A Letter From A Marshall Teacher
Susie Brighouse has taught at Marshall since 1991. She sent the following letter to the superintendent and school board:
Dear Superintendent Smith and School Board members –
Portland Public Schools has been a part of my life since I was born. My father was an electrician for PPS. My older siblings went to Duniway and Lewis. My two oldest brothers graduated from Benson. I am a product of Lewis Elementary and Hosford Middle School. During the summer after my sophomore year in high school, I worked as a teacher’s aide for Portland Public Summer School. I was fortunate, because that’s when I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. After graduating from Eastern Oregon University in 1989, and teaching summer school, I subbed for over a year to “get my foot in the door.” My first full-time teaching job began 2nd semester at Cleveland High School in 1991. Because of cuts, that lasted until June. In October of 1991, I was hired at Marshall High School for a ½ time position. I have been at Marshall ever since. I have seen many colleagues leave Marshall, but the ones that have impressed me the most were the ones who spent most of their teaching careers here at Marshall, because it definitely isn’t the easy road. Many times, I have found myself justifying staying at Marshall, even to my closest friends and family. I stay because Marshall students are the strongest, most accepting young adults I know (and I work with student council kids from all over the state). They are fighters. They are survivors. They are also used to change . . . change in their school, change in their family situations, change in their financial situations, etc. I feel that staying provides them with a little stability that many of their lives do not afford them. If any of you, or I, were put into their situations, we would not be as strong as they are. It is truly impressive.
These students have not seen “equity” since the 90’s – when Marshall had over one thousand students, the Research Scholars honors program, a marching band, choir, performing arts, technology and manufacturing classes, an auto shop, a strong athletic program, an award-winning newspaper, etc. With the number of students in the neighborhood coming to Marshall, we could offer an amazing variety of classes. We were one of, if not the first school to bring freshman and sophomore academies to Portland Public Schools. But as cuts were made because of budgets, programs were disintegrated, transfer policies loosened, low test scores and No Child Left Behind provided that extra “push” out the door, more students went elsewhere and we were left with a skeleton of a school. Small schools were the only way to preserve what we had left. We were given NO OTHER OPTION.
Many of us didn’t speak up when the criteria for neighborhood schools came out this year. Marshall is one of the best facilities Portland Public Schools owns. It has enough parking and space to accommodate district-wide meetings, wide hallways, many lockers, large classrooms, and nice athletic fields. We have the most students living in our catchment area. Our students were complaining that they wanted more options for classes. It only seemed logical that the district would tighten their transfer policy, bringing our students back to Marshall so that we could offer the same programs and classes that are available at other comprehensive high schools in Portland. That’s what equity looked like to us. It was about time! But the proposal brought only our worst fears – That the district would not support Marshall, our students and this community . . . again. We knew that we would be a target, but we did not believe that you would kill us.
Moving our students to Franklin and Madison takes away stability from them, their families and this community. First, it was the freeway that devalued the Lents area. I cannot imagine what repercussions will come from closing a school. It can’t be good.
Opening one, small, focus school on the Marshall campus is NOT the solution. This is NOT equity for the students in the Lents area. You are asking them to choose between “quality at a distance or impending death nearby.” Bringing David Douglas into our building is also NOT a solution. You will ruin one of your best facilities by doing so. You cannot host two different districts in one building. The three small schools on the Marshall campus work together enough to function, because we are all in the same boat. Schools, teachers, and students from different districts will not have the same respect for each other or the building. You are setting things up to fail.
Your current proposal that takes away our freshmen is the worst yet. How do we offer options without the staff that we currently have? Without those freshmen, we lose FTE. We then lose classes, sports teams, choices, and EQUITY. We will have very little to offer the sophomores, juniors and seniors who remain faithful to Marshall, unless we combine our small schools next year to offer more options for classes. That does not solve the issue of the athletic and after-school programs we will lose.
The “phase out” proposal is NOT possible. You cannot offer what the remaining students need to graduate without offering them less . . . less options, less activities, less choices, less relationships… LESS. You have said to these students that they will have priority to stay at the new focus school, but what if that focus school opens only to freshmen or caps its numbers? There has been NO guarantee that this focus school will accept current Marshall Campus students, only speculation.
I have heard that information is going out to these freshmen, yet again, telling them about the updated proposal, and “if it passes,” they will not be coming to Marshall. If you had ANY idea of the extent of our efforts and the time we have put into bringing these students to our building next year, you would NOT send this information out . . . Unless, that is, the decision has really already been made. The district has also opened “the Office of Focus School Support,” which I find almost humorous. Not only because there was, as far as I know, no “Office for Small School Support,” but because a new department has been developed, meetings scheduled and plans made BEFORE a vote has even taken place. Seems to me the decision has already been made.
Although I don’t like change, I have come to live with it and accept it – at times, embrace it. I understand that Portland Public Schools needs to change in order to make things right for our kids. The change that you are proposing is not the right one for these students or this community. The right one is to bring students back to our campus by doing what you have proposed around the district – making students go to their neighborhood school . . . MARSHALL. That will bring teachers, programs, and opportunities back.
Currently, my sophomores are reading “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson. Haji Ali, the illiterate, but very wise leader of Korphe, teaches Greg to SLOW DOWN, because building RELATIONSHIPS is more important than building schools. In class, we have discussed how when you come into a community, you should not decide what is best for that community. They know what they need the most. Perhaps a bridge needs to be built first. Not a bridge for people to leave, but a bridge for people to come back. Listen to the people of this community. SLOW DOWN and really understand your decisions and what they will create or take away before you call incoming 8th graders or send out letters. Come talk with us. Hang out with us for a while. Know the stories of the students and the neighborhood YOU REPRESENT. Drink a cup of tea, or a Coke, or something stronger with us. Build relationships. Don’t destroy them.
Back when I was a sophomore in high school, when I knew that teaching would be my profession, I never imagined all of the change that would mean in my career – From comprehensive high school to freshman academies to freshmen and sophomore academies to small school and now, possibly no school. Every single change I have embraced, even though I might not have agreed with them. I have also watched the people who created the changes in the first place leave. I will go through this change with these students, because I believe in them – and know very well that they need support and stability – and right now, a voice. Hopefully you are listening, because you are the only one who can bring students back to Marshall. Don’t take the easy road. Keep Marshall open.
Thank you for your time,
Susie Brighouse
8 comments
People can argue all they want to not change their school or not close their school. I worked for 10 years in a middle school that feeds into Marshall and I can truly attest to what you say. But in the end the whole approach is wrong and can’t really end in equity. As the person who probably started the whole equity argument 6 years ago when I ran for the school board I am pretty dismayed with how the school board has approached the whole issue. What should have taken place is that the school district should have drawn attendance boundaries with each of the nine schools having equal numbers (about the way it actually was). Benson was preserved. Which would have put what, maybe 900 kids in each school. Then money and programs were equally distributed keeping in mind the needs of kids in each school. Hence some schools might have more AP classes and some more credit recovery to begin with. THEN when everyone was made whole, the process of how to make the whole system better should have begun with everyone on an equal footing and taking into account the horrendous middle grade problem which makes the high school redesign look Mickey Mouse. That would have been equity. Closing the two poorest schools and asking those kids to get on the bus for huge intervals of time to add to their already school difficulties preserves the Wilsons, Clevelands, Lincolns, and Grants, but it is not EQUITY. And do you know what else — it is not fair. Why is it happening as it is? Well, the more well to do areas of the school district have more political power …… plain and simple.
Also, this could have been done in a month’s time. No problem. Just phase it in.
To Steve Buel: But under No Child Left Behind, you can’t close off transfers from low-scoring/low-attendance schools, so what would you do about large numbers of people still transferring out of a neighborhood school? Would the school(s) they transferred to just have to have enormous class sizes? I’m not quite getting how your plan would work.
If you say we also need to repeal NCLB, I’m on board with that, but it seems that’s not going to happen any time soon.
As for Marshall, I have substituted there a few times and was very impressed with the way the kids felt about being in small schools… it did seem to be a lot of what made them passionate about Marshall. The older kids, especially, seemed to support each other in their work, and consequently were more thoughtful and focused than at many high schools. I have no idea whether I was speaking to a representative sample of students, or whether Marshall is the appropriate place for a small focus school, but I do hope PPS includes small schools as more than an afterthought.
Julie, all new 9th grade students go to school in their neighborhoods. The money for each neighborhood school stays in that school according to the kids in the neighborhood. If kids transfer for NCLB. Fine, let them. But the money stays. This sounds silly at first, but right now the “haves” are saying their schools fill up at a certain point. Yet, take Grant, it used to hold 3,000 kids. No ‘kidding. In the 60′s. Yet, we say it is full. So how have we decided that? Why is it full at the numbers it has?? How do we get around NCLB if we say a school is full when there are still rooms used by organizations and more seats can be crammed in classrooms. Since we aren’t following NCLB in one instance and nobody says anything then why do we have to follow it when it doesn’t benefit the “have” schools? It just seems to me that the school district destroys certain schools through their policies, then turns around and closes them because they are not good schools and have low attendance. Maybe Jeff and Marshall should be closed, but we can’t arrive at that conclusion through the process we have used. If you want to arrive at that conclusion then you have to reach it through a fair and equitable process. Don’t like mine? Fine. No problem. But what is the one the school board can use which is fair and not obviously laced with politics where poor people lose everytime?
P.S. Of course, we need to repeal NCLB — it is wrecking the schools.
Susie, your letter is well written. I hope the board will listen. Regardless of what happens, I hope Carrie has a plan for Marshall. When PPS chose to close Marshall, they forgot about Carrie Adams.
Show Me, You need to stop saying that about me. The Marshall community has been close in the past and this screwed up redesign has brought us closer. I want this community rise up and take our school back.
The superintendent’s high school resolution states “Portland is a city that is built on a foundation of strong neighborhoods. Portlanders believe that strong schools are a central tenet of a strong neighborhood and often are an anchor institution within a thriving neighborhood.”
As property owners, taxpayers, parents and community members we’ve invested in our neighborhood and we expect to be able to stay in it. Moving our kids out to other schools means a loss to neighborhood businesses, risks student safety, and creates additional academic achievement barriers to students needing the most support.
The PPS board members moving forward on the Marshall and Jefferson closures are idiots or heartless, nevertheless, they are the majority.
Marshall’s only hope is to secede from PPS. I wonder at what point board members will figure out what that loss will mean to PPS.
Not until after it happens. That’s how they plan everything.
Here’s what the loss will mean to the PPS board — they can put more emphasis yet on “their” schools and won’t have to worry about the people out in the Marshall area, wherever that is …..
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