At Humboldt, small is beautiful

North Portland K-8 skirts closure with community love

By Jennifer Anderson

The Portland Tribune, Sep 11, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (9 Reader comments)

SARAH TOOR / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Sixth-grader Adenike Warren, 10, talks with her teacher during a math lesson at Humboldt Elementary School, where district spending is the highest in Portland — and need is greatest.

With one thick braid in her mane full of long, loose locks, 10-year-old Adenike Warren joined her classmates last Wednesday in the Humboldt Elementary School gym to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

The 228 students then continued with their daily ritual by reciting the school pledge: “I believe I can achieve and achieve at anything I set out to do,” they said, as rows of parents and staff beamed nearby. “I know what I do today will influence what I become tomorrow. I will be a good listener. I will not hinder my own or classmates’ learning in any way.”

They continued on for a minute, then went right into Juramento de Humboldt, the Humboldt pledge in Spanish. It was just as loud, and just as articulate.

While the school used to be somewhat “chaotic” several years ago, Principal Jamila Williams admitted, the culture today is all about rituals, rules and order. “There’s a positiveness here,” she says.

In more ways than one, the word seems to perfectly suit the cheery and determined North Portland school, which nearly was closed last year after former Superintendent Vicki Phillips declared it didn’t fit within her “right-sizing” of schools at 400 to 600 students.

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.

As Williams put it: “As long as you have the haves and the have-nots, why would you want your child at a have-not school?”

Now in her fourth year as principal of Humboldt, Williams has seen the effects of the district’s liberal enrollment and transfer policy, which allows students to transfer to any school as long as there is space. At her school, 40 percent of neighborhood students transfer out, taking their state funding with them.

“I think there’s benefits to transfers,” she said, such as choosing a language immersion or magnet program, “but the policy does hurt the neighborhood schools.”

She added: “If all neighborhood schools were equipped with the necessities to give all kids an equal education, not just in curriculum, you would draw the neighborhood back.”

An auditor’s report last year also found major flaws with the transfer policy, including contributing to the “skimming” effect that happens when higher-achieving students are most likely to take advantage of the opportunity to transfer out of low-performing schools.

A school board committee, which would make recommendations to the full board, may take up the issue in October.

It’s uncertain whether the policy review will result in minor tweaks or a major overhaul. North Portland parent Steve Rawley hopes for the latter.

The software engineer, who’s written extensively on the issue in his blog, morehockeylesswar.org, thinks the transfer policy should be rewritten to end neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers, starting at the elementary school level.

He also thinks the school boundaries should be re-examined, and magnet and language immersion schools should be relocated to poorer neighborhoods to give parents a reason to seek them out rather than flock to already popular schools.

How is he so convinced? Rawley, a member of the watchdog group Neighborhood Schools Alliance, has compiled data from the district to create coded maps that starkly show what he calls a reverse Robin Hood effect in schools throughout the city. Poor schools get poorer, while rich schools get richer.

Both public school parents and nonparents should be concerned about the issue, Rawley said, because the quality of schools is an important piece of real estate values.

“We don’t have to do anything radical,” he said. “All we have to do is have everyone go to the school in their neighborhood.”

Community counts for a lot

While every neighborhood school has its struggles, Humboldt, at 4715 N. Gantenbein Ave., often has gotten the short end of the stick.

Consider the numbers. The school has 240 students enrolled this year, 30 fewer than last year. Some were lost after closure of the nearby Iris Court housing complex, and others transferred elsewhere this year because they thought the school would close or fear it still may close.

Still other students, mostly girls, took advantage of the opening of the new single-sex academies at Jefferson High School this year, which begin at sixth grade.

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