Jefferson Update: AP But No IB or Spanish-Immersion (Yet)

Portland Public Schools' student achievement committee looked at Jefferson High School's progress today, just a couple of weeks after announcing the closure of the Young Men's Academy at Jeff.

Here are some highlights from the meeting:

• Jefferson may pilot a program to extend the school day to 6 p.m. to provide "real opportunities and choices for kids," some of whom may not be served by a school day that runs from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to Margaret Calvert, a Jeff administrator. "We're not far at all" on those conversations, Calvert added. Translation: the idea (that some students might benefit from a day that ran from, say, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) was just that.

• Jefferson may also begin talks about implementing year-round school, which is now apparently called something along the jargon-y lines of "balanced calendar." "It's worth a conversation," assistant superintendent Toni Hunter says. "Not to have the conversation at all is wrong."

• Advanced Placement classes will begin at Jeff next year, possibly in statistics or literature.

• International Baccalaureate classes will not begin next year at Jeff, but the option of bringing IB to Jeff is not off the table yet. (Meantime, Vernon K-8 in the Jeff cluster is still in the midst of becoming an IB school.) Make of that what you will.

• Eighth graders at Beach K-8 School's dual-immersion program in Spanish and English will be headed to Roosevelt High School's Spanish-English International School next year. "We're not going to have a Spanish-immersion program at Jefferson next year because it's humanly impossible," Hunter says.