District has many assets

WHAT’S WORKING: School choice, scores are among things going right

By Jennifer Anderson

The Portland Tribune, Feb 24, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

This year, Robert and Carolyn Horsey will make the first of many choices about schools that they’ll face for years to come.

The North Portland parents of four young children are contemplating where to send their oldest son, 10-year-old Alex, who moves on to middle school after finishing fifth grade at Ball Elementary.

They’ve already decided Alex won’t go to either of their neighborhood schools Ñ Peninsula and George middle schools Ñ because the schools don’t offer the programs he’s interested in, such as band, orchestra and Spanish.

The social scene also is not his thing, Carolyn Horsey said: “I don’t think he would fit in. It’s just more rough and tough.”

Instead, they’ll be vying for da Vinci Arts Middle School in Northeast Portland or Robert Gray Middle School in Southwest Portland. If not for those options, she said, she would send Alex Ñ as well as her younger children, a 6-year-old and two 3-year-olds Ñ to private schools even though it would be a big financial stretch.

It’s the element of choice that has, by and large, kept many city parents involved with Portland Public Schools, through both the district’s liberal transfer policy and its nearly two dozen magnet, language immersion and other special programs in every corner of the city: Sunnyside Environmental School in Southeast Portland, Benson Polytechnic High School in Northeast Portland and Beach Elementary’s dual immersion Spanish program in North Portland, to name a few.

The district’s options have helped keep Portland’s capture rate Ñ the rate at which Portland parents send their kids to Portland schools Ñ at 85 percent, one of the highest among urban school districts nationwide.

• School choice is No. 1 on the list of “Things That Don’t Need Fixing” in Portland Public Schools.

• No. 2 Ð Test scores. According to the Council of the Great City Schools’ 2004 statistics, urban schools typically score below state and national averages in reading and math. Yet Portland students consistently score higher in several test score categories than their counterparts statewide.

In the 2004-05 school year, Portland fifth- and eighth-graders scored above the state average in reading and literature, one of nine major cities to do so nationwide. Portland fifth-, eighth- and 10th-graders performed above the state average in math, one of seven major cities to do so.

• No. 3 Ð Leadership. Even the school district’s biggest critics don’t disagree that Superintendent Vicki Phillips has been a positive force in the district since starting her tenure here in August 2004. She has closed six school buildings and went back for six months of public process when her proposal to redesign Jefferson High School in North Portland fell flat. And she has helped reorganize what some considered a flawed structure of district leadership.

In addition, the new seven-member school board, led by Bobbie Regan and David Wynde, is a diverse group that’s earned praise for its approach to handling issues as divisive as the Jefferson redesign and school funding.

“The district is becoming serious about parental involvement,” said Pamela Echeverio, a longtime school funding advocate on the city and state level who has had two children graduate from Grant High School in Northeast Portland.

“I think the superintendent and board are committed. These people are the best the district has had in a long time.”

• No. 4 Ð Safety. Knock on wood, there haven’t been many serious or dangerous incidents at Portland’s public schools. That’s because even though the district cut its school police division several years ago to reduce costs, the Portland Police Bureau’s school police division still has 16 officers, two sergeants and a captain at the schools to respond to the usual calls Ñ thefts, vandalism, child abuse discovered by teachers Ñ and to confiscate weapons, mostly knives and pellet guns.

There are no metal detectors, as there are at other urban cities’ high schools, and guns are rarely found in the halls, Capt. Jim Maciag said.

“I think they’re very safe,” he said. “There’s dedicated staff, folks helping out. For a district as big as Portland is, you’re going to haveissues, but there’s no immediate danger in the schools that anybody needs to be concerned about.”

He added: “The relationship between the school district and Police Bureau is very good. In the beginning, it might have been difficult for them to realize they don’t have a police force anymore. But we think of it as, they used to have 27 officers but now have 800.”

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