N/NE Portland

The following is a letter from Lynn Schore to Jefferson High School principal Cynthia Harris regarding their exchange at an Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs meeting Saturday.

September 17, 2007

Dear Dr. Harris:

I attended the public Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs (OABA) meeting on 9/15/07 at AME Zion Church. I have been an OABA member, as well as a Jefferson High School PTSA member and volunteer, for three years. The Saturday OABA meeting was described as a chance to get to hear the opinions of key PPS administrators on schools issues, and to ask questions.

The meeting was attended by PPS administrators Leslie Rennie-Hill, Willie Poinsette, Judy Elliott, Cynthia Harris, and Barbara Adams. Other people present included OABA president Calvin Henry, Ms. M. Henry, Ms. Lulu R. Stroud-Johnson, Mr. Sam Jackson, Ms. Loretta Smith, Mr. Robert Phillips, Ms. Nicole Breedlove, "in-house Oregonian reporter on contract at Jefferson High School" Kimberly Melton, myself and others. Arriving later were Sheila Warren and Colleen Davis.
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The Portland Tribune's Jennifer Anderson has written an excellent article about Humboldt School: "At Humboldt, small is beautiful / North Portland K-8 skirts closure with community love / Transfer Policy debated anew."

Here is a link to the article: http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=11894586202504180...

The article includes the following terrific quote from Humboldt Principal Williams:

Neighborhood school activists, parents and community members fought to keep Humboldt open, and won. Now, as the poorest and smallest nonmagnet K-8 school in the district, Humboldt’s supporters are trying to gain a foothold in the competitive free-market system of school choice in Portland.
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Please wish our community well as we journey from our beloved Rose City Park School to the newly named Roseway Heights (K-8) at Gregory Heights Middle School. It is ironic that on the 100th anniversary of the Rose Festival we would be closing the school named in part to honor this tradition. It is also ironic that they should be considering a bond to build new schools while closing so many architecturally significant old ones. What will become of this elegant brick lady? Condos? McMenamin's? Charter? It's closure has left a 7 mile gap bereft of any public elementary. Goodbye Rose City Park.
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Have you read the Gates grants awarded to PPS for transforming the district's high schools? You might want to get informed about what Bill, Vicki, and their friends at the Portland Schools Foundation have planned for Portland's public schools. The Gates grant application submitted by PPS and the Portland Schools Foundation in Fall 2005 indicates that PPS plans to actively support a wide array of partner-operated (charter) schools and school leadership models within the district, such as community governance models.

Watch what's happening at the pilot school (Jefferson) to understand what might be spreading to other schools.
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Jefferson High School Governance: It Takes a Pillage?
May 11th 2007 12:05pm

BY: Beth Slovic | 11 comments

Last week, WWire has learned, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Vicki Phillips and acting Jefferson High School Principal Cynthia Harris entered into a formal agreement with Self Enhancement Inc. CEO Tony Hopson to create a new governing body at Jeff: the Jefferson Community Advocacy Board.

Harris, who spoke with WWire this morning, says the new board will not replace Jeff's recently revamped Site Council, but will instead act in conjunction with it. "I see it as a full partnership," Harris says.
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I just posted this on my blog. (If you don't mind a little coarse language, it's uncensored there. I don't know why I can't write about Portland Public Schools without cursing....)

The news today that Vicki Phillips is stepping down as Portland Public Schools Superintendent comes as good news to those of us who have been critical of her leadership.

Perhaps her three-year legacy can best be summed up in three words: Jefferson Cluster F***. The planning for Portland's only majority black high school and its feeder schools has been an abysmal failure of imagination and leadership. With only token community input, Phillips produced a disjointed plan that the community overwhelmingly rejected. The Jefferson campus was to be segregated by gender, with Tubman Middle School closed and the building used for an all-girls 7-12 school (two miles from the actual Jefferson campus). The boys would get their 7-12 school in Jefferson proper (shared with three other 9-12 "acadamies"). You see, you can't trust young black men around young women. Also, you need discipline, so these 7-12 schools would require uniforms.
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Hopson/SEI has enjoyed a more powerful decision-making voice than any other single person/entity at Jefferson High School during the last decade at least. We all see how successful that run has been.

Not only is SEI an outside private organization that has no business being in the decision-making business at Jefferson, it is a COMPETING charter school that draws numbers away from Jefferson area schools.

What is going on indeed! Vicki Phillips and school board: an explanation is in order.