Skip to main content
After six years leading Portland Public Schools and seeing the district through its first-ever teachers strike last month, Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero announced that he is stepping down. His last day will be February 16.
“I am grateful for the trust and opportunity to have led Portland Public Schools for the past seven school years,” Guerrero said in a statement. “During my tenure, my main priority was to work urgently and diligently to create high-quality teaching and learning conditions. I remain optimistic that the future of PPS will be bright and that the community’s vision for student success is soon realized.”
The announcement comes on the heels of a contentious Portland Association of Teachers strike in which Guerrero was a frequent target of the union’s ire. He woke up one morning to his neighborhood papered with WANTED signs with his face on them.
The midyear departure creates more tumult for a school district about to make budget cuts in response to PAT’s new three year-contract.
Guerrero’s tenure as superintendent began in August 2017. He succeeded Carole Smith, who served for nearly a decade before resigning amid a leaded-water scandal. When Guerrero took the helm, the graduation rate stood at 81%. In 2022, it had risen to 85.7%, aided in part by relaxed standards that do not require Oregon students to prove mastery of reading, writing or math in order to earn a diploma.
In addition to the teachers’ strike, Guerrero also saw the school district through the COVID pandemic. PPS has faced continued backlash for staying largely closed to students for 18 months while districts around the country opened. While PPS students outpaced other Oregon students by over 10% in their 2022-2023 assessments, test scores remain stubbornly low when compared nationally.
Also on Guerrero’s watch, PPS modernized five schools, rolled out extensive curriculum updates and increased summer school, tutoring and learning specialists to help remedy student-learning loss from the pandemic. The National Association of Latino Administrators named Guerrero—Portland’s first Latino superintendent—the 2021 Superintendent of the Year.
It is unclear where Guerrero’s next job will be. He made it to the finals for superintendent in Los Angeles in 2021 but ultimately lost out. The School Board will be meeting in the next few days to identify an interim leader and begin searching for a new superintendent.
“Superintendent Guerrero has laid a strong foundation for us, and we are confident that the district is stable and in a strong position to embark on its next chapter,” the school board leadership said in a statement.