News Less than four months after ratifying a new teachers contract for 2010-11, Portland Public Schools wants its 3,000-plus teachers and guidance counselors to give up their 2 percent cost-of-living increases to save jobs. The district also wants the union to freeze members' ability to make salary gains based on "steps" and "columns." (Steps are increases based on years of experience. Columns are pay ...   More

News Xavier Botana, Portland Public Schools' chief academic officer and one of the architects of the pending high-school redesign, is leaving the school district after just one year. In an email to PPS staff today, Superintendent Carole Smith said Botana's departure was due to an illness in his family. Carla Randall, principal of Madison High School, will replace Botana on Aug. 10, his last day with ...   More

News Aurora Lora, the top administrator at Jefferson's Young Women's Academy, announced today [PDF] she is leaving the district June 30 for a job as an executive director of K-12 education with Seattle Public Schools. Her departure after three years at the Young Women's Academy comes at a difficult time in the history of Jefferson High School. Last week, a majority of the Portland School Board said ...   More

News In front of depictions of tombstones that carried the names of short-lived Jefferson High School principals and even shorter-lived Jefferson reforms, Superintendent Carole Smith told a crowded cafeteria full of Jefferson supporters tonight that "people are still listening" and "your voices matter." The decorations for the evening's PTA session -- which also included a classroom skeleton dressed ...   More

News The latest development in the constantly evolving re-design of Portland Public Schools' high schools is that a majority of the school board now wants to close Jefferson as a neighborhood school. That's sure to make for some serious community pushback from Jefferson's defenders at the board's next work session on June 16 from 5:30 pm to 8 pm, and then before the board's expected vote on the entire ...   More

News Portland Public Schools' Superintendent Carole Smith has proposed the wholesale elimination of either physical education programs or a combination of other electives like art, music and foreign language to balance next year's budget for the district's elementary, K-8 and middle schools. And the cuts to the district's $445 million general fund don't end there. As PPS struggles to fill a sudden ...   More

News Pressure is building at Portland Public Schools following Superintendent Carole Smith's announcement last week that the school district might eliminate wholesale programs like physical education or art, music and other electives at elementary, middle and K-8 schools. The superintendent proposed those cuts to help fill the district's $19 million budget hole for next year. And now, a new Facebook ...   More

News Superintendent Carole Smith is giving Portland Public Schools principals and vice principals extra time off this summer as she prepares to lay off more than 120 teachers amid the latest statewide budget crisis. "In this difficult climate, we will not be requiring principals and vice principals to work a minimum of 18 workdays during the summer," writes Hank Harris, the district's human resources ...   More

News The Portland School Board will decide next week whether to rename Clarendon-Portsmouth K-8 School for Mexican-American activist César E. Chávez. The board's upcoming decision comes after Superintendent Carole Smith made the recommendation today to a subcommittee of the School Board. The idea for the school's renaming stretches back at least two years. It first surfaced about the ...   More

News Portland Public Schools has released the details of Superintendent Carole Smith's plan to reduce spending at the district's central office. Those cuts (released Friday and posted above) will save $3 million a year and are part of a $13 million reduction in spending due to statewide budget cuts. The school district's general counsel would not provide a list of the proposed cuts until after the ...   More