Portland School Boundaries: Superintendent Releases Recommendations

After months of discussion, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Carole Smith is ready to make her formal recommendations for redrawing the school boundary lines throughout the district.

She will make the presentation at a public hearing Wednesday night.

In advance of the meeting, the district has released an outline of the changes:

• Recommendations
• Shift the school district from a mixture of K-8, K-5 and Middle Schools to a predominantly K-5 and middle school model over time.

• The K-8 reconfiguration will include:
• Fall, 2016
• Ockley Green will become a middle school, phased in over two years. Beach, Chief Joseph, Peninsula and Woodlawn will become K-5 buildings, and students will then attend Ockley Green for middle school.
• Current 5th-7th graders in these schools will attend Ockley Green in the fall. Current Chief Joe/Ockley Green 4th graders will also attend Ockley Green as 5th graders. Boundary adjustments to the Chief Joseph and neighboring attendance areas will be finalized no later than January 2017 to make room for a K-5 at Chief Joseph in 2017-18.

• Fall, 2017 (Boundaries for the following changes would be finalized no later than January 2017)

• Tubman and Roseway Heights become middle schools.
• Boise-Eliot/Humboldt, King, Sabin, & Irvington would convert to K-5s, with students attending Tubman Middle School.
• Rose City Park would open as a K-5 neighborhood school and students would attend Roseway Heights Middle School.
• Scott, Vestal, and Lee would be converted to K-5s, with students attending Roseway Heights Middle School.
• Opening Rose City Park Elementary would relieve overcrowding at Beverly Cleary K-8, allowing the school to fit again on the Hollyrood and Fernwood campuses. For 2016-17, Beverly Cleary would remain on three campuses as it is now.
• ACCESS Academy would move to Humboldt School (now vacant).
• Vernon K-8 will be converted to a K-5 and students will then attend Beaumont Middle School.

• Fall, 2018
• Kellogg would reopen as a middle school. A community process would begin in Spring 2017 to determine which schools would send their middle grade students to Kellogg. Boundaries would be drawn and schools reconfigured accordingly.
• Astor would be converted to a K-5 and students would attend George Middle School.

• West side program and boundary changes:
• Relieving overcrowding at Chapman K-5
• 2016-17: Chapman would add four kindergarten classrooms at the PPS Ramona campus, 1545 NW 13th Street, with transportation provided for neighborhood students.
• 2016-17: Portions of the Chapman boundary would be assigned to Ainsworth, Bridlemile and Forest Park elementary schools.

• Relieving overcrowding at Lincoln:
• Bridlemile students would continue to attend West Sylvan Middle School, with the option to attend Robert Gray instead. Students in most of the Bridlemile attendance area, would attend Wilson for high school. Bridlemile students living in the West Slope and Sylvan Heights neighborhoods (see map for exact boundaries) would continue to attend Lincoln high school. The high school assignment change would not begin until 2017. However, students may choose to opt-in to Wilson in 2016.
• Ainsworth Spanish Immersion remains at Ainsworth. Native Spanish speakers would be given priority for half of the attendance slots starting with the Fall 2016 kindergarten class.
• 2016-17: Odyssey K-8 would move to East Sylvan in Fall 2016.
• 2016-17: A portion of the Bridlemile, Maplewood and Rieke attendance areas would attend Hayhurst to ensure Hayhurst has sufficient enrollment.
• Maplewood K-5 students would continue to attend Robert Gray Middle School instead of shifting to Jackson.
• 2016-17: Students in the Maplewood attendance would have the option to attend Hayhurst to relieve overcrowding at Maplewood.
• 2016-17: A portion of the Maplewood attendance area would shift to Rieke.
• 2016-17: A portion of the Capitol Hill attendance area would shift to Stephenson.

• To address additional growth, PPS would prepare to re-open Smith School as a K-5 school, projected to occur in fall 2019. Possiblity of starting a Spanish Immersion program at Smith.

The next step will be the hearing at 6 p.m. Wednesday at district headquarters.

The school board will then vote on her recommendations for the coming school year at their meeting on April 5. That will also take place at district headquarters.