Policy committee overhauls committee structure, forwards BDE rewrite and sets a busy 2025–26 policy calendar

The Portland Public Schools Policy Committee on Aug. 11 approved forwarding a comprehensive rewrite of policy BDE—which defines how standing committees, special committees and citizen advisory panels are created and operate—to the full school board and reviewed a draft work calendar for 2025–26 that schedules extensive policy reviews.

Dr. Sarah Warren, introduced in the meeting as Chief of Strategy and Operations, told the committee the revision restructures committee work into four regular standing committees: (1) finance, personnel and operations; (2) policy; (3) curriculum and student success; and (4) public and legislative affairs. "This is an attempt at naming that, like, how many board members could be on a committee as the chair," Chair Lentz said while describing the effort to clarify membership and voting expectations.

Staff said the separate policy committee is intended to speed updates to policies that have not been reviewed in many years. Dr. Warren said the board and staff identified a set of priority items that will receive early attention: aligning IJNDB (student use of district‑issued devices) with device policy JFCK after the board’s recent device policy change; correcting wording in JICIA; drafting GB EBB, which is referenced in ACAA but did not previously exist in the policy library; addressing federal ACAa/ACA b changes that affect harassment‑related guidance; and creating or updating an extreme‑temperature policy required by the state.

Board members asked where the public can find committee rosters and noted the district website was not yet updated. Staff posted a tracking document link in the meeting chat and said committee rosters had been sent by email earlier. Members discussed options for how to sequence workloads; staff proposed reviewing policies in Books A–E that have not been updated since before 2020 to ensure systematic coverage.

The committee moved to forward the revised BDE policy to the full board; Board member Yusra Ali moved, Board member Ali Ali seconded, and Chair Maya Lina said the vote was unanimous, noting the student representative voted with the committee. The committee also agreed to meet twice a month during the year to allow more time for detailed policy work.

Staff cautioned that some items are driven by external requirements—federal and state guidance and legal review—and may require additional meetings or changes to the draft calendar. The committee asked members to review the packet of policies available through the district’s Diligent system ahead of the next meeting so the calendar and sequencing can be finalized.