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

News CLARIFICATION: The business manager at Jefferson who is referenced in this report lost her job as a result of a layoff amid budget cuts. Jefferson High School's former principal, Cynthia Harris, is no longer on paid leave. She's just on plain leave because she let her administrative license expire July 31, and state rules prohibit Portland Public Schools from paying an unlicensed administrator. According ...   More

News In the upside-down world of Portland Public Schools where last-minute budget maneuvers have delayed staffing efforts, a handful of teachers are just now learning that they've been laid off. At Grant High School, the news hit the choral director, Katy Wagner-West, on Friday, less than four weeks before the start of school. And, just like the emergence of a Facebook group to save PE when it was ...   More

News Portland Public Schools Superintendent Carole Smith made an unsurprising announcement this afternoon that Toni Hunter, deputy district superintendent, would remain at Jefferson High School as interim principal for the upcoming school year. Smith also announced that the former Jefferson principal, Cynthia Harris, would remain on leave. But the announcement didn't say whether that was paid leave. PPS ...   More

News Parents of special-education students in Portland Public Schools hold out hope the school district will reverse course on its proposed cuts to programs for kids with learning disabilities. In a July 29 letter [PDF] calling the $3.3 million in proposed cuts "disproportionate and damaging," parents and other supporters of special education programs ask Superintendent Carole Smith to make fewer ...   More

News We wrote last month how Portland Public Schools was banking on Congress to OK federal spending that would allow the school district to fill the remaining $6 million gap in its budget. And today, the U.S. Senate appears to have justified that hope for a rescue—allowing the largest district in Oregon to preserve 60 teaching jobs—by clearing key procedural hurdles to permit a vote on ...   More

News In response to significant reductions in Portland Public Schools' special-education department, concerned parents met with school-district administrators downtown last night for a two-hour, kvetching-and-answer session. The special-education department's budget was originally slated to include $74.8 million in general fund dollars for the 2010-11 school year. But as the economic storm picked ...   More

News The Portland School Board announced last night it will fill the sudden $6 million hole in the school district's 2010-11 budget with reserves. That means Portland Public Schools will use a total of $22 million in reserves for the school year that starts next week. As a result, there will be no more cuts to staff this year. However, next year's budget will be especially difficult given the lack ...   More

News Gov. Ted Kulongoski's pledge today to protect Oregon school funding in the wake of the newest $377.5 million budget hole with federal money that Congress approved this month could be cold comfort to Portland Public Schools. The state's largest school district is in the unique position of already having banked on that federal money to fill a previous budget hole. Back in May, you'll recall, PPS ...   More

News Lincoln High School's principal Peyton Chapman is scrambling to raise $30,000 so the school can keep its new varsity football coach, who has already started leading practices. Mike Fanger, a former head football coach at Lewis & Clark College who came to Lincoln from La Salle Catholic College Preparatory in Milwaukie, was hired this winter. Fanger replaces the interim Lincoln football coaches, ...   More