IC3S Meeting Minutes

Place: Bridal Veil Community Church (125 Lucas Rd.)

Date: December 10, 2018

Time: 7 – 8:45pm

Present: Mikaila Way, Andrew Kurkinen, Cless Woodward, Jeff Aho, Brad Garrett, Rob Saxton

Audience: 17 – 18 people

Agenda:

1. Opening & Updates

· Sharing community requests, recommendations & feedback

• Mikaila provided a short summary of correspondence sent to the group since the Nov. 28^th meeting. Positive feedback received from community members who have been able to fill out the new questionnaire online form. Still receiving feedback from community members that the meeting notice is too short notice, and this needs to be improved for community participation.
• The education reporter from The Gresham Outlook contacted IC3S via our Gmail address asking for information about our meetings, locations and what we’ll be talking about for an upcoming story about what schools are doing with the end of open enrollment. We agreed that the website was best place to point reporter in the direction, and can provide meeting dates and times for publish.

· Update - upcoming dates for Board meetings & Special Board meetings

• Next Board meeting is Dec. 19^th, some group members are available to attend the meeting and listen to further discussion about charter school formation.
• Next regular CSD board meeting is Dec. 19, followed by Jan. 16, Feb. 20, March 13, April 17, May 15, June 19

· Update from Rob Saxton

• Rob Saxton provided an update of his work so far, and what he’s finishing up before Dec.21^st when he plans to finish compiling information and start writing. Most recently he’s been working on:
  • Graph and chart comparisons in the state – some of the comparators include how districts spend money compared to other districts, size, and geographic regions.
  • Reviewing and compiling community responses from the community questionnaires.
  • Met with Dr. Trani earlier that day (Monday, Dec. 10^th) with a follow up list of questions from their initial interview.
  • Met with two high school classes – a Spanish class and a Chemistry class – both classes were mostly juniors and seniors. He met with about 50 kids overall. For the first part of the conversation, he let them ask questions and then he disseminated a questionnaire for them to fill out. Mr. Saxton was impressed by the thoughtfulness and thoroughness with which the students completed these questionnaires.
  • Mr. Saxton still needs to interview Board members.
  • By mid-week next week, he plans to go through all he’s collected and make sure he’s gathered all he needs to begin the writing process

2. Discussion: Revisiting the conversation about charter district discussions, questions and information documentation

Jeff and Mikaila provided the group with a summary and update about how the initial meeting with two community members who offered to help with collaborative note taking idea had gone last week. The notes reviewed in this initial meeting were from the Nov. 19^th special board meeting on the charter district informational workshop session. Both Mikaila and Jeff expressed they see value in the validity that comes from many perspectives working together to compile a comprehensive set of notes and salient points, they felt it enhanced the notes put together and improved the turn-around time for a set of meeting notes to post for viewing. An additional benefit from the process was clarifying questions were flushed out in the review process. Given the anticipated short turn-around of board decision on the charter school application, they’d like to be able to keep up with the conversation and provide objective, accurate information while also supporting the collaborative process of engaging more community members. Some challenges and questions discussed by the group were – is this effort beyond the focus of IC3S at this time? Is it too much for IC3S to be involved with at this time? Are there enough people beyond IC3S who are available and willing to do this work on their own? Would it be best to stick solely to posting the Q & A information from the ODE on our website as information?

After discussion, it was agreed upon that providing a place on the IC3S website to post charter school related information from primary sources such as the ODE documents, links and direct responses to community questions was supported by all members of the group. Jeff and Mikaila will continue to clarify with two community members how best to proceed with the collaborative note-taking idea and test run. Brad and Mikaila will work together on the website to add this page and information about charter information. It is agreed upon collectively, that this informational platform that IC3S is providing is outside of our responsibilities as project managers for Rob Saxton’s scope of work and falls into work as an independent community group. The work related to providing a platform for this objective information is to assist with the effort to provide comprehensive, timely, and accessible information.

[To help bring some clarity to the charter district conversation the group discussed and agreed to post a charter district Q & A to the IC3S website that would attempt to answer common questions related to implementation of a charter district. The questions will be submitted and answered by staff at the ODE and OSBA.]

In follow up from Nov. 28^th action item: Mikaila Way submitted questions to a charter school specialist at ODE, and will be posting the Q & A document from this conversation by the end of the week (Dec. 14^th).

3. Discussion: Content and delivery in most recent school newsletter & recent email sent from Dr. Trani to district families about the end of open enrollment and the discussion about charter district formation.

Group discussed there were some inaccurate statements published in the most recent school newsletter and email sent to school families from the district in an article Dr. Trani wrote about the work the district is doing with Rob Saxton and IC3S. Specifically, the inaccuracy has to do with how the history of Corbett Schools Community Group, board members involvement and the formation of IC3S all came about. Mikaila expressed she would have also liked to see citations given when quoting the language from Rob Saxton’s contract in the article, as well as providing further information with a website link and an email address for IC3S. There were also some questions brought up about the article Dr. Trani wrote about the end of open enrollment and the charter school option left for the district to pursue. The group discussed whether or not trying to clarify and correct these inaccuracies was necessary. Mikaila along with group members agreed to arrange a time to meet with Dr. Trani and administrative staff to clarify these points and make requests for future publications and communications about IC3S from the district.

4. Discussion: Idea & potential planning of informational Q & A sessions in January and February about basic understanding of ODE funding: terms and definitions, as well as laws and funding structures that will be important to understand prior to hearing Rob Saxton's report.

Andrew shared information he collected from the ODE website about funding formula explanation and the district funding worksheet explanation. He explained the information that both resources offer in providing people with a baseline and thorough understanding of some basic terms, definitions, laws and funding structures. The group and Rob agreed this will be helpful information to post on our website as resources. As well, Rob said this would be baseline information and explanation he’ll provide at the beginning of his report. The discussion of a January informational session was tabled for future conversation. All group members agreed supporting wide spread understanding of this information will be beneficial in understanding the report Rob delivers in February.

5. Planning ahead for February community meetings - reporting back with information from Corbett Community Church & next steps/arrangements.

Andrew reported to the group he spoke with Paul Auble, Pastor at Corbett Community Church. Paul is supportive of IC3S using the space at Corbett Community Church for the community meetings in February as a venue for Rob to share his report. Pastor Auble said the space is available on any night/day except Thursday evening and Sundays. The sanctuary space can seat 350, and potentially up to 650 if overseen by fire department personnel. Jeff and/or Mikaila will follow up with Pastor Auble when dates are being set for the February meetings.

6. Next Steps & Delegating tasks

Jeff - following up with note-taker volunteers, work with Mikaila and others to finish 11-19 compiled notes

Brad – working with Mikaila to set up charter school information page on website, and working with Andrew to post documents and funding basics information from ODE

Andrew – send info docs with URL to Brad & Mikaila for the website

Mikaila – finish typing up Q & A from conversation with ODE charter school specialist for the website, reach out to Michelle Vo & Marguerite Perry with charter school decision timeline questions, set up time to meet with Dr. Trani about clarifying district communications. Set places for meetings & post on website. Working with board & Rob to set February meeting dates.

NEXT MEETING DATES: Locations TBD

January 23^rd: 7 – 8:30pm

February 4^th: 7 – 8:30pm

Community Questions & Comments:

“Jan 23 is HS Conferences until 7:30, so might start meeting at 7:30”

“What other things are incorrect in newspaper?”

Mikaila:

The explanation of how IC3S formed from CSCG, and the roles of David Gorman and Marguerite Perry played in the work of CSCG, and would have liked to see citations on quotes about the contract and scope of work quoted in the article.

In the article about the end of open enrollment, “They have always been a part of the fabric of the school system” (regarding out of district students) can be debated in terms of the role or ratio of out of district students and funding, overall population.

There are other statements made in the end of open enrollment article that bring up questions for me, but I am not in a position to call them “inaccuracies”.

The out of district student population changes the conversation around facilities, overall population. The families that come are wonderful, the facilities issues are another set of issues.

“How new are the single school charter districts vs. charter school within districts?”

Information learned from Kate Pattison at ODE: There is no such thing as a charter district. The Corbett School District will remain a school district, the school could become a charter school within the district. It would function as a one school school district as it does now, with the designation and legalities to operate by as a public charter school.

“So when a charter gets made, say in March, the governing body of the charter school would be separate from the school board? Who would write the charter if its not the board?”

March would have to be the point to decide to do pursue the process of becoming a charter, not who writes it. Kate says the application cannot be written by the board, and recommends an inclusive community process in writing the application. She recommended we contact and learn about the McKenzie River School process of becoming a charter school. She said McKenzie River District took 2 years to write a charter application that involved the community, a collective process. They decided to have a district board and a school board. In becoming a charter school – there are two governance structure options. One is for the current elected board to serve as the board for the school district and the charter school, this is allowed by Oregon state charter law. The other option is for there to be the elected school board for the district and an additional appointed board to be the “Board of Directors” for the charter school, as a board of directors overseeing the operations of the school as a 501c3 non-profit. For Corbett, because it is a one school school district – there will ALWAYS be an elected board, with elections run by the county and voting defined by district boundaries. In the writing of the charter contract, the district, board and community could decide to establish two boards or the one as is.

“[this charter decision]feels too fast. To engage in this, could it potentially take a bit longer? School board election is in May, though they are in office until July 1.”

“How does community participate in process to give feedback on charter, and what it says?”

The board can significantly truncate the process. The 180 day process can be shortened, the board has that power. 180 days is the maximum.

Application of a charter would be submitted end of June. March is a decision to choose a direction, not actually writing the application.

“It felt like a disheartening choice to only be told we can complain in Salem or form a charter in the letter”