A crisis teaches many lessons

By Jim Scherzinger

What have we learned from the Portland Public Schools’ experience with radon?

This has been a serious topic of discussion for us on many occasions over the past few weeks. To paraphrase philosopher George Santayana, “Those who don’t learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat them.” We have no intention of going down that road.

Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

1. We need to institute routine environmental testing and maintenance in all schools.

To save money, we have cut maintenance staff by 50 percent over the past 10 years, and we have not had a routine program for testing schools. This is going to change. We will reallocate funds to cover the expense, and as a first step we are working with the Oregon Health Division to develop a radon testing program in all district schools.

2. The district needs better ways to access its own data quickly so it can answer questions from parents, teachers and others quickly.

Currently, records for the district’s schools are in scattered files, some of it in boxes in warehouses. It takes days or weeks to find specific information, which, particularly in a crisis, is unworkable. A systematic approach to data storage and retrieval must be developed.

3. We need to establish better systems for getting information to parents and staff.

We knew we had a communication system problem, but we didn’t understand the extent to which it was hurting confidence and credibility. This reaffirms the district’s strategic plan, which puts communication as a top priority.

4. We need not only to inform parents and staff, but to involve them upfront as we grapple with difficult issues.

That’s why a team at Whitaker Middle School, including parents and staff, will oversee a complete air-quality assessment of the building by a certified indoor air-quality expert. Parents and staff will also be involved in reviewing the results and recommendations of the expert and will have input into next steps.

5. The district needs to find better ways of listening.

If the district can really listen and respond to concerns from parents and staff, issues can be addressed when they are small, rather than at crisis proportions.

In a time of very limited resources, everyone’s time, energy and budget are better spent solving problems when they are small, rather than waiting until they turn into full-blown crises.

These five needs are all general-system problems that the radon issue has highlighted. We are committed to understanding and addressing any radon problems we have in the schools. We are also committed to improving in these other areas so we are better prepared to address future issues.

There will always be problems. The question for us is, how well prepared are we to address them and to maintain the trust and confidence of parents, teachers and this community?

There will no doubt be other important lessons to learn. But if we can begin now, we will be taking important steps in the right direction.