Portland Public Schools' $750 Million Bond May Include Three High Schools

The committee charged with planning Portland Public Schools' $750 million bond is recommending that Benson Polytechnic, Lincoln and Madison high schools all be included in the measure.

But its recommendations, which are expected to be voted on by the full School Board today, don't guarantee a full renovation for any of the three high schools under this bond. Instead, they leave open the possibility of completing only a phase of the renovations for each school if costs prove too high.

At a meeting Thursday morning, the School Board's bond committee also voted to include an overhaul of the Kellogg Middle School building as well as $200 million for health and safety concerns in the bond package.

The two pieces of the bond—"modernizations" of specific buildings and fixes for health and and safety—are related, says board member Amy Kohnstamm.

"Our best way to address health and safety is through modernizations," she says. "We want to stick with the original goal to include three high schools."

The recommendation at least attempts to address the requests of the Portland Business Alliance, which asked the board in a letter earlier this month to be sure to include all three high schools, but particularly Benson.

But it also postpones any controversial choices of which schools will be renovated first—and how much.

Since earlier this year, and particularly after discoveries of lead in school drinking water, there has been an open question whether the board might drop Madison or Benson from the plans.

Last month, the district identified upward of $400 million in health and safety problems at schools across the district, including lead in the water, earthquake risks, and asbestos. Only half of that amount will be included in the bond, and district officials made clear the $400 million estimate was made without a full survey of all the problems.

On Thursday, Kohnstamm and district officials said the district does not have a plan for how to make more than $20 million of health and safety fixes each year. That's partly because hiring more people for just the summer months is unrealistic, they said, and partly because they need students out of the building to address environmental hazards.

"We need a plan for where we are going to put the staff and the students," says Jerry Vincent, chief of school modernization. "Right now that plan is 62 days of summer."

Last month, the committee also opted to increase the amount of the bond to $750 million by paying the loan back over 30 years, instead of eight.

Willamette Week