Oregon SOS supports "no more closures" of our public schools. Join members of the community this Saturday at noon (with a PPS forum following at 1 pm) at Jefferson High School to support keeping the Jefferson Cluster of schools open. The following blog post is by Elizabeth Thiel, a parent and teacher at Vernon School in NE Portland.
Again, Portland Public Schools is talking about fiddling
around with schools in the Jefferson Cluster in a process called “enrollment
balancing.” The district has
proposed closing Vernon, merging Vernon with King, closing Woodlawn, merging
Chief Joseph and Ockley Green, relocating Access, and/or moving Boise
Elliott/Humbolt to Tubman, all as possible ways to achieve “optimal enrollment
numbers”.
People in the Jefferson cluster have been through this
before. We were among those experimented
on with the great K-8 transition 7 years ago. We had all our neighborhood middle schools taken away. We’ve seen a boys’ academy and a girls’
academy come and go. Jefferson
High School has been redesigned more times, I think, than anyone can keep track
of. Last spring, two of our schools were closed without warning or
discussion. I think I speak for a lot of people when
I say that we are tired of it.
Interestingly, the problem with enrollment in Jefferson
cluster is not that the neighborhood
population doesn’t support so many schools. There are more than enough kids living within our boundaries
to fill all our schools to “optimal enrollment” and then some. The reason for all this fiddling is
that most of those kids don’t go to school in Jefferson cluster.
I am fortunate to teach a fine groups of students at Vernon,
my neighborhood school, where I also send my own daughter. This year, I
teach 6th and 7th graders. In a neighborhood where
72% of the population is white, 90% of my students this year are of
color. Despite the increasing affluence of my neighborhood, most of my
students are living in poverty. Where are all the white kids?
Apparently, they have transferred elsewhere, like so many others who live in
the cluster.
The district has created a situation where, among
middle-class white families in our part of the city, the norm is to transfer
out. Within Vernon’s boundary, 51% of kids go to school somewhere else.
The district's transfer policy is designed to encourage this, as is the
existence of every special-focus program, magnet, and charter school in our
city—to entice families away from their neighborhood school in favor or
something better, something special. Excellent as they may be, these
schools serve only a select segment of the population, and promise to deliver
something more than what students can get from their neighborhood school.
They also offer families a school community relatively free from the stresses
and challenges that come with poverty.
In Jefferson cluster, this transfer system has created a
two-tiered system, in which some families (mostly white) choose from the district’s
menu of special options and neighborhood programs, and transfer out; other
families (mostly of color and lower income) stay.
Our neighborhood schools then suffer not only from under-enrollment and lack of
programming, but also a concentration of the challenges associated with
poverty.
In a city that prides itself on being liberal and
open-minded, we have a school system that maintains a disturbingly stark
separation of kids based on race.
This segregation is made possible by our transfer system, and by the way
families can easily justify transferring out of their diverse neighborhood
school to one that is predominately white and middle class because it is
considered common knowledge that that school is better.
We can change this system. Portland’s neighborhoods are not nearly as segregated as our
schools are. We can build
neighborhood schools that integrate kids of all colors and income levels, and
provide them all with a rich academic and social experience. In fact, their experience will be
infinitely richer simply because they are together.
As a teacher, I know that this is achievable within the
walls of our schools. The hard
part is getting communities to stand together in support of the schools where they
live, and getting the school district to stop enabling families to “escape”
their neighborhood schools. If so
many people weren’t transferring out, there would be no escape frenzy in the
first place.
Instead, the district is now talking about closing yet
another school in Northeast Portland due to “under-enrollment.” At
Vernon, only 49% of neighborhood children attend their neighborhood school, and
the capture rate is even lower at King and Woodlawn. Rather than shutting
down one of these neighborhood beacons, why not balance enrollment by seriously
limiting families' option to transfer out? If we truly need to close
schools, why not consider any one of the districts’ special option programs,
instead of the neighborhood schools that our communities depend on? If
the district is truly serious about equity, this would certainly be a more
reasonable way to concentrate enrollment and save money.
Of course, this solution may not go over well with families
at those special option programs. They want the best for their kids, as
they ought to. Instead of providing access for these families to
excellent schools through the transfer system, we need a public school system that
delivers a top-notch education in every neighborhood, to every family.
No family should have to feel the panic to escape an
under-supported neighborhood school.
That’s why PPS ought to spend its time and money investing in the neighborhood
schools we have, instead of this endless (and expensive!) game of
reconfiguring. Perhaps PPS should start with a simple PR campaign,
touting the excellent teachers and programs already in place in Jefferson
Cluster schools. We have lots to be proud of, but the district hasn’t done much
to educate the community and entice local families to give their neighborhood
schools a chance.
As a parent and a teacher in this cluster, I truly believe
that we can offer a top-notch education to every child, from every kind of
family, if only we have the support of the community, and of the district. We
don’t need another school in Jefferson Cluster be closed, merged, or
reconfigured. We've been through that enough already in the last seven years. Instead,
we need PPS to take bold leadership in favor of excellent, equitable
neighborhood schools for ALL children in our city, and we need our whole
community to stand up of for the right of every child to have an excellent
education.
Elizabeth Thiel
NE Portland
Why is it that when a neighborhood school is not doing well it needs to point fingers at other schools by saying they are taking their students away? Instead of closing those very few special-focus schools why not change the focus of your school to bring back your neighborhood students. Punishing the few schools that are doing amazing, innovative and unique curriculum is not the answer. When we tried to bring a special-focus school to Jefferson Cluster we were told by the principal of one of these schools that the teachers and neighborhood wouldn't want it. Really? Check again, because I think these are the kinds of programs that will keep neighborhood students at their schools. Teachers and administrators need to change it up and do something different if you expect parents, who only want the best form of education possible, to enroll their child in their neighborhood school.
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