Category — Class Pictures

School Board Meeting, March 14, 2011

Here’s something you should be concerned about.  In Portland we are developing a school system that is similar to the separate but equal schools in the South in the 1950’s. Only the determiner is not color of skin but financial circumstance.  And the main differences are manifested not just in things which have been discussed for the last few years, but in the curriculums within the schools themselves.

We have two types of curriculum. In schools in more well-to-do neighborhoods where we don’t have to worry about test scores we often have a vibrant, comprehensive and relevant curriculum.  But in lower socio-economic neighborhoods we often have a test-driven curriculum focused on having students pass the state tests. In effect, the first educates children for what they need in the world and engages them with interesting and relevant material. While the test-driven curriculum does neither, driving kids from school and shortchanging them so they aren’t as prepared when it comes time to take their place in the world.

To a huge degree this discrepancy is a product of the reform movement. Individuals and organizations seem perfectly happy to use test scores to determine decisions in schools or classes which their children do not attend. But they would storm this building if you tried to put a test driven curriculum in their kid’s school or classroom, particularly one based on making sure grade level competencies are met. 

Kind of like in the 1950’s when the white school boards would buy new books for the white schools and send the used books off to the black schools.  We create the worst curriculums in our lower socio-economic schools while the power structure’s neighborhood schools have a far more beneficial curriculum.

You might say, “Don’t we have to make sure kids pass the tests?”  I guess, the answer would be yes, but at the cost of a decent education?  At the cost of not getting enough help for those kids who are way behind, or the kids who are already at grade level but sit through mind-numbing lessons to make sure they pass competencies they already have? That price is too high.

Recently I read that Finland and South Korea, two countries at the top of world education, not only don’t have a lower-grade testing system, but work hard to make sure that the SAT type tests they do have DO NOT affect their curriculum.  We could do that in Portland. We could set up a fair and equitable system where all students get the education they need. Here is what we could do:

1)    No longer judge principals and staff on their test scores, but on the quality of education they have in their school and classrooms.

2)    Limit test prep by creating district-wide, grade by grade test prep lessons using the best information we have, and then tell principals this is what is to be taught and no other test prep work should take place.

3)    Go back to the way we prescribed curriculum several years ago by using a time system – a certain number of hours of social studies, science, PE etc. in each grade. The standards system the state uses now is easily manipulated.

 And finally 4) Focus our improvement plans on getting principals and staff to identify the problems within their school and classrooms and work on fixing those SPECIFIC problems.

In 2007, PPS was awarded a  5-year ($6 million) Voluntary Public School Choice grant targeting Marshall, Jefferson and Roosevelt.  We’re only halfway through the grant and the superintendent has decided to close Marshall. 

The grant narrative is 54 pages long.  Here are the highlights:

Project goals – generated by needs, supported by data, and consistent with scientifically-based research, best practices, and successful national models – are to:  (1) expand and enhance choice options and access in high-need and low-performing schools and neighborhoods, (2) develop and implement choice beyond secondary school using the K-16 model and linked to the community-led Connected by 25 initiative, (3) expand the role of parents in school choice and their access to information, (4) expand support to students to ensure success before, during, and after choice, and (5) complete a comprehensive web-based choice process for replication outside of the district and state.

 Upon completion, Portland Public Schools will be able to: 

•             accommodate the academic plans of students and their families in all four quadrants of the city, including district and non-district school settings,

•             offer a comprehensive array of scholastic opportunities linked to improved achievement,

•             develop partnerships with higher education to fully implement a K-16 model,

•             align schools and programs to the community-led Connected by 25 initiative,

•             increase parent and community access to educational options through technology,

•             expand quality choice options across and beyond school district lines,

•             improve and expand targeted professional development for instructional staff,

•             provide focused supports for students as they adjust to new school environments, and

•             finalize a student-needs-driven lottery and choice system that will be provided to the U.S. Department of Education to distribute upon request.

Objective 1a.  Replicate or initiate a minimum of two successful focus choice options operating within the district onto school campuses within the three clusters that previously have been underserved by choice during each year of the grant project.  The process for the selection of program, targeted school site, and optimal timing will be developed within the first six months of the grant period by the Project Director, School Choice Advisory Team (SCAT), Parent Resource Committee, Program Initiation Coordinator, and the Choice Expansion Team, representing all key constituents including parents, students, and the community. 

Objective 2a.  Phase II will contribute to the increase of the high school graduation rate across the school district by 5% and of the targeted high schools (Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Marshall) by 10% by the end of the grant period.  The project will add a minimum of two focus options per year within the geographical areas supported by the targeted high schools, intended to provide increased opportunities, innovative and strategic approaches to curriculum, direct links to higher education and meaningful work, closer relationships between students and instructional staff, and significant increase in rigor and relevance. 

Objective 2b.  Phase II will contribute to the increase in enrollment in higher education within one year of high school graduation by 5% across the district and 10% for the targeted high schools.  At the current time, there is a significant gap in the percentage of students from targeted district high schools who graduate from high school in the Spring and enter college in the Fall as compared to their fellow students in more affluent and academically successful high schools. Phase II of Portland’s Voluntary Public School Choice project will implement both programs and safeguards so that all students may select their home schools as credible options and that all of these schools operate on a level playing field, preparing their students for academic success through high school and into college.   

Objective 2c.  The percentage of high school students who enroll in and successfully complete college-level courses (through dual enrollment and/or college classes) will increase by 20% each year of the grant at the targeted high schools (Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Marshall).    

Phase II of Portland’s Voluntary Public School Choice program will focus significant resources on ensuring equity in neighborhood choice by supporting less successful local high schools in their long-term plans to attract students (neighborhood and beyond) to innovative and rigorous focus options that include access to higher education.  Current choice options allow high school students in more prosperous areas to access colleges and universities, but these opportunities are limited at Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Marshall High Schools. 

 Quality of the Project Evaluation                                                              

The evaluation of Portland’s Phase II project will provide information that will assist in expanding the district’s school choice program while assuring that teaching and learning are improving. Some key questions that will be addressed by the evaluation include:

•             Does the Portland Public Schools school choice program promote educational equity and excellence? How is such equity and excellence demonstrated and promoted throughout the district?

•             Are opportunities for school choice equitable for all student populations? Are opportunities previously less available to higher need and lower performing schools and neighborhoods similar to opportunities for other schools and neighborhoods throughout the district?

•             Is adequate support promoting student success available through all stages of the school choice process, including before, during and after choice?

•             How do student transfer choices and district transfer policies and options affect student achievement? How is student achievement similar or different based on such school characteristics as school improvement status (under NCLB guidelines) and the types and quality of support available in the schools?

Will the superintendent be giving the federal money back?

The Grant parents are back.  No, they aren’t pretending to be concerned about other schools again.  This time one of their own has been criticized. 

On Wednesday,  Willamette Week made Vivian Orlen (Grant’s new principal) Rogue of the Week for an ill-advised office makeover.  Orlen says the office changes were intended to increase transparency.  Her supporters argue that transparency is a good thing.  That makes me laugh.

It was the Grant Google group that revoked my membership for sharing what was being said in their members only group.  These same people met with the mayor behind closed doors. 

And isn’t it a little hypocritical for Grant parents to say that they support transparency then attack Willamette Week for writing the story. 

So for the Grant parents that value transparency, here’s some Grant data:

How is it that Black students make up only 24.1% of the student population but 55.2% of the Student Discipline Incidents?  More than 1 in 3 of Grant’s Black students have been involved in a disciplinary incident. 

Student achievement data looks even worse for Grant’s Black students.  In 2008/09, 95% of the White students met reading benchmark but only 45% of the Black students met benchmark.  Math results are similar….83% of White students and 32% of Black students met benchmark. 

And what  opportunities are available for Grant’s Black students?  In 2008/09 Black students made up 24.1% of Grant’s student population but represented only 6% of the students enrolled in AP/IB classes. 

It looks to me like it might have been a better use of district resources and Orlen’s time if she’d spent it trying to figure out how to eliminate those disparities. 

(All of the data above came from an August 2009 Grant Data book produced by PPS)

My parents are the kind of parents that save everything from their children’s childhoods.  I just ran across this old PTA Handbook from the 1968/69 school year.  It was interesting to look through it and see how things have changed.

It’s true when we tell our kids that they have so many more days off than we did when we were kids.  Here’s Grout’s 1968/69 school calendar:

Opening day of school – September 9th

Professional day (school closed) – October 11th

Veteran’s Day (school closed) – November 11th

Thanksgiving (school closed) – November 28-29th

Christmas holiday (school closed) – December 21st-January 1st

Spring vacation (school closed) – March 15-24th

Memorial Day (school closed) – May 30th

Last day of school – June 9th

Grout Elementary was a K-8 in 1968 and the school had:

• 1 principal
• 1 administrative assistant
• 2 secretaries
• 2 PE teachers
• 3 custodians
• 1 librarian
• 1 school nurse
• 1 speech pathologist
• 1 social worker
• 1 remedial reading teacher
• 24 regular classroom teachers
• 9 subject specific teachers

Grout offered music, foreign language, art, home economics, industrial arts, speech, drama and typing along with math, science, reading, and PE.

For the past 20 years, I’ve heard the annual claim that the superintendent has protected the classrooms from cuts and reduced central office staff.  That’s bullshit. 

Our schools (except the Lincoln, Grant, Wilson and Clevelands) offer nothing while the central office adds deputy superintendents, chiefs, POSAs, TOSAs, project/system managers and communications staff.  What could our schools have looked like if the classrooms were truly protected from cuts?

The state just released the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports and 3 of the 5 PPS high schools making AYP are at Marshall.  Superintendent Smith’s poorly thought out plan to create equity and improve high schools would close all 3 Marshall schools.

Now the district has the opportunity to learn from Marshall’s success but will anyone from management be smart enough to do that or will the superintendent push on with her school closure agenda. 

All 3 schools at Roosevelt failed to make AYP but they get $7.7 million for improvement.  In order to get the school improvement grant, Roosevelt had to get rid of the school principal and replace some staff.  The principal booted from Roosevelt has now been placed at Marshall.  There wasn’t even a principal selection process. 

The district sent out an email spinning the AYP results story as 8 out of 10 schools made AYP but REALLY only K-5s met federal standards district wide.  Middle and high schools failed to meet AYP. 

Limited English Proficient student performance declined in both math and reading at the high school level and only about 1 in 4 limited English students graduated in the class of 2009.  Didn’t the superintendent and board just agree to cut services to those students? 

At the high school level, the district failed to meet AYP for economically disadvantaged, limited English proficient, students with disabilities, Black, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaskan Native students.

Sadly, the criteria for meeting AYP is pretty low, “subgroups are only required to meet attendance (or graduation for high schools) when the academic status target is not met.”  Even so the district failed to meet AYP.  Superintendent Smith needs to be booted.

PPS closed Clarendon Elementary School in 2006 and the building has sat empty (except for homeless people) since that time.  The building is falling apart, covered with graffiti, windows are boarded up, smells like piss and a homeless person is sleeping there. 

The property is adjacent to a nice little park with an abandoned playground.  Is this what we want for our neighborhoods?  

  Welcome

Enter with care and love. 

If it looks like piss and smells like piss…

Second bathroom.

1 Bedroom.

Who knows what happened here

Working on making a skylight

Watch your head

There’s paint in the dust that runs along the outside wall.  Clarendon was built in 1970.  Lead paint was banned in 1978.  Are children being exposed to lead? 

Don’t want to guess what’s smeared on the windows

Where are the children?

The Clarendon building has an interesting history.  Like Whitaker Middle School and Marshall High School, Clarendon is one of PPS newest buildings.  This is from PPS Historic Building Assessment:

While Clarendon does not meet the 50 year standard for National Register eligibility and is not considered exceptionally significant, the following eligibility determination is provided for future district planning purposes. Given the uniqueness of both the design and planning process used to arrive at the design choice, the Clarendon School is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criteria A and C. As the first Portland school planned in a decentralized and collaborative manner that involved citizens, school administrators, and teachers, Clarendon set an important precedent for community involvement. It is therefore associated with a significant historical pattern or trend in educational facilities planning and policy thus meeting the standard of National Register Criterion A. The building is also eligible under Criterion C, as a unique school building type in the City of Portland. No other hexagonal unit schools were constructed in Portland either before or since the Clarendon building was erected. The building retains much of its historical integrity on the exterior and interior.  You can read more about it here.

The Lincoln women who testified at tonight’s board meeting and encouraged board members to close schools prompted me to revisit some data. 

Lincoln, Grant, Wilson and Cleveland are viewed as “successful schools” but what students are successful at those schools?  The data below is for Lincoln but Grant and Wilson look similar.

• Black students accounted for 6% of Lincoln’s population but 17% of the discipline incidents (08/09)
• 89% of the white students, 68% of the Hispanic students and 61% of the Black students were receiving grades of  C or higher (08/09)
• Students taking above grade level coursework – 57% of White students, 24% of Black students and 36% of free lunch students (08/09)
• Only 50% of the students on free/reduced lunch met the Math AYP target (08/09)
• Limited English Proficient student graduation rate is 25% (07/08)

As for the argument that fewer campuses mean more opportunities for all students….well maybe not at Lincoln.  Black students only make up 3% of the Lincoln students taking AP/IB or PSU courses. 

Still, the women testifying before the board tonight think students of color and poor students should sacrifice so Lincoln students (wealthier white students) can continue to have more than everyone else.

In Superintendent Smith’s announcement about budget cuts today Smith said:

Although high schools as a whole would lose 10 percent of their positions, Roosevelt and Jefferson high schools would be shielded from any loss, Smith said. Those two schools are in a protected “academic priority zone,” due to high poverty levels among their students. The district’s eight other high schools would be cut a bit more than 10 percent as a result.

Hello…what about Marshall?  If the academic priority zones are based on poverty:

• Roosevelt is 79.4%
• Marshall is 72.7%
• Jefferson is 70.5%

Superintendent Smith’s high school redesign plan was vague about how schools were identified for Academic Priority Zone status but nowhere did it mention that identification was based on poverty. 

Where is Marshall’s protected status?  Or protected anything?  Hey PPS…way to give up on your largest catchment area.

June 16, 2010

Dear Superintendent Smith and Members of the School Board,

I need to be honest – I wasn’t going to write this letter.  I had given up on the process some weeks ago when, after 200+ members of the Marshall Community came together to speak and plead for a comprehensive school on their campus ,Superintendent Smith presented her revised proposal which recommended the slow and painful death of Marshall Campus.  Today however, I received an email from Superintendent Smith, wishing me “relaxation and rejuvenation this summer.”  Please allow me to tell you about the start of summer for so many of us…

Yesterday was the last day of school for students on Marshall Campus.  As the freshmen, sophomores and juniors walked out of their classrooms, many gave their teachers hugs, and asked, “Will I see you this fall?”  My freshman English class spent time talking about their own plans for the Fall…  Many have younger siblings who would have been freshmen next year.  Because of the recommendation to not allow freshmen at Marshall Campus (no matter their interest), many parents are looking to pull these older siblings as well.  After all, what parent would want their children at two different high school campuses? 

Our principals are scrambling around – strongly desiring to create a master schedule with teacher names, classes, and student rosters.  But they too are in the dark.  They have been given estimates on which to create a “Worst-Case Scenario” schedule.  They have to reevaluate program needs, and examine teacher seniority.  These decisions are not easy – especially considering that all of these actions were already completed two months ago; schedules were complete, contract exceptions filed and approved, hiring completed.  They now have to start over.

Teachers know that all this is going on.  We are grasping to find any information we can: seniority within the building, seniority within the district, any rumors whatsoever about whether or not we have a job next fall, let alone if it may be here.  Meanwhile, we have been teaching our hearts out, trying to keep some sense of normalcy in the lives of our students.  Normalcy in a time of grieving. 

Our students, who have been fighting for their schools (whether as individual small schools, or as a comprehensive campus) for nearly two months, are grieving.  They see the news, and see in the Superintendent and Board’s recommendations, that their actions and desires do not matter.  They see that their voice, which asked so strongly for a comprehensive school, and for more time, was ignored.  They see that Benson students got what they wanted by skipping class on a walkout.  They see themselves attending school, getting an education, making their demands on their own time rather than their teachers’.  They see that Jefferson students get a voice in the media because of the color of their skin.  They see that they are ignored because they are poor.  They get the impression that they don’t matter to their own school district.

What many don’t see is the impact of having the freshmen pulled out from underneath us.  Students haven’t realized that they will lose anywhere from 25-33% of their teachers.  Students haven’t realized that they will lose elective classes.  Students haven’t realized that they will lose JV sports.  Students haven’t realized that they will lose out on so much that makes up a high school education. 

All of this in the name of “EQUITY”.  Isn’t that what this is all supposed to be about?  Creating an EQUITABLE education for all students of PPS, regardless of their ZIP Code?  Yet the proposal not only plans to ship these kids OUT of their ZIP code in order to get that “equitable” education – it also aims to provide the current students of Marshall’s three small schools a LESS THAN equitable education as the District “phases out” BizTech High School, Pauling Academy, and Renaissance Arts Academy.  How is this fair?  How is this equitable?How is this right?

By taking our freshmen, many of whom truly wanted to come to one of the three small schools, we are being set up for failure.  The staff we will lose as a result of having no freshmen severely limits the educational opportunities we can offer our students.  The sloppy process being followed here takes away any rights that we as students or staff should have gotten:  students’ right to apply for a transfer passed in February; staff rights to apply for new positions in Phase One passed in early April.  Only in late April did we find out that our schools’ livelihood was at risk.  And only two weeks ago, in early June, did we learn that it was critical, and that the District is placing a DNR tag on our doors.

I cannot imagine being an eighth grader in this neighborhood these past few months.  In February, these students filled out an application stating their desire to attend BizTech, Pauling or Renaissance (or any of the other schools in the District).  Just a few months later, these students received a letter saying that while their school was slated for closure, they could choose again: they could indicate their desire to remain committed to technology, science or art, or opt to go to their “new” neighborhood school: Madison or Franklin.  Then, just a few weeks later, they were sent yet another letter saying that they would not get to go to any of the three schools on Marshall Campus, nor Benson; rather, they would be sent to their NEW “new” neighborhood school of Cleveland, Franklin or Madison.  How confusing this must be for a 13-year-old!  And the uncertainty of not knowing where your friends will be in the Fall Semester must have certainly put a damper on their promotion celebrations.

Our Second Language students are being inundated with letters from the District, as well as from the ESL departments at Franklin, Madison and Cleveland.  They are being led to believe that they must transfer.  Over the past few weeks, countless students have brought in these letters to their ESL teachers, or to our ESL Educational Assistants asking, “What does this mean?  Do I have to leave?”  They love the small classes in their schools here.  They love that they are able to be fully mainstreamed into classes that are still small.  They love that they are part of the community alongside every other student in their small school.  They do not want to leave.

This is awfully late in the year for such drastic decisions.  It is unfortunate that the end of a two year process has to happen so quickly and at a time where those so dramatically affected have lost all opportunities to make a choice about their own future.  As for Superintendent Smith’s hope for “relaxation and rejuvenation” this summer – it is not starting off well.  As I clean my classroom, it is bittersweet; anticipating the summertime (or summer job, in my case), while also uncertain about where I will return to in two months.  Will I return to my students at Marshall, or will I get a phone call mid-summer informing me of my placement elsewhere? 

Emily Paddock
BizTech High School
English/History/Digital Media Teacher
Marshall JV Girls Soccer Coach

Tonight I watched the rerun of last Thursday’s public hearing and work session and I couldn’t help but notice some of the inconsistencies in board member’s arguments. 

Why are board members suddenly questioning whether it makes fiscal sense to close Jefferson when they didn’t ask the same question about Marshall?  Board member Ruth Adkins said her analysis showed that there wouldn’t be enough of a savings from closing Jefferson to warrant doing so.  What did her analysis show the savings to be in closing Marshall? 

Adkins also argued that closing Marshall made sense because the current small schools on the Marshall campus had demonstrated some success.  She said that the district could build on that “success” by closing Marshall and re-opening a new small focus school.  In her mind, it didn’t make sense to open a focus school at Jefferson because there wasn’t a demonstrated need or desire for one and there wasn’t a defined plan for one.   

Ruth sets a very low bar for success at Marshall.  Against community wishes, the campus originally split into 4 small schools.  One school died off right away.  Another is on the federal watch list and it would have to make major changes next year.  Of the three schools on the Marshall campus now, only about one half of the students are at benchmark in math and reading.   Just over 40% of the students living in the Marshall attendance area attend the school. 

As for the argument that a focus school at Jefferson isn’t a good idea because there isn’t a demonstrated need or demand for one…we’ve been saying exactly the same thing about Marshall. 

The district has NO EVIDENCE that there’s a demand or need for a focus school on the Marshall campus.  About 200 people showed up at Marshall’s community meeting recently but you didn’t hear much about it in the press.  Not one person at the Marshall meeting testified in support of a focus school on the campus.

I’ve already written about the district’s shady plan for a focus school at Marshall.  It has no chance of success. 

Let’s pretend for a second that Ruth is right and a focus school could actually build on the success of the small schools at Marshall…how does reducing the size of the proposed focus school “build” on that?  If small schools are successful because of the relationships that are developed in smaller learning environments, how does forcing a larger number of kids out of their neighborhood and into someone else’s large neighborhood school strengthen relationships?

I’m not advocating for Jefferson’s closure.  My point is that the arguments being used for keeping Jefferson open should also be applied to Marshall. 

Both schools need to remain open.  The costs associated with closing them far exceed any anticipated (rarely realized) savings.  Marshall and Jefferson closures would increase the drop out rates and decrease academic achievement. 

As the superintendent’s high school resolution stated (when she was still trying to portray the high school redesign plan as being about equity):

According to a 2006 Alliance for Excellent Education issue briefing, a 5% reduction in the dropout rate of male students across the state of Oregon would decrease crime related costs by $21 million and would increase the annual earnings of this population by $30.

According to a 2009 Alliance for Excellent Education economic report, a 50% decrease in the dropout rate of the seven county Portland Metropolitan area would result in:

• $38 million in increased earnings
• $25 million in increased spending and $9 million in additional investing.
• $108 million in additional home sales.
• The creation of 300 new jobs and an increase in gross national product of $47 million.
• $4 million in increased tax revenue.
• 61% of these additional high school graduates would be likely to pursue some type of post-secondary education.

The bottom line is that poor, minority, English language learners and students with disabilities at both schools are having to carry the budget deficit burden for the entire district.  It’s not only morally wrong but it’s a civil rights violation and legally wrong.    Here’s a brief look at the student populations that the majority of the board are expecting to subsidize the education of wealthier students: