Portland committee schedules fall/spring community meetings, plans boundaries engagement

The Public & Legislative Committee of the Portland Board of Public Education accepted a proposed community-engagement calendar on Aug. 11, agreeing to schedule four community meetings in the fall and four in the spring on the Wednesdays and Thursdays of weeks that include board and committee meetings.

"So with that, the proposal on the table is to do, a set of 4 community meetings, in the fall and in the spring on the Wednesdays and Thursdays of the weeks that we have board meetings," Chair Sarah Lentz said as the committee used the fist-to-five exercise to register support; she later said, "So we have consensus around that."

Superintendent Ryan Skallon Hehim outlined a recommended format for fall engagement around boundary conversations: two weeks of community sessions, with three in-person meetings and one virtual session during each engagement period to reach communities most affected by possible boundary changes. He also noted the March spring sessions are typically budget-focused.

Committee members discussed providing interpretation, meals and childcare for multilingual families for at least some sessions and asked staff to be strategic about timing to avoid conflicts with schools' calendar events such as curriculum nights and parent-teacher conferences.

Lentz and staff agreed to bring a revised, more detailed calendar to the committee’s next meeting and to incorporate the boundaries committee’s October engagement timeline as part of the fall outreach.

The committee adjourned at 08:20; no formal board policy was adopted at the meeting.