Over the past several years I have put several high school
study abroad proposals before Portland Public Schools. They have all been
rejected, mostly by being ignored. I have suggested that PPS start with a pilot
project of as few as five students budgeted at as little as $6,000 each for a
total of $30,000. But, for purposes of this blog post, let us fully fund five
students going to China
for a school year at $8,400 each (here) for a total of $42,000. PPS gives me no
reasons why my proposals are rejected, but let us assume some concern over
scarce funding is involved. So what might PPS be currently paying for that is
of lower priority than educating more of our next generation to help us face the
challenges that China
will present.
Well PPS rules “requires the Superintendent
to submit to the Board of Education (“Board”) at
the “Board's monthly business
meeting a list of all contracts in amounts exceeding $25,000 and through
$150,000 approved by the Superintendent or designees within the preceding
30-day period under the Superintendent's delegated authority.” These are listed
online regularly with the material for Board meeting. The current listing is
here, starting on page 29.
Lots of the current list might qualify as
lesser priorities, but let us focus on just one. Yvonne Deckart, former city of
Portland Human Resources Director
(here), has a six month personal services contract for $90,000. That’s enough
to send ten high schools students to China for a school year.
The personal service contract is for:
District-wide: Strategy development for
upcoming PAT contract negotiations; onboarding support for incoming Executive
Director of Human Resources; and political strategizing services for Superintendent.
$15,000 per month is a lot of
money. Paying for “political strategizing services,” among other services, seems
to be going a bit too far.
I’d try to cut back on the contracted amount
by half and use the other half to send five students to China.
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