my table and just really appreciated the the time. So, I feel
027like we we're in a good uh relationship with our offices in in this district. Um, which isn't the case in every legislative uh district across the state. So, any opening remarks, Senator? >> Yeah, just thank you for having us. We're looking forward to representing you all in the legislative process in this short session. Um, and just want to call out to we have kind of a delegation from TTSD now with quite a few of us that are representing on your behalf. So, we'll be partnering and making sure that your voices are amplified there. Uh first slide >> and oh good the the logo came off. Super. Um so we are heading into the legislative session with a a budget environment that's kind of unfamiliar for those of us h who have had either stable budgets
028or you know u money to think about what can we do with this. Um we are in a cuts budget cycle and that means that all of our agencies have had to do a an exercise of uh 2% and 5% proposals for planning if we do need to cut. Um we're looking at impacts of HR1 as well on the state as you heard from Morgan. Um and we're trying to make sure that we're we both have a short-term and long-term response. So, um I anticipate that the um bianium will be challenging um and we'll have to make hard decisions. Um but, uh we will have a forecast released on February 4th that will help us guide those decisions. >> So, this slide is a a bit of a review from what Oh, >> didn't change
029it. >> Oh, next slide. Sorry. Uh thanks, Thor. We thought we could change it on our computer and then we realized that's not going to happen. Um, so yeah, you you heard a little bit from Morgan about the short session. Uh, and he's totally right. Like the way to think about the short session is if a bill has an issue in the first week of session, it's probably dead. You don't have time to build your coalition and get your amendment back from LC. Like, you got to be ready to rock and roll when when session starts. Um, and so those first couple weeks in the chamber of origin are just uh uh madhouse of people trying to move really quickly to get their bills through. Everyone's right now going to meet with their committee chairs
030and saying, "Hey, can I have a hearing in the first week and I'd like a work session on the second day?" Uh, and those chairs are now trying to figure out how to build their legislative um committees to be able to accommodate the the flow. Having two bills each does do a tremendous and a tremendous amount um to reduce the um the pressure. Uh but it's still that the timelines are just incredibly fast. Uh and Morgan mentioned the the revenue forecast which can't overstate how important that's going to be for this session particularly for education advocates um to determine what's available. As the senator mentioned on the budget slide, like to put a number to it, we're talking about a10 billion loss of revenue over 15 years uh for the or excuse me, we've got
031that reversed $15 billion over 10 years because of the federal budget bill. Um so we're not dealing with all of that in this bienium. Um but we've got a lot of work to do in this state to shore up funding for education. >> Yeah, let's go to the next slide. Um, so as or Morgan also mentioned, we've got the education stability fund. Um, it's maxed out and can't grow anymore necessarily. So, and then it also, as you know, uh, refills from the corporate income tax. Um, so this could be one of the tools we utilize to maintain stability through this particular bienium. Um, I know that I'll be advocating to hold education harmless to the greatest degree possible. We're midcycle, budget cycle for you all. And um we also need to be looking at the
032fact that we are in um this an economic state where it could trigger uh potentially the use of the reserves. Um it will be challenging as it always is to get a three-fifth majority vote. Um, but I think we have a we can make a good case that this is a time to tap into the reserves in the state as um especially to hold harmless programs that you all are working so hard to uplift and um the staffing that's needed to deliver. >> Next slide. >> So I think um Senator Neon Miss and I are are pretty strongly aligned in how uh we are trying to approach this budget environment. Um, we want to recognize as people who both consider ourselves education advocates. Um, we understand what a mid-benium cut looks like and feels like.
033Um, we also understand the impact that that has on workforce. I I I worry a lot about losing some of our great young teachers who will likely be the first uh the first to receive a pink slip. Um, that is not something that is in the best interest of our students or our state. Um, so we want to be as sensitive to that as we possibly can and just give you all predictability. Um, I think Jessica, I can't remember if it was you or someone at the um, might have been Dan Goldman was talking about how it's just so much better if you're going to make cuts, do them at the next benium. Don't try to do it in the middle. Um, the juice isn't worth the squeeze because of the level of disruption for
034kids and families. So, I'm very sensitive to that. It makes complete sense to me and we're going to do everything we can to preserve that. >> Yeah. Um, so next slide. Um, we, as uh, Representative Bowman mentioned, we each are introducing two bills. So I have two bills. One is for virtual power plants, really addressing our, um, energy needs and rateayer affordability, but also addressing affordability and maybe more relevant to the work that you all are doing is I'm reintroducing the school meals for all concept. Uh we know that that puts dollars into families pockets um for groceries, heating and cooling, housing. Um and um we really want to make sure that we are um addressing the um chronic absenteeism elements of it, the uh learning outcomes, making sure that we are uh pushing back
035when we see that it snap is taken from immigrant and refugee families, that we are finding ways to deliver nutrition across the board And um so we'll be working on our school meals for all policy. It's bipartisan by cameraal supported. Um and it really is um we are very close as a state. We just have a few districts that have not closed um their school meals for all gaps and it's time we really button that up. >> So my two bills, my two personal bills for the short session. Um one is uh so for th >> Oh, next slide. >> I'm sorry. Yeah. So, for those of you who tracked HR1, the federal budget bill, there's a lot in that bill. One thing that's in that bill that I don't think uh people have tracked
036closely enough is there's a provision that basically says if you're a healthcare provider that provides abortion services, we are no longer going to give you Medicaid dollars to provide any service. So, already we were not using federal funds for abortion services. That's been prohibited for a very long time. But Planned Parenthood was receiving Medicaid dollars to provide cancer screenings, prenatal care, postnatal care, STD testing, a variety of other services, which is most of what they do as an entity. Under this provision, they can't receive any federal dollars for those services. The reason why that's such a big deal is in Oregon, they are a major provider of health care to our low-inccome medic Medicaid population. Um, so unless we can figure out a way to provide them fund, they've been serving patients in the state
037for months with no reimbursement, which is obviously unsustainable for an organization of their size. So what our bill will do is make some technical changes, basically move them over to a fee for service model, allow them to be in re reimbured for the services they've already provided, uh, and create a sort of contingency option if they get removed from, uh, basically it's like the Medicaid approved provider list at the federal level, which would have all sorts of cascading impacts. uh at the state level. So that's one bill. The second bill um somewhat ironically, this is about uh private equity and housing. This is gaining some steam across the country as people are seeing large private equity firms buying up single family homes uh which is part of what is jacking up the cost of these
038homes. The interesting part is that President Trump actually announced uh a couple weeks ago or last week he is working on a similar proposal at the federal level. Um, so this is a bill where I hope that there will be uh bipartisan work. Um, my bill, uh, in the short session, you try to sort of scale your short session proposals and ambition. Um, this will say you can't, uh, a p a large private equity firm will not be able to buy a house unless it's been on the market for at least 90 days. The idea is if you're a first-time home buyer, you're not going to win in a bidding war with a private equity firm. So, at least give them that chance um, before we open up uh, the market to other homes. So,
039those are my two personal goals. >> Um, and we have one last slide um before our contact information. Um, and the just some other policies that you might be tracking and I'd be interested to hear if there are more. Um, and I can think of a few like the OG bill for public meetings law. I've been working on that work group. So, that might we'll be coming forward with some solutions for consideration. Um but we're also working on um ICE notification on school grounds requiring um Oregon's K12 schools and higher education institutions as well to notify families and students when um ICE is present on um school campuses. So um the other one that I think I'd like to highlight on this slide is the revenue forecast modernization act. So when we look at what
040are the revenue solutions that the state state needs to consider, disconnect from HR1 is one of them of course, but then also you know and comprehensive revenue conversations, but we have this kicker that when it kicks it uh sends a lot of dollars back to frankly predominantly most of those dollars go back to wealthier Oregonians that could really be delivering services to vulnerable Oregonians and and um helping stabilize our comm communityities. ities. So there's a revenue forecast modernization act that would let the state economist instead of hitting giving one number you know in this projection ahead of time um that we then have to budget toward and if we are wrong we have this kicker that it would allow our economists to give us a range and then we can budget toward the bottom of
041the range potentially stabilize when that kicker actually kicks um so that the rebate wouldn't necessarily would go away, which would um you know be in line with uh our our state statutes and constitution, but that it would allow us to forecast and plan ahead a little bit better because that is such a jolt when the kicker kicks. Um and we really need to make sure that we are able to invest in um one-time funding in ongoing funding and um really make sure that even though we know that the or that Oregonians have voted that kicker mechanism in place, this would essentially let us work within that structure to help um frankly our education budget be a little bit more stable over time. >> Can I ask you a quick question? These policies are they coming
042from individual lawmakers or are these out of committees? >> Um they are individual lawmakers for the ICE and revenue and I'm not I'm less familiar with the other two on this slide. >> The uh the outcomes reviews um I didn't even see that this made the slides. Uh this is something my office announced I think today actually. Um it's not a bill. It is a a tool that legislators can use to do oversight on their own proposal. So, for example, you pass a bill three years ago. We're creating a structure for legislators to examine the impacts of that bill. Is it working the way you intended it to? What are the outcomes? Are there unintended outcomes that you need to address? The idea is the job doesn't stop when you pass a bill that actually
043is the beginning of figuring out if it's working. Um, so, uh, we've got there's several legislators who volunteered to do this. They will be engaging in their own outcomes reviews process over the next, uh, year. And then the specific legislators to maybe really answer your question. Sorry I didn't before. Um Sen Representative Finker McDonald is working on the ICE notification on school grounds bill and I'll be um championing that when it gets to the Senate. And then um the revenue forecast modernization act is being brought forward by U. Representative Gamba and I'll again be working on that in the Senate. I think that is >> happy to answer any questions. Yeah, last slide is our contact information. Um, we've got our emails are similar format. So, uh, for the representatives and senators representing TTSD who
044are not here tonight. It's the same format, rep.irstlastname and send.irstlastname at oregonle legislature.gov. And happy to answer more questions. Again, as Representative Bowman said, it was really great to sit with you at the um Northwest Regional ESD and have conversations with our districts about the the top issues that you're facing and also what's good. I'm hearing good things around um specific investments, literacy investments, um but also concerns that we need to really track, whether that's the accountability bill or other legislation that we've passed, how that's rolling out is really important for us to hear. I have a question for you all as schoolboard members. What are you hearing about cell phones? Is anything filtering up to you? Do you have angry parents or students or people saying it's working? What is >> Yeah. Um, hi,
045I'm well a senior at Target High School. Um, I feel like there's been mixed messages about it. Like some students love it because they were like really addicted to their phones and now they're like like I'm not addicted to it. Uh, for me personally, I don't think it's affected me because like I don't have a personal attachment with anyone. I'm like, "Okay, like it's there." Um, but it really depends on the student and like kind of the parents. I haven't really heard anything from the parent side of things. Um, I know like my dad's kind of pissed about it because he's like, "What if there's like a school shooting? Like what would happen then?" Um, but I feel like ultimately students are fine with it. Like in terms of what I've heard from our admin
046at Tiger, it's been pretty good. So, I'm probably jinxing myself, but we haven't had a lot of angry emails or phone calls from parents or students, which means tomorrow the flood comes. >> That's great. There were predictions that this was going to elicit, you know, a big big turmoil. But that's great to hear. It helped, I think, that we were very proactive in making sure it was solidly in place for the first day of school so that the entire school year was consistent and our superintendent was was vocal in getting that >> I was going to say, is the superintendent hearing from teachers uh or administrators? >> I'm actually hearing a lot of positive notes. I'd say out of 10, nine positive notes for every note of criticism. Um, I had a student reach out
047to me and I shared with them the how the process, how the decision was made and kind of redirected them to their their principal about their concerns. So, for the most part um I think that we did a good job of um scaffolding towards uh the elimination of cell phones in the last the last few years. And so, um, having the teeth behind a policy through the, um, state mandate, I think, was really helpful for us to get to get over the hump and just do away with cell phones. And it's been okay. >> It's great. >> I just wanted to add, um, I really appreciate, um, you all coming with these emerging, um, with these policies that really address a lot of emerging issues um, and also, um, ease the budget a little bit
048for schools. Um, so it's really important work. Um, as far as the cell phone goes, I have heard a couple funny things that um, sometimes people um, students are getting home and their phones blow up with notifications, but then that's kind of a reminder of how it can be annoying and like and disruptive. Um, there's also been a little bit of adjustments about like how to notify students when they have a doctor's appointment, for example, and like making sure to get the note out on time instead of thinking everyone's reachable 247. So, I think um overall though, I've heard really good things about it. So, thank you. >> Any questions for us? Yeah, I'm the I love the idea of the review um committee because I think about so many of the bills that have
049been passed in previous sessions that have had unintended consequences. So, is there going to be like an actual mechanism for remediation or is it just oh, oops, that had consequences we weren't expecting. Look at that. >> Really good question. So the way the way that we are imagining it right now, it's not it's not the only oversight tool that the legislature has, but this is a tool that any legislator could use. Um committee chairs have a lot of ability to do oversight hearings. Um for this specific tool, what we where we are starting and recommending is you should only conduct an outcomes review on a bill that you championed and believed in. This isn't an opportunity to score political points and me to go do oversight of a Republican bill that I don't like. Um
050this is about me trying to improve a bill that I passed so that the incentives are aligned. Um the idea is over a period of several months you schedule some roundts with the experts agency who implements it. If it's an education bill end users whether that be teachers, schoolboard members, administrators, parents, students perhaps. Um and you're asking a series of questions about was the cost what we expected it to be? Was the timeline what we expected it to be? how did the procurement process go for this? Uh, and then what does the data say? With the idea being at the end of that process, you're going into a legislative session where you can introduce a new bill to amend what you passed previously, perhaps advocate for supplemental resources to improve implementation. But the idea is
051to make substantive changes in the legislative process moving forward. Great question though. So then if we have a legislator who passed a bill but isn't willing to review it, is that then something say a board member could then lobby that legislator to say, "Hey, how about you do a review because there have been unintended consequences?" >> Absolutely. In fact, that's a great idea. Um, yeah, I think that's a great idea. There's still other ways to address, you know, if a bill had unintended outcomes, we can still bring a bill to amend that bill the next session. It's always harder when like if someone tries to amend a bill that I passed two years ago and I don't like it, it's hard in the legislative process to overcome some of that opposition. So, um yeah, I
052think it's a great idea to go to the sponsor. >> The idea is this is sort of a friendlier way to get the job done. >> I like that. I like that a lot. Thank you. >> Bringing us back to the revenue discussion. Um, since we obviously could use more funding, um, I really appreciate the, um, thinking around how we might be able to tap into the, um, our education stability fund. Um, but I'm wondering what are some of the best ways um, that we can advocate and that we can also direct others to advocate because we know we have a lot of passion in this community. We want to make sure um our our young people are taken care of and that our um teachers and classified staff are able to pay their bills.
053And it's hard because of course we have to have uh we have to function as a district and try and meet those needs. And so just thinking about like how we can partner with your great work to try and um do some of that advocacy and hopefully um raise everybody up and be able to meet those needs even though we have a lot of competing priorities. But I think um education is something that if we don't really um focus on it does have a lot of downstream impacts later that might um end up costing more if um in economic economics and um and just the welfare of our communities in the future. >> I really appreciate you calling that out. But I absolutely it's one of the main reasons why I really want us to
054be thinking long term on education stability of funding. Um we invest now and it is you know in the 10 20 30 year cycles that we see um the benefits of those investments. Um and so I just really believe in stronger more stable structures. We had the um educator the statewide educator salary task force looked at a lot of solutions. We've passed just a couple of those. We'll continue to bring back those solutions to really think through how we can stabilize education um compensation for educators and um and make it more equitable. Um that has both classified and certified uh at had both classified and certified at the table. So, um I know that the the challenge of us passing a budget at the state level is one thing and then the local conversations around
055how to use those allocated dollars is another. So, the equitable distribution of funds is one conversation that we've really dived into. Um lifting the cap on special education, as you know, is a passion of mine. Um but and we can celebrate that we got the CSL methodology changed to a large degree this particular session. Um but it's things like that long term that we've got to continue plugging away at how we can have better systems and structures because our work is connected. It's very very connected and this is a very underfunded sector. We don't really remember what it's like to have a fully funded sector with a librarian and a nurse in every school and class sizes in the 20s. um that feels like kind of an impossibility, but I not only want that, those
056small class sizes and resources, I want to make sure we're addressing the school facilities funding as well and making sure that we're talking about how it's a patchwork still of who can and can't pass their bonds and levies so that we have safe um working conditions and learning conditions for everyone. I'm looking forward to the lobby day with you all. Um we're partners in this work and you know we have lots of different meetings throughout the day. It really makes a difference when people come talk to us or reach out to our offices saying here's my lived experience and I need you to know how your decisions can or have or will impact um my my life. So, uh, really want to invite everyone to tell us about their stories and looking forward to when
057you all come to the legislature to advocate for from your schoolboard perspective. >> Yeah, I completely agree with everything the senator said. I also think it's worth pointing out uh in this moment that we find ourselves in that um, Senator Neon Mistlin is probably the strongest advocate for school funding in Salem. Um, so we're fortunate in our district to have her voice down there. Um, and I feel like I often am just trying to piggyback on the work that she's doing on this front. The CSL calculation change is a massive win um that I don't think it I don't think it's fully understood by a lot of the folks who benefit from who will benefit from that change, but just really incredibly important. The legislature is the same as the school board in that we
058both are going to have to balance our budgets uh in the coming bianiums. And so you all are going to have to make trade-offs about salaries and class sizes and technology investments and administrative structures and we're dealing with different pots of money that we're trying to balance. The the question for the legislature to more directly address your question uh is to what extent are we going to balance this budget by cutting versus new revenue versus reserves. Those are the three buckets you can pull from and that's what I think legislators are actively trying to figure out right now is what is their appetite to do. Um obviously those cuts people think there's all this waste fraud and abuse and it's easy to cut. We're looking at if if we're unable to tap into the reserves
059and or raise additional revenue, we're we're absolutely going to be cutting the state school fund. We'll be cutting public safety investments. We'll be cutting healthcare investments. these are not acceptable choices to me as a legislator. Um, and I think you're probably on the same page. >> Um, so we're we're going to be working to try to figure out the puzzle pieces that get to keep us as whole as possible. Um, but it's it's concerning and I think the concern is is rightful. >> And just so you know, I mean, we're all advocates for education, but we're not going to want you to cut safety. We're not going to want you to cut healthcare. we're, you know, it's it's what's best for the state as a whole. And it's just it's a really hard decision you
060guys have just like it is a really hard decision we have at our school levels. And just one more um so I can address the elephant um one of the elephants in the room is that um the federal government is cutting in ways that are really impacting our families, our students lives, our education system broadly and um frankly making budgeting decisions that are making our communities less safe. Um, so redirecting to programs like ICE is totally um destabilizing the safety in our communities, impacting our absenteeism issues that we need to be addressing. We we need to make sure that we are supporting families in meaningful ways. And um when the federal government is making these decisions, it puts all of us at all the other layers of government in very difficult decision-making decisions that are
061avoidable. I just wanted to put into the room one, thank you for being here and making time and partnering with us, but um I understand that uh superintendent and school districts have developed somewhat of a reputation in Salem. And part of that reputation might be always asking for more and not always being grateful. And so what I wanted to say is that um I want to really work on changing that narrative. And I think the way that we can do that is by what we're doing right now. And our assurance to you to you all that we're we're only going to ask for what we need. And in doing that, we want to provide context for that so that you all can advocate on our behalf. So, um I really encourage you all to reach
062out to us and we'll continue to reach out to you um to so that we can share our stories that we can share any context that's helpful um anything that you would need to be able to justify your advocacy for us because that's really important to us and we're really thankful for you um going to bat for our kids and for our schools. >> Thank you. I really appreciate that and I often um talk about my passion having come from the classroom to make sure that we're funding education so well that we're addressing the teacher burnout I saw and experienced and that we're funding it so well that I look forward to going back into the classroom. We don't have any other sectors where people have to bring their own Kleenex to their jobs to
063do their work, right? And we have to make sure we rely in the education sector on donations and volunteer hours that are uncalculated largely in our budgeting process. What is the actual um you know FTE paid or unpaid that is really helping our education system thrive? And this particular sector relies so much on um unpaid work to really make sure that children have what they need throughout the day to make sure that they're known, that they're cared for, um loved, and that their learning needs are met. And I just really want to acknowledge um the the the level of wages and compensation are often um lower in this sector than others. um where we really know we need to make sure that we're shoring up and supporting um kids needs for long term. Uh we
064need to make sure we're valuing it too. So I'll continue working because I do think that this sector is um underfunded and I'll continue to to make my case along with allies and partners. Thanks. >> Thank you. Um along those lines, I've heard a lot about how um although we've continued to invest more in education, a lot of that uh that a lot of those funds end up going towards our um PERS costs, which is uh using up a larger share of local government budgets over time. And a lot of our public servants do earn less and then rely on that retirement income um kind of as that trade-off for that lower um earnings over their career. And so um but I think it's important to consider the cost of PERS. Um and I'm interested
065in efforts to um direct some of the kicker into into PERS with the idea that it might um ease up on um on the way our budgets come together um and other just creative solutions as we try and make it work. I mean when we have really large classes, you know, it's harder for kids with um additional needs or that are struggling to have that attention. I think it just ends up costing more um with a lot of other systems. So, it's just really appreciate your advocacy and strong voices in Salem. It's really an honor to have uh lawmakers representing us that really care about education. And if I can just piggyback on what my colleague said, yes, we've gotten more money in education pretty much every year, ostensibly catch keeping up with inflation. Um,
066but you were at the the uh summit, Washington County summit where uh Dan Goldman made it very clear it's not wasn't Dan, it was uh the CF Mike Scoffield, thank you um made it very clear that it's not keeping up with inflation. And while the dollar amount has always gone up, the percentage of the state fund that is going to education continues to go down and down and down. And I know you two know that, but I want to make sure everybody at home who's might be following along knows that the percentage of the state fund going to education has been decreasing steadily for 20 years. >> That's I agree with that and I it's it's not a complete I do bristle a little bit. I think I may have know I was sitting next
067to Dr. Sue and so I I privately spoke to her. The state has also made policy choices about other things that we want to do, including provide more health insurance for low-income people that skew that make it look like education is just not a bigger priority anymore. In reality, I mean, I'll go a little off script here and say our revenue system as it exists today is structurally incapable of meeting all the needs that I think Oregonians expect of stakehold. Uh the last the last big cut we had was in 2019 when KOSA, OSBA, OEA came together and said it's been what how long had it been since Measure 5 was passed in 19 >> like it was time and this is different from that and that was a slow burn over a period of
068decades where um it finally we we had the right leadership in place the right advocacy and we made it happen. This is a this is a created crisis in in part um to the senator's point from earlier like these these cuts are a choice that's being made by the federal government and now we at the state level and you at the local level have to grapple with that. But I do think if we're going to have a structural change to our revenue system that can stabilize things, it is less likely to come from the politicians in Salem saying this is what we think should happen. um we're getting a taste of how that went uh uh just recently. I think it's going to be the grassroots, the advocacy groups, the coasts, the OSBAs um to
069organize and and help lead us forward on that. So, I don't I don't have great ideas yet other than when I look forward into the future bianiums, it's going to be a really tough few years for people in your shoes um implementing whatever the state is able to allocate to you. So, I hope that in some places we can find the space to be creative about um how we might stabilize our revenue system. >> Um and just to kind of build on the conversation around PERS, I've noticed that um not all states have their PERS in their state school fund. A lot of people try to do apples and apples comparisons, but a lot of those other states actually don't have their retirement u benefits in their state school fund allocation like we do. So
070that's one interesting detail. Um I also want to refer to the AIR report. We had the American Institute of Research um come in and do a report on um the adequacy and the funding structures for education and the in the 2025 um legislative session. We had multiple hearings about that report and it does contain while not completely comprehensive I think I'd like an extension on it actually there it does contain a lot of really important information for us to understand the flat funding or underfunding um or structural challenges and problems with our funding. Um so six sections and they all focus on something different and if anybody's really interested in diving in I would point you to the AIR report from the 2025 legislative session. I just want to emphasize something that Representative Bowman alluded
071to, which is CSL, which we talked about for a second, but that's reference to current service level for anyone who's watching from home. And it's the calculation that's made to set the starting point at which the state school funds going to sit at. And for a decade or more, that that mechanism was not run correctly. And so fixing that it means a difference of hundreds of millions of dollars for the starting point for the state school fund every banum. So that was really huge. Want to thank you for that. We have just about 7 minutes left and we've touched upon obviously school funding, depended mandates a little bit, education stability fund, special ed costs, but this is uh our brief opportunity for you all as board members to talk about whether any of these suggested
072legislative priorities are resonating for you or if there's something that you think we need to look at uh differently. So, I want to invite you to to weigh in for anything that's on your mind related to the this draft document. >> Me, I think, and some of this really aren't the things that we address in the rest of our conversation tonight, mainly around the accountability bill. And I think, and there's a whole other rabbit hole I'll go down on my own thoughts around summitive assessments. Um, that being said, I think if we have a bill and a metric is I like that we added the interim assessments, but we have summitive assessments as a metric, we need to make a choice about whether or not or we need to take away the opt- out option
073or that can't be a metric because I think and and I think we were talking at our table at the summit around right the time is ripe than right now to kind of try and push this forward. Um like one of those has to give because we're getting even if we take the NATE piece out of it and we're just looking at OSAS or whatever. Um it it just shoots everybody in the foot every time we try and make any kind of measure around that. Um, all other opinions on summit of assessments aside, if that is part of the accountability bill, I think we need to start having that you need to start having that conversation with people around taking away that opt out because they don't it will never work. And then I think
074the other concern is um and I don't think there's an answer to this, but I'll be curious moving forward with OD and any conversations you have with those folks is um the oversight and the um sort of who's being delegated to look at all of the results of all of the metrics, who's meeting what, what happens if you don't, um all of that just because again I think this adds a lot of personnel cost. There's a lot of unfunded pieces of this bill and I think having been on the committee to talk about those metrics, it's very clear that it's very much a plane being built as it's already left the ground. Um, and so I have a lot of concerns and I know that's an OD piece, but I think your connection to that
075to get some of those answered would be helpful. >> Yeah, thank you. And if you review the legislative hearings, you'll you'll hear a lot of those concerns and call outs as well. Um and um that unfunded, underfunded staffing that's needed to do that oversight work um is something that I just really want to uplift in your comments. Um, and then I think I just want to make sure I'm paraphrasing and understanding what you're saying about the opt out is that that quality of that data can't be relied upon in order for us to make any decisions or for >> Yeah. And if it's a required metric, then the test needs to be required. If you want to make that an optional, like that's the local metric that we could decide we want as our seventh
076or eighth metric. I guess we could do that because we're going to require, but again, it's it doesn't make any sense to have something that we are required to measure be something that people aren't required to do. That just >> I really appreciate that. It >> reminds me of uh in grad school I had a professor, shout out to Mike Kurst, who said uh who who talked about historical accretion in education policy. You pass one thing and then a few years later you pass another thing and then all of a sudden you have an incoherent system. we're we we built the foundation of our new accountability system on our old testing policies that to your point there's now incoherence between those two things. Um I think that's very at the very least I mean we
077all know the types of stu students and families who are most likely to opt out of the tests. Um I also think like what I have been thinking about it hurts to see Oregon performing so poorly nationally by these comparative assessments. NAPE especially. Um, and I don't think OPAD is the problem on NAPE. Uh, but it doesn't do us any good when we don't look good at the national level. And to the extent that we can not have self-inflicted wounds, I I I think you're totally correct. Um, that'll be a big conversation. >> And I think to that, and we did talk about this at our table as well, was that it's really driven that culture of testing in the state. And so I think again if this is what we are saying we value
078and I have my own thoughts and opinions about that but if that's what the OD is saying that they value as a measure then we need to build a culture that values that measure which is yes we need to take them yes we're being really thoughtful in curriculum and instruction around how to prepare kids to be successful in those while being good learners and not little test robots. >> Yeah. So I think again all of that I know is a way bigger over here conversation but I think important because all of these measures are now coming down the pike as Alex has kind of outlined here. >> I think that's right. I do think that the things that we're measuring are shared values. I think everybody agrees our kids need to know how to read.
079They need to know how to do math. They need to show up to school. if we can build the values around that instead of the the the assessment is just a mechanism to figure out if we're serving the kids the right way. So, if we can it's going to be a challenging conversation, but I think um I think you're spot on. >> Yeah, thank you. I really like the accountability piece, but I also worry about with such limited funds, I want to see the money in the classroom with longer school years, smaller classes, um let people do the work. Um, and then to the extent that we can spend some resources but not most of our resources making sure that's happening. Um, but I don't I'm I'm worried we haven't hit the first criteria and
080we're trying to figure out how to improve it and there's a lot of robust data already um on what we should be what we need to do and I think just want to do that and I know you all share my frustrations. So look forward to continuing the discussions and just really appreciate your ongoing advocacy >> and um I don't want to end on a frustration note so let's end instead on a positive note. Um please do remember as the as the session goes on um at any time feel free to reach out to any one of us if you need more data if you need a story that goes behind the the bill right what will this do for kids in your district please please don't hesitate to reach out even if it's a
081I don't know what do you think because I think that we can really get a really um a good relationship going of of making sure that both sides know what the feel is. And with that, we are out of time. Thank you so much for coming today, all three of you. It's been really super informative. Um and um we will, I'm sure, see you at lobby day. >> Okay. Thanks for the invite. >> All right. And with that, this work session is ended and we will see everybody at 6:30 for our regular schedule session.