Portland Public Schools’ transfer policy, the subject of a November cover story, was in the spotlight again during the City Hall meeting that on Wednesday took place at Jefferson High School.
What’s City Hall have to do with school-board policy, you ask? Pretty much nothing. But the increased racial and economic segregation caused by the school district’s transfer policy (not to mention the shift in funding that follows the students who transfer) so concerns a group of parents from the Neighborhood Schools Alliance (and the Jefferson PTSA) that they went to city commissioners to make their case against the policy anyway.
Their 17-page resolution reads like a manifesto for educational equity, and anyone who feels lost or confused about all the changes that took place in Portland Public Schools under Vicki Phillips would do well to read the resolution.
Commissioner Erik Sten says the parents “made a really compelling point.” But it will be up to the school board to reshape the district’s policy.
Meantime, the same group of parents also asked city leaders for help with tracking a $5.2 million federal grant that was to have helped schools in the Jefferson High School area. More than $1 million from that grant was lost, and the reasons for that aren’t entirely clear. (That story is detailed here.)
The resolution on the grant from the Jefferson PTSA is a catalogue of broken promises and unanswered questions.
Here’s one reason the heartburn is so long-lasting:
At Monday night’s school board meeting at Jeff, Portland Public Schools board member Trudy Sargent said she was pleased PPS had rehired Richard Tracy, the City of Portland’s retired audit director, as the school’s in-house auditor. (Cost: $120,000.)
As of Thursday morning, Sargent had not returned a phone call asking her if she would like to see Tracy look into how the $5.2 million federal grant was used. Lynn Schore, a parent from the Neighborhood Schools Alliance, has been trying for two years to figure out how the grant was spent and why the feds withheld more than $1 million from the award. She has been trying to get answers about the grant from the school district and the federal Department of Education.
So far, bubkes.
The 2003 Multnomah County income tax gave the city and county some oversight of PPS policy. At least to that extent, City Hall has something to say about PPS policy.
The joint county-city 2006 audit report, "Portland Public Schools Student Transfer System: District objectives not met" (commonly referred to as "Flynn-Blackmer"), noted that district policy was undermining neighborhood schools and increasing segregation. The audit report requested that the school board clarify the purpose of the student transfer policy in light of its conflict with other district goals and policies.
The school board still hasn’t clarified the purpose of this policy. That is why I personally went to the City Council with my concerns. Nancy Smith also referred explicitly to this audit in her testimony.
Good point. Thanks, Steve.
Now PPS wants to spend BILLIONS on school facilities reinforcing and validating the inequities in school offerings the transfer policy has fostered. Let
Trudy Sargent dummies up? Big surprise!
I wonder how Carole Smith would answer the same question? The entire COUNTRY is entitled to answers on this one–or at least, everyone in the country who pays federal taxes.
Commissioner Sten is right, it is up to the school board to reshape the district’s transfer policy. But 18 months after the city and county audit of the PPS transfer policy revealed how much the policy has harmed schools in minority and low income neighborhoods the district has so far done nothing.
Every Portlander, Commissioner Sten included, can speak out against the hideous institutional racism and classism inherent in our city’s current school system, and urge the school district to do something about it. The silence of leaders who are aware of the problem is no better than their outright endorsement of the discriminatory policy.
If city leaders would be less tolerant of discriminatory public policies for Portland’s residents, we would have less need for a Human Relations Commission to mend relations.
I made a factual error in this post when I gave credit to the Neighborhood Schools Alliance for the two resolutions. They are from the Jeff PTSA.
I’m not surprised Phillips lied/covered up the whereabouts of the grant money. It’s her legacy in Portland. Ask most parents with kids in a PPS school affected by her hocus pocus. One example of many: she lied face to face to parents, teachers, and community members while trying to convince them why Rose City Park needed to be closed. Then she lied about all the planning PPS was doing to start a great new school. Months and months went by before it was discovered that they had NO PLANS. All the planning was done by parents and staff of those schools. Same scenario at other "merging" schools.
I will not be voting for anymore funding, even with children in PPS, until Shore’s request is fulfilled and truthful easily comprehended accounting of funding is available to us all. Thanks to Lynn and Jeff’s PTSA for standing up for kids in PPS!