I dont think there is even a question.

Portland bureaucrat? Incompetent.

The problem is that the superintendent and the school board do not have a true understanding of how Career Technical Education is taught. They don't know what is involved in the process. The redesign effort is only really looking at numbers (artificial tho they may be) with no idea what the effects of their decisions will have. I wasn't a math major, but I understand the concept of large and small...and I fail to understand how cutting two thirds of the programs at Benson and dropping enrollment to 400 "expands" CTE in the district. The entire plan is so far off track that it would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

Splitting Woodstock away from Cleveland is odd. It is so much closer to Cleveland than Franklin and has many of the neighbors in Reedwood, Eastmoreland, and Woodstock shop together, have kids on the same soccer teams and in camps, etc.

Paul, here is a quote from an email I received last night from PPS:

"Cleveland High School’s boundary would expand to include Whitman and Woodmere elementary schools. The Franklin High School boundary would maintain Creston K-8 School and expand to include Woodstock Elementary School. This would provide better balance of students from wealthier and lower-income homes between Cleveland and Franklin than the original proposal"

Really? Creating economic social equality at Franklin and Cleveland is now a priority? Both of these schools are good high schools and I have not understood that Franklin is at such a significant disadvantage that the feeder schools need to be redesigned at the expense of the neighborhoods

I understand consolidating schools to avoid bankruptcy, and I understand efforts to improve graduation rates at Jefferson but I don't understand redesigning neighborhood schools just so there can be balance of economic social classes at each of the High Schools.

Wow. This is a very fluid situation which is pushing up anxieties. But this latest proposal sounds like an acceleration of highschool education becoming more community college like in that students can come and go to multiple schools for different types of training. This is a favorable development as I think by highschool students should be free to choose from a variety of educational resources, and not just public funded ones. But who knows where this work in progress ends up. It could just as easily end up back to the maximum confinement model where students become prisoners to their neighbor hood schools or some social engineering experiment busing kids across towns to bad schools.

Jeez, I didn't know I was "wealthier". Carole says yes, but my checking account says no. Perplexing.

Adding Sabin to the Jefferson cluster makes no sense either. If PPS wants to tweak boundaries to make Jeff less poor and black, why add first Boise-Eliot (85% non-white) and now Sabin (65% non-white), which are the poorest and blackest schools of any that now feed Grant? Also these changes will make Grant much less diverse, especially since it will pick up Sunnyside kids (17% non-white).

If diversity is the goal, Jeff should pick up Irvington (45% non-white) or Alameda (15% non-white) instead, both of which have more kids in them and are adjacent to Jeff's current boundary.

If diversity is the goal, Jeff should pick up Irvington (45% non-white) or
Alameda (15% non-white) instead, both of which have more kids in them and
are adjacent to Jeff's current boundary.

Nice argument, but the folks in Irvington and Alameda simply aren't going to let their kids go to Jefferson. And most of Alameda is much closer to Grant, anyway.

Travis,

I don't mind the economic and racial/ethnic equalization. That is main criteria of her plan. The current inequities in the system are appalling (just take a stroll by Lincoln's campus). However, I wonder why they'd split of Woodstock, which is closely proximate to East and Westmoreland.

Franklin has been suffering. A lot of my
daughter's friends are transfers. Franklin is well under capacity.

My fantasy plan was to have Cleveland and Franklin merge. Cleveland brings its wonderful IB program and involved (and let's admit it, wealthy) families from the morelands and sellwood. Franklin has an absolutely beautiful campus, great athletic facilities, etc.

But this is a non-starter apparently due to restrictions placed on the use of Cleveland's building by the original donor.

I'm not advocating for Alameda or Irvington to switch, but doing so would be a lot more consistent with Carole's stated objectives. It is either misguided or dishonest to say the goal is to get more students and more diverse students, then poach the Grant cluster's smallest and least diverse school. The real reason they avoided Irvington or Alameda is that they know Jack Bogdanski lives there! They fear his blog-wrath.

As for proximity, Sabin is closer to Grant (1.5 mi.) than to Jefferson (2.1 mi.). Sunnyside is also switching to Grant, even though it's farther away from it than Sabin is.