Murmurs: PPS Superintendent Floats School Closure Talks

PPS SUPERINTENDENT FLOATS SCHOOL CLOSURE TALKS: At a virtual Portland Public Schools community budget forum Feb. 5, Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong said the school district would soon launch discussions about closing schools. “Later this spring, we will be prepared to engage in conversations around enrollment balancing and optimizing our schools so that we are utilizing our resources wisely and that we are increasing opportunities for kiddos,” Armstrong said. “While this academic year we are not having a conversation about closing schools, it is a conversation that…we will be engaged in all throughout next year.” PPS faces a $40 million shortfall in the budget for the upcoming 2025-26 school year, which the district says is due to rising costs and declining enrollment. Portland State University recently shared a forecast with WW that projects PPS stands to lose about 15% of its students over the next 10 years, or about 6,300 students. Those numbers will make filling schools challenging (some in the district are already under-enrolled) and have led to questions about whether the district should consolidate schools. PPS spokeswoman Valerie Feder tells WW it’s too early to comment on possible outcomes of such discussions, but added the district plans to assemble a committee to take on the work.

STATE’S CASE WITH ROSS ISLAND DELAYED: The Oregon Department of State Lands’ case to get Ross Island Sand & Gravel to comply with a long-standing agreement to refill the hole it left in the Willamette River and to repair wildlife habitat on the island in downtown Portland has been delayed until May. The parties were due to appear before an administrative law judge later this month on DSL’s attempts to collect a $2.9 million penalty it levied against the company last year for failure to comply with state requirements to mitigate the damage from 75 years of mining. Meanwhile, in December, as part of a settlement in U.S. District Court, RISG owner Robert Pamplin Jr. admitted to the federal Department of Labor that he illegally sold Ross Island to his company’s pension fund for $10.8 million in 2022, and as part of that settlement, his company had to take the island back from the pension fund and repay the money with interest. Also as part of that settlement, Pamplin’s company is preparing his sprawling 81,000-acre ranch in Wasco and Jefferson counties for sale. The Ross Island hearing has now been rescheduled for May. RISG declined to comment.

CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEES KICK OFF: Committees of the new Portland City Council focusing on a range of topics met for the first time this week, launching an important step in the city’s new form of government. While councilors in committee meetings talked about their top areas of focus this week at a high level—from finance and public safety to transportation and infrastructure—the committees have not yet begun to bore into specific issues. That work will likely commence once the councilors have figured out how the committees will work: how ideas are presented and discussed, how much time is allocated to public testimony, and how a policy proposal can make its way to the entire council. Bureau directors gave presentations to various committees during this week’s meetings, continually raising the alarm about the $100 million budget deficit the city faces.

FEDS CANCEL NATURALIZATION CEREMONY DOWNTOWN: The Portland field office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services abruptly canceled a naturalization ceremony slated to be held at the Oregon Historical Society next week, the organization’s executive director tells WW. For the past two years, the Historical Society has hosted the naturalization ceremony, where new U.S. citizens take the Oath of Allegiance, on Feb. 14, Oregon’s birthday. The annual event is held in addition to the naturalization ceremonies held at the federal courthouse several times a year. But at about 9:30 am Friday, Feb. 7, the CIS’s Portland field office emailed the Historical Society with instructions to call off the ceremony, says OHS Boyle Family executive director Kerry Tymchuk. The email cited “unanticipated problems on our end” and offered no further explanation, Tymchuk says. While the cancellation occurs amid a sea change in federal immigration policy, it’s not clear whether the change in plans was related; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not respond to an email inquiry by WW. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) were scheduled to attend the Feb. 14 ceremony. In a statement to WW, Wyden said he would pursue answers from the feds.