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Portland Public Schools officials indicated Thursday they’re still exploring multiple paths to increase enrollment at Jefferson High School, including an option that could assuage some of the most outspoken parents.
The North Portland high school enrolls 391 students this year, the smallest of any district high school by a large margin. It will soon receive a $466 million modernization with money from both the district’s 2020 and 2025 bonds. The district, following direction from a previous School Board, is working to sunset dual enrollment in preparation for the school’s opening in Fall 2029 to bolster Jefferson’s enrollment. (That district policy currently allows students who reside close to Jefferson to enroll in Grant, McDaniel, or Roosevelt high school instead, depending on their addresses.)
At six community engagement sessions over the past month, district officials have presented details of their plans to families, who have provided a range of feedback on the districts’ plans. At a Thursday afternoon meeting, School Board members reported that feedback to Margaret Calvert, the district’s assistant superintendent of school improvement and modernization, and asked her to address concerns.
Much of the opposition to the district’s plans to sunset Jefferson dual assignment has come from parents of students at Sabin Elementary School and Irvington Elementary School, who have argued for their children to attend school at Grant, citing everything from their proximity to the school to concerns that a plan to fill Jefferson will ultimately leave Grant under-enrolled and under-resourced.
At Thursday’s meeting, Irvington parent Laura Westwood presented what she termed “Scenario F,” which would allow students at Sabin and Irvington to stay in the Grant boundary. “We respectfully ask that Scenario F be reviewed as part of the upcoming deliberations, not as a replacement but as a responsible evolution of this work,” Westwood said at public comment.
For some School Board members, the “Scenario F” proposal raised questions about how much wiggle room there is in PPS’s current three options to fill Jefferson. Calvert, who Westwood said has met with parents, said the district is reviewing the proposal—and that, in general, the final path to sunsetting dual enrollment is still under revision. (The district has indicated it will present a final recommendation to the School Board in January.)
“We are reviewing pieces,” Calvert said. “What the final recommendation will be has not happened yet, so we are bringing in information and we’re looking at it.”
School Board members also asked about Jefferson’s academic programming. The high school is currently a focus school with a partnership with Portland Community College for dual credit courses, different from Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate options offered at the rest of PPS’s high schools. A top concern for many families has been how PPS will scale up comprehensive programming in a short window of time, given that district leaders currently hope to move more kids into the school starting in fall 2027.
The district, Calvert says, is looking to broaden programming for students who attend Jefferson. But PPS currently lacks a curriculum plan, she says, because it plans to use student and family interest to determine what courses are offered at the school. She said the district was looking at laying out general frameworks for how it plans to scale up programming, but specifics are still up in the air.
For example, while the district can likely guarantee some form of advanced programming in sophomore year, whether that is AP or IB is still up for development. And extracurriculars at the school, Calvert notes, will be based on student interest.
“We’re working on that larger framework because what we’re hearing is people are having a hard time visualizing what that means,” Calvert said. “But I also just want to make sure that we are engaging with the school community and the staff there.”
