PPS Spends More Money on Local Hotel Meetings
My favorite part of the PPS boardbooks is the business agenda. It’s about the only area where PPS is even moderately transparent. Last night’s board book includes these expenses:
Lloyd Center Double Tree Hotel $6,400 payment ($25,412 total contract)
One day districtwide venue and catering for Portland Leadership Collaborative for Cohort 2 and Nike School Innovation Fund.
The Ambridge Event Center $40,000 payment ($35,863 total contract)
Districtwide venue and catering for Equity Project, Courageous Conversations trainings. Hey PPS, have you hired a Workforce Diversity Director yet?
Lloyd Center Double Tree Hotel $5,650 payment ($25,412 total contract)
Districtwide venue and catering for “Universal Design for Learning” professional development seminar for K-12 teachers, TOSAs, department staff, and administrators.
7 comments
Well, you know, the district doesn’t have any under-utilized buildings or commercial kitchens they could use for this kind of thing…. no wait, yes they do! Well, okay, then, it’s only a little more than $80,000, which is nothing — nothing! — in a half billion dollar budget…. no wait, that could pay for a teacher.
Okay, well, sometimes when corporations like Nike give you money, you have to spend some of it making administrators feel speshul. You can’t put a price on that. Also, nothing says Equity like a day off from teaching, a catered lunch, a binder, and a book. You can’t put a price on that, either.
The Universal Design training was extended to parents and community members via SpEd and was in tandem with the All Born In conference’s keynote speaker so there were some positives in that event. I completely agree though that those events need to be held in PPS building and not hotels.
A friend of mine that attended said she was sitting next to a TOSA and this guy could care less and just screwed around on his phone the whole time. You would think he would put 2 and 2 together that he was sitting next to a parent and at least contrive interest.
Stephanie: The budget for Special Ed is almost $76 million so why not spend as much as possible on TOSA’s, Administrators, Directors, etc… No wonder the para-educators rallied on Monday. I hope the union will file one grievance after another to stop Special Ed to benefit on the backs of the para-educators.
yeah but the amazing thing isJoanne Mabbott got a huge raise last year and gave her assistant Jennifer Jackson a raise and because they couldn’t get along a life coach was hired for them to help them get along. Priceless
You all are blowing my mind here….all I can do is make noises, shake my head, and exhale a lot. WOW…a life coach? I am getting a lot of email from parents in special education ready to organize.
Stephanie: Share your efforts with parent on the blog. I would like to get ELL parents involved. They have been shortchanged for years. Special Ed has not served them well if at all.
I was just emailing with a friend about this excess in PPS. I am even more furious with corporatocracy right now. Admin justifies this because I am sure they do put in long days and weekends but if they had to do the job of a para for one day they would cry all day long. If any of them tell you they HAVE done the work they are either lying or they are one of the people who has to keep their mouth shut for risk of being fired….or they are absolutely soulless because no one who has actually done this work would ever support a call to cut hours (and say they can sleep at night). They work way more than 7 hours a day because they care about these kids and PPS knows this and is exploiting it. I wonder how many paras are on food stamps? I used to work for a multi-national corporation and we had catered meetings with champagne while I was told I could not pay for pizza for staff meetings anymore. Because I had worked my way up from direct care it never seemed right to me but the people who had always been admin did not blink an eye to this extravagance. I am tired of good people with big hearts getting screwed over because they will continue to do what is right. For me right now this is PPS and beyond. I do not want these people ruining lives and this planet anymore. I feel like the sensible people of the US need to be in a perpetual state of activism and marching until the people finally puts a stop to this doublespeak and racism. Feeling a bit passionate right now between Arizona and the oil spill.
I am going to an IEP with a Spanish speaking parent who attended a training I just did and Carrie gave me a contact I need to follow up on. I have told a few people at Multnomah County DD to consider me a resource for parents in PPS who need advocacy. I am not as up on the legal stuff as my pals are but I will do my best. I just created a saved email list of every special education parent I know and sent out a message asking if they are interested in organizing and to send me names of people who should be on my list. I will come and speak anywhere with parents on coming together. I will be talking to parents May 11th about behavior and consulting with parents on their IEP’s and they will have interpretation for Spanish speakers if you register. Here is a link http://factoregon.org/index.php/events/detail/591/
Anyone who wants to be in the loop on organizing for special education email me at stephanie.c.hunter@gmail.com and I will add you to my saved list. Please let me know what I can be doing to make sure that ELL parents are part of this. I am limited because I only speak one language but will accommodate in any way I can. I am also happy to start a phone tree list for families that do not have email access.
The whole special education continuum thing is based on a sound premise of keeping kids in the same school for much of their education but parents are being told that self-contained is the least restrictive environment!!! General Ed, BY LAW, is the least restrictive and it is illegal for these people to take advantage of parents who just don’t know the law or question their services. Special education is not even detailed in the proposed budget and there is a footnote stating that the details will end up in the approved budget. People with disabilities are not shown dignity and respect and thankfully more of the gen ed community is waking up to this and taking our side but not nearly enough. I better stop ranting but send parents on May 11th and have them call for interpretation. If I can speak anywhere to parents let me know and I will gladly do this.
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