Copyright The Oregonian
Portland Public Schools parents from North and Northeast Portland on Monday pushed for specifics about the academic and enrichment programming that will be available to their children as the district prepares to rewrite attendance zones to boost enrollment at Jefferson High School. About 85 people came to Ockley Green Middle School for the first in a planned series of forums over the next two weeks. The district’s goal is to both explain and answer questions about the district’s plans to soon phase out dual enrollment zones, which have since 2013 allowed families to choose whether their child would attend Jefferson or one of three other high schools — Grant, Roosevelt or McDaniel — depending upon their address. The urgency comes as Jefferson prepares for a $465 million modernization that is scheduled to begin this spring and wrap up by 2030. Students would remain on campus during the construction. The school district’s models suggest that by the time construction is complete, Jefferson’s enrollment will exceed 1,200 students. There’s a long way to go. As a focus option, Jefferson currently only enrolls 391 students who have chosen to attend the school, whether drawn there by neighborhood ties, its storied dance program or the chance to take classes for college credit at the branch of Portland Community College across the street. The district’s current plan — which needs approval from the school board — is for this year’s eighth graders to be the last to have their pick of two high schools. That means most seventh graders now attending Jefferson’s feeder schools, including Harriet Tubman and Ockley Green middle schools, Vernon K-8 and Faubion PK-8, would be automatically assigned to Jefferson. They’d attend school amid construction on campus for the first two years, then have two more years in the new building while demolition of the old building and fieldwork wrapped up. “Increasing the number of students in the freshman year is critical,” said Margaret Calvert, the district’s assistant superintendent for school improvement and modernization. “It allows for a build-up over time.” Parents on Monday observed that of the scenarios presented, the district seemed to be steering its audience towards an option that would slightly splinter pathways from middle schools to high school, sending students from Irvington Elementary who go on to Tubman Middle School to Grant for high school and those from Peninsula Elementary and Beach’s Spanish immersion program who spend middle school at Ockley Green to Roosevelt to join a cohort of other advanced Spanish speakers, while directing everyone else to Jefferson. According to the district’s forecasts, that scenario would result in 1,232 students at Jefferson by the start of the 2030-2031 school year, 1,416 at Grant, 1524 at McDaniel and 1,153 at Roosevelt. Calvert said the goal is for all comprehensive neighborhood high schools to have at least 1,100 students to make it cost-feasible to offer a wide variety of electives and advanced learning opportunities. Under current school board policy, families with older siblings who already attend one of the other three high schools would be grandfathered into those schools, said Judy Brennan, the district’s director of enrollment planning. Right now, Jefferson offers just 11 elective classes, versus 29 at each of the other three schools. And it has only two career-technical education options, versus 11 at Grant, 10 at McDaniel and 9 at Roosevelt. If the full range of electives are not available for students, said Ockley Green parent Laura Johnson, “then people will be upset. [Kids] are going to take three or four electives in their freshman year. It’s a big choice for them, and it is super-cool that they have all these options.” Another big question: What will the opportunities for advanced learning look like at Jefferson? Currently, the school’s offerings are closely tied to Portland Community College, unlike the multiple Advanced Placement courses to choose from at the other three schools. “The relationship with PCC is going to continue,” Brennan told parents on Monday. “Will it be exactly the same? Probably not because of growth and other opportunities.” As Jefferson grows, she said, there’s potential for the school to add Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes. But concrete information about precisely what would be available at Jefferson — would there be a fully scheduled band? A JV football team? More career-technical options, and if so, which ones? — was sparse, particularly for students who are the first to switch to Jefferson after dual enrollment zones will sunset. “I have a seventh grader who is upset about losing his choice. You need to give me more information so I can sell it to him,” said one Ockley Green parent after the meeting, who teared up before declining to give her name because she was overcome with emotion.
