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UPDATE, Monday, April 11: As of Monday, PPS officials say band and choir will be offered at Ockley Green Middle School.
The classes and services that PPS says will be offered at the school include advanced math, Spanish and Mandarin languages, dual language immersion in Spanish, dance, visual art, and reading support.
PPS spokeswoman Christine Miles says the program list was still in progress when the initial announcement was sent out.
"For the 16-17 school year, Ockley Green will be offering an array of options," Miles says. "The new middle school will staff a full time music and dance program and a three-quarters time visual art program."
ORIGINAL POST, Sunday, April 10: Portland Public Schools' first newly reconfigured middle school, Ockley Green, won't offer music, according to a list of offerings sent to parents last week.
For the last decade, ever since then-superintendent Vicki Phillips combined elementary and middle schools into K-8's across Portland's east side, the K-8's have been the target of criticism for failing to offer adequate electives and even key core classes.
But as PPS moves to break up the K-8's, beginning with re-creating Ockley Green Middle School this fall, it's clear the new school won't immediately match the diverse course offerings of other middle schools in the district.
All but one of the city's existing middle schools offer music, band or choir as part of their regular course offerings, according to a list of schools' course offerings last fall prepared by PPS last fall.
One member of the PPS Board says the plan for Ockley Green is inadequate.
"Every middle schools should have a music program, period, end of story," says School Board member Steve Buel, who notes that even if a school has a particular course there's no guarantees that the school offerings fully serve students.
George Middle School in North Portland offers robotics, but only has the supplies to offer it to half a dozen students at a time, Buel notes.
For some, music in the first year of the newly reconfigured school isn't of upmost importance.
"What IS of greater concern is that we do not yet have a Principal and Assistant Principal assigned to Ockley Green Middle," says Gabrielle Mercedes Bolívar, one of the parent leaders who pushed for a re-configuration.
"The current principal, in addition to overseeing a two-campus K-8, is supposed to allocate additional time to staffing and planning the re-opened middle school and this is not what the community asked for, nor what the board voted for."
Beach, Peninsula Woodlawn and Chief Joseph-Ockley Green, which are all K-8's this school year, will become elementary schools next fall. All sixth- through-eighth-graders from these schools will attend the new Ockley Green next fall, in a plan approved by the School Board last week.
Of the four K-8's, only Beach has music for its middle school grades at this point, according to the PPS document.
A new principal for the school will be named as soon as this week, PPS spokesman Jon Isaacs said.
Willamette Week