News If you were watching Portland Public Schools' Monday night School Board meeting on television you missed Jobs with Justice's appearance. The workers' rights group awarded the School Board a "Grinch of the Year" award for not settling its contract with PPS teachers during 17 months of negotiaion. But the school district, which broadcasts the meetings on Channel 28, cut to a commercial during the ...   More

News Portland Public Schools board member Trudy Sargent just sent out this email to report that the school district has told a state mediator that its negotiations with the teachers union have reached an impasse. The 3,200-member Portland Association of Teachers has been working without a new contract for more than 19 months, and obviously has been unhappy over that state of affairs. Negotiations ...   More

News The busy state of Portland Public Schools' high-school redesign and teacher contract negotiations bring this omnibus update, in advance of tonight's School Board meeting: • Parents in the Grant High School cluster met last week to organize against Grant's possible closure as a neighborhood school. Between 200-300 people attended the meeting, which included entertainment from Grant's Royal ...   More

News Parents at a meeting at Rigler on K-8s in 2008. Dozens of concerned parents and community members filled the auditorium at Rigler K-8 School in the Cully neighborhood Wednesday night for a meeting to discuss overcrowding at Rigler -- or the “injustice of inadequate space,” as some called it. Years ago, before Rigler started its conversion from an elementary school to a K-8 in 2006, ...   More

News The deadline for Portland Public Schools and the Portland Association of Teachers union to submit their final offers to state mediators was Thursday at 5 pm, now that the school district has declared an impasse. Negotiations have been ongoing for 19 months. Below are the lengthy documents from both sides. More analysis later. PPS's offer [PDF]. PAT Part 1 [PDF]. PAT Part 2 [PDF]. PAT ...   More

News Late Saturday night, Portland Public Schools announced it had reached a confidential, tentative agreement with the Portland Association of Teachers union. Portland teachers have worked without a contract since June 2008, a fact that produced two angry demonstrations at School Board meetings in recent months. The possible three-year agreement follows the school district's declaration two weeks ...   More

News After almost two years of negotiations that twice erupted in protests from teachers, the Portland Association of Teachers union and the Portland School Board have voted to approve a new three-year contract for teachers. The union, which represents more than 3,000 Portland teachers and guidance counselors, ratified the agreement by secret ballot Friday night; the School Board voted "yes" to the agreement ...   More

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 Eight months after protracted talks between Portland Public Schools and its teachers ended in a new three-year agreement, the school district enters another season of bitter labor negotiations. This time it's SEIU Local 503/140, which represents about 300 district custodians and several hundred more food-service workers in school cafeterias. SEIU and PPS enter state-monitored mediation tomorrow. ...   More