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Portland committee hears special‑education progress, parents’ outreach plans and questions on multilingual assessments
Summary
On May 11 the Curriculum and Student Success Committee received a district update on special education work — including CPI training for 171 staff, new program walkthroughs, and steps to build IEP data — and pressed staff for details on multilingual assessment practices and the rise in IEP counts.
The Curriculum and Student Success Committee of the Portland Board of Public Education met online May 11 and heard a progress report on special education services, training and data systems, as well as detailed member questions about how multilingual students are evaluated for Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).
Jesse Applegate said the district focused this year on four areas identified in a prior DM Group study: professional development, specialized programming, IEPs and service delivery (data), and family engagement. "We were able to train 171 staff and leaders in CPI," Applegate said, referring to the district’s de‑escalation framework, and added that the district has shifted toward an in‑house, train‑the‑trainer model to sustain the work.
The presentation said staff defined essential features for specialized programs (named in the transcript as Breathe, Beach and FLS) and created a walkthrough process to promote consistent practice as curriculum is rolled out. On data, presenters said the district has begun building an aggregate IEP data culture — tracking compliance with timelines and other districtwide measures that were not available a year ago — while acknowledging more work is needed to link IEP goals and services to the new reporting tools.
Sarah Rant, identified in the transcript as the elementary director of special education, described a monthly professional‑development model that trains coordinators to deliver sessions to school teams. Rant said training focuses on progress monitoring, crafting measurable IEP goals and expanding banks of curriculum and assessment tools, and that math intervention and functional (social‑emotional/executive) skills curriculum are priority areas.
Committee members pressed staff on family engagement and multilingual students. Committee member Lena asked whether teacher observation and visit opportunities included specialized‑program teachers; staff replied that observations are intended to cover the full continuum. Applegate provided attendance figures for three parent‑university sessions — roughly 32 participants at the first in‑person event, about 21 at a later virtual session, and a smaller turnout for the most recent session — and said the district plans to form a district‑wide parent advisory committee to improve outreach.
Vice Chair Bondo and other members raised concerns about rising IEP counts and asked whether increases are concentrated in particular grade spans. Applegate said the district is seeing growth across grade levels, noted particularly high numbers among incoming kindergartners and in placements for some self‑contained programs, and committed to providing a grade‑span breakdown and further analysis to the board.
Members focused substantial time on multilingual students and assessment practice. Applegate said the district has a special‑education multilingual coordinator who led development of referral and assessment materials and that ESOL teachers are included on referral teams. "When a student is referred, a multilingual student is referred, the ESOL teacher is always a part of that team," Applegate said. Staff said they have delivered training for staff and are monitoring a slight increase in the share of multilingual students with IEPs; they agreed to follow up with more disaggregated data and to include details about assessment tools and any use of native‑language evaluation in a board update.
On IEP documentation, presenters said they have defined a finite set of services and issued guidance to teams but face technical obstacles embedding consistent service labels into the district’s Acuity data system, which limits the ability to produce clean aggregate reports. Staff described ongoing work to convert guidance into system‑level dropdown menus and other fixes so the district can analyze service, goal and compliance trends reliably.
The committee did not take formal policy votes on special‑education items. Staff said they will return with follow‑up data and a written update to the board that addresses the specific questions members raised, including a grade‑level breakdown of IEP growth and more detail about multilingual assessment practices.
The committee transitioned after the discussion to an update from the grading task force.
