News Last week's tweaks to Portland Public Schools' high-school redesign put hundreds of eighth-grade students in the district in limbo. That's because Superintendent Carole Smith proposed eliminating the ninth grades at both Benson Polytechnic and Marshall high schools this fall on the assumption (now incredibly shaky) that the Portland School Board would approve her plan to turn Benson and Marshall ...   More

News Last week's story about Portland Public Schools' sometimes inability to communicate with non-English-speaking parents generated a lot of heated reader comments. It also filled my email inbox with missives that are, shall we say, more difficult to characterize. To wit, one reader wrote: Mr./Mrs. Slovic: Have you finally run out of reasons for outrage down at WW? Because that was the stupidest ...   More

News Thinking about what aspect of Portland Public Schools' latest high-school recommendations to examine feels a bit like standing at a car collision with several bleeding people in front of me. Superintendent Carole Smith's new modifications [PDF] pose many new unanswered questions. Why should Benson High limit its enrollment to 400 students, as Smith proposed this week? Won't those kids continue ...   More

News The state Government Ethics Commission tomorrow will consider granting leniency to Portland Public Schools, which failed to submit its quarterly expenditure report on time for any lobbying efforts between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2009, when the district didn't technically employ a lobbyist. The fine? $110. The letter from PPS's Robb Cowie [PDF] begging for mercy? Priceless: The staff recommendation ...   More

News One month after introducing her first proposal for reforming Portland Public Schools' high schools, Superintendent Carole Smith offered a new, slightly different plan. The biggest change to Smith's high-school redesign, presented at a work session with the School Board on Wednesday night, concerns Benson Polytechnic High. Under Smith's previous proposal, Benson was to become a two-year technical ...   More

News This week's news that there's another big hole topping a half-billion dollars in Oregon's state budget has landed hard on Portland Public Schools. This afternoon, school board member David Wynde — chair of the board's finance, audit and operations committee — estimated in a letter to PPS families that the impact to the school district will be $19 million, the equivalent of 200-plus teaching ...   More

News CLARIFICATION: The business manager at Jefferson who is referenced in this report lost her job as a result of a layoff amid budget cuts. A WW review of new documents surrounding the financial audit at Jefferson High School reveals internal finger-pointing, months of unsound business practices and at least one complaint by a contractor at the North Portland campus before Portland Public Schools ...   More

News The departure of Jefferson High School's principal and business manager came on the same day that Portland Public Schools completed a financial audit of Jefferson's student-body funds. [PDF] PPS put Cynthia Harris, Jefferson's principal since June 2007, and Reis Wilbanks, the school's part-time business manager, on paid leave on Thursday. Also on Thursday, PPS's accounting office completed ...   More

News Portland Public Schools Superintendent Carole Smith announced tonight that district administrators, with the support of the School Board, would suspend all decisions about the high-school redesign until at least September. That means there will be no votes on any aspect of the redesign, which has been in the works for 30 months, until the start of the next school year. The School Board had been ...   More

News Stacey Sibley, a popular former administrator at Pioneer School, a Portland Public Schools' program for children with severe behavioral conditions, filed suit [PDF] against the school district on Friday. She claims in her suit that she was the victim of defamation and retaliation after she complained about threats to student and staff safety at Pioneer. According to the lawsuit, the problem started ...   More