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Safe Structures PPS, the parent group advocating for seismic improvements to buildings across Portland Public Schools’ portfolio, says the district must be proactive in releasing a list of schools it plans to retrofit.
Promises of those retrofits were part of a last minute push to help PPS pass a $1.83 billion school bond for its facilities in May—the largest in Oregon’s history. Of the $190 million set aside for deferred maintenance, the Portland School Board directed that $100 million be set aside for emergency projects that address “imminent risk” but pledged that seismic funds would be the next top priority, and would also collect any money saved from high school modernization projects.
The resolution charged the superintendent to develop a spending plan, otherwise termed the Seismic Risk Reduction Plan. PPS, it instructed, should have outlined a schedule for repairs no later than Sept. 1. “The plan will outline a multi-year schedule or sequence for retrofitting the identified high-risk buildings and include cost estimates and potential funding strategies for each phase,” it reads.
That date has come and gone.
Instead of a list of scheduled repairs, district officials on Sept. 9 presented School Board members with three strategies as to how they could approach seismic retrofits—either a campus-by-campus approach, one that would address the highest-risk parts of buildings, or a hybrid approach that could maximize grant dollars.
Per Olstad, a leader with Safe Structures PPS, tells WW that cherry-picking schools and parts ignores the resolution’s intention.
“They are obligated under the terms of the resolution to present a district-wide plan,” Olstad says. “That was part of what rallied support for the bond was the idea that even if funding were going to go to a particular school, at least the community around that school would know what was going to happen. Until the board and PPS management commit to actually getting that plan together, the question of option A, B or C is sort of moot.”
The seismic resolution came shortly after WW reported that 19 of the district’s schools, at all grade levels, are built with unreinforced masonry and could collapse on kids during a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake. Holmes Consulting Group, the firm PPS commissioned, identified and prioritized school projects based on seismic risk scores in an August report. PPS will now apply its own criteria as it determines what schools to retrofit, factoring in considerations including consolidation plans and other maintenance needs.
Prioritization will be key, especially because the district does not currently have the budget to tackle all of the seismic work its buildings require. The Holmes report determined it would cost the district about $118.6 million to retrofit unreinforced masonry buildings (the most at-risk structures) and about $902.9 million for all PPS schools.
Olstad says the PPS criteria requires community input: “They really do need to be transparent [in determining that criteria],” he says, adding he’s optimistic the district will approach the conversation in the right way.
District spokeswoman Valerie Feder says PPS is currently reviewing its seismic data and collaborating with the School Board on next steps. Community engagement, she says, will be a key component of its decision-making process as it determines the list of schools.
“The September 1 date was an internal target; however, we determined that seismic prioritization cannot be done in isolation. It must be aligned with broader districtwide conversations about enrollment, boundaries, and long-term facilities planning,” Feder says. “While the list has not yet been released, it remains a high priority, and we expect to bring it back to the Board for discussion in the near future.”
Olstad says Safe Structures PPS won’t be waiting around for the district to move. Its members are in the process of organizing a community forum to start having those conversations, he says.
“I worry a bit that [district officials] are thinking the structural engineer’s wide report recommendations suffice, and they clearly do not,” Olstad says. “It’s not a plan, it’s a series of scores and price estimates. We need to raise [prioritization] more explicitly with the Board.”
