Taken For Granted

A huge Thank You! to Ms. Schore for trying to hold the district accountable for delivering what they promise to the children in the Jefferson cluster and throughout the school district. Thank goodness not-so-Super-intendent Vicki Phillips is gone! Unfortunately the actions she took while she was here and the lies she told will continue to haunt our school district for years.

Here's something I'm still trying to figure out: Why has Kenton School been closed (a Jefferson cluster school that lost some of it's federal funding described in this article by being closed) so that it could be rented to another school? BTW, this school (De La Salle) is a private Catholic school that needed a new site due to land problems caused by the priest molestation case. I'm confused by the lack of common sense here. Can someone help me?

Yes, the need was reduced but not by 1.1 million. This is a net loss to PPS that I warned about in testimony but former board member Doug Morgan assured that the board was performing "due dilligence". This is one reason why Morgan got defeated in the last election.

he nasty little secret is that PPS wants to sell the Kenton Land and make someone like Walsh Construction rich at the expense of our neighborhood schools and neighborhood values!

Let's not forget that the 1.1 million one-time loss is nothing compared to the ongoing, nearly $40 million divested each year from Portland's poorer neighborhoods in favor of its richest.

morehockeylesswar.org/blog/archive/...

One of the two purposes of this taxpayer-financed federal grant was “easing racial segregation” in the Jefferson area. According to the feds, school closures in the Jefferson area -- decisions made locally by PPS -- increased segregation in the Jefferson cluster. How did increasing segregation through school closures reduce PPS's need to ease racial segregation?

Did local closure decisions “reduce” the need for money, as the PPS spokesperson states, because it drove so many families to private schools and out of the district?

A larger issue is that PPS took federal dollars to desegregate in the Jefferson area (as well as bring an integrated arts focus), and then went in the opposite direction by actually increasing segregation with the Applegate to Woodlawn closure / merger.

It is criminal that 1.1 million for our Jefferson students has been lost due to local segregationist policies. It is also not right that Superintendent Phillips and Board members broke their promises -- made and televised both on 3/3/05 and 3/28/05 -- that the grant money would follow the Kenton and Applegate students. Superintendent Phillips said she would make public how the grant money "flowed."

How did the 4.1 million grant to PPS "flow"? What portion of that money reached our Jefferson students and teachers? Was an integrated arts focus implemented at Ockley, Chief Joseph, Beach and Jefferson High via this grant? We clearly need a full accounting of this public grant from PPS.

I was one of those at the Jefferson meeting where Vicki Phillips promised that the money would follow the students when she closed Kenton and Applegate. The loss of that portion of the grant was an additional attack on the students and families from those schools. They lost their schools and the grant money that had been promised to them.

The board and the district claim to make decisions based on sound data, but over and over again community activists have pointed out the uncounted losses.

OMG how long is the inane debate and comments on Vicki Phillips going to go on, we should have fired her years ago and the PPS is such a mess it would take a nuclear blast to start fresh...god this gets soooo tiresome

Richard Watson is right. The majority of school closure decisions (if not all of them!) are based on which buildings/properties are marketable for sale or lease. Witness Cathy Mincberg announcing last spring that Rose City Park will be sold now that it is empty.

There is a long list of school properties that have gone to development. Others have long-term leases that may end up in a sale, as Normandale did. How long do we let this go on, people? Where will our children go to school after the whole district has been sold off???

Healthy discussion is good but I wanted to clear up one inaccuracy. Cathy Minceberg has never said the Rose City Park building was going to be sold. She may have said it was an option. The district is at the beginning stages of a comprehensive evaluation of all our buildings. Until this process is complete no major decisions regarding PPS real estate will be made. If you are interested in the process, visit the PPS website at www.reshape.pps.k12.or.us

Mr. Shelby, this is an exact quotation from the Portland Tribune December 22, 2006:

"Cathy Mincberg, the school district�s chief operating officer, said Rose City Park is set to close because it needs seismic upgrades and has accessibility issues that would cost at least $1 million. She said the building will be declared surplus property and turned over to the district�s real estate trust, which will decide whether to place it on the market."

No need to be disingenuous, sir; we all know what happens to "surplus property" in PPS. Unless you think the Tribune might have misquoted Dr. Mincberg?

PPS rep. Matt Shelby says that until a comprehensive evaluation of all PPS buildings is complete, no major decisions regarding PPS real estate will be made. Isn't a TWENTY year lease of a recently closed elementary school in a rapidly developing neighborhood(Kenton) to a private religious high school a major real estate decision?

And why wasn't this comprehensive evaluation of PPS buildings done before deciding which schools to close?

Common Sense, I sure wish you worked for the school district. Your comments help create some context of the bigger picture surrounding schools closures, lost grant money, and school district leader's priorities and lack of integrity.

PPS did a comprehensive evaluation of their buildings. It was called the Long Range Facilities Plan and although there is much to criticize in the LRFP, I fail to understand why the new PPS administrators think we need to spend scarce dollars on yet another study.

Any comment Mr. Shelby?

MR. Shelby, perhaps that evaluation should have been done BEFORE the schools were closed? But we all agree on one thing, there is no rhyme or reason to any PPS and school board decisions.

The parents at my school asked the same questions of our Area Director. We were told that the LRFP of 2002, being 5 years old, is now out of date and therefore a new study is necessary.

Much more important to spend district funds on another "study" than in the classroom, right? After all, the reason we have a school district is to benefit developers, not to educate children. As soon as everyone gets that straight, then everything PPS does will start to make a whole lotta sense.

Mincberg also said that PPS was going to wait to "see how things shake out" with regard to Rose City Park before deciding what to do with the building. If a sound plan had been in place prior to closing RCP then waiting wouldn't be necessary. Meanwhile this neighborhood is left with a building that is an attractive nuisance in its core and too many of its kids shifted toward overcapacity Grant cluster schools and underenrollment at Roseway Heights.

Hey, I'm reading this from across the country. My kids are actually going to public school in (gasp!) a southern state. Smaller classes, higher standards, many more offerings, stability, etc. are reasons why I'm hapy with this choice. I miss the RCP neighborhood so much, though, but the district REALLY screwed up when it decided to close RCP school. I would still be there if not for this...I was one of those people who just gave up on the school situation and decided to move back to my home state. There are a lot of us out here.

I went to the "Reshape" site that Mr. Shelby recommended and was unable to find his address on there so that he could respond to the questions raised here.

How can we get in touch with you, Mr Shelby?