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Portland School Board members appear poised to approve the One North development as a home for the Center for Black Student Excellence.
A Tuesday night presentation on Portland Public Schools’ completed due diligence report revealed some additional details, most centered on programming at the CBSE. Voters in 2020 approved a school bond that included $60 million for the proposed center, which is meant to improve Black student achievement. (The district has stressed that the CBSE will be accessible to all of its students.)
The presentation on Tuesday came after a heated debate at the Nov. 10 meeting of the facilities committee, when School Board members sparred about whether that committee should hear about the district’s findings. A feasibility study posted Nov. 10 had previously concluded One North could adequately house CBSE programming, and a staff memo ahead of Tuesday’s meeting presented some additional building challenges and needed upgrades for consideration.
Ahead of the meeting, dozens of Black families and community members gathered into the School Board meeting to show their support for the One North property.
“This is a place that is not only where Black students are today, where Black families have legacies, but it’s where they will build futures,” said Aryn Frazier, director of the Center for Black Excellence. “Students, families, educators, elders, and leaders of community- based organizations have been planning and dreaming alongside other experts, including staff in this district since 2020, to get to where we are right now.”
Nichole Watson, PPS’s director for family and community engagement, offered glimpses into programming at the two buildings, named Chappie East and Adair West after two prominent Black educators. Both will have opportunities for tutoring, she said, a key strategy to catch students up.
Chappie East, Watson said, will house arts education, professional learning for educators, and community cultural programming. The vision for it is to connect what students learn inside the classroom with what they learn outside of it, coordinating with families and the broader community to better support learning at home.
Adair West is envisioned to be a space for STEM innovation, for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It will allow for hands-on learning and help connect students with external learning opportunities through dual credit and internship work.
School Board Chair Eddie Wang said such programming will allow PPS to help some of the most at-need students catch up on “enrichment time”—which could be anything from reading with parents before bed to taking ballet classes. He said some of the students struggling most in the district lack that time and that the comprehensive programming at the CBSE would patch that need.
Most of the School Board was quick to embrace the proposal. Wang in particular noted that recent discourse around whether to evaluate other sites, as some School Board members have raised, did not factor in the years the district spent searching for a site. “Just to give some perspective, the leading candidate before we found the One North property was the Salvation Army site,” he said. “I remember it was not only a dump, it required a ton of work. It was very gross.”
“We are planting seeds in Albina,” said board member Rashelle Chase-Miller, who was holding back tears. “We have the very real opportunity to grow something really beautiful and past due here…Our kids will be the generation and it gives me shivers.”
The district plans to spend between $37 million and $41 million bringing the One North site up to code. Dana White, the district’s senior director of real estate and construction, repeated previously reported findings about potentially limiting classrooms on upper floors and stricter seismic and fire codes, but told board members that staff were supportive of the purchase.
Questioning largely revolved around logistics, including transportation to the center, as only 40% of Black students in the school district live within a 3.5 mile radius of One North. (The district said it was still ironing out this piece.) Some members had questions also about student occupancy on the upper floors. District leaders clarified that while classrooms couldn’t be placed in those areas, students could occupy those areas to some extent.
In perhaps the most heated exchange of the night, board member Stephanie Engelsman pushed for the district to explain how it would cover operating expenses for the building, given an incoming $50 million deficit. In 2024, those totaled about $271,000 after income from tenants.
“I think I’m a little frustrated, I’ll be honest, by the question because we don’t ask that question of any of our other schools,” White retorted. “I appreciate that we have a tremendous problem…[but] we have to make that balance. That’s the superintendent’s ultimate job. Obviously the money has to come from somewhere and we’re looking at where we can make cuts for next year and beyond.”
“To hold this building to a different standard…doesn’t feel very fair to me as the person who runs our real estate,” White added. Engelsman, for her part, said she intended to ask this question of all buildings under her purview.
Some board members pushed back, noting that School Board members have tried to direct hundreds of thousands of extra dollars into programs including outdoor school and boys volleyball, and that this request was no different. School Board member Christy Splitt said that to her, the investment in the CBSE felt like an “atonement” in 2020, and that as long as the project was within the $60 million budget, she did not feel it was fiscally irresponsible.
“What I feel like we invested in was a Black-led effort to decide for yourselves what you wanted to do in Albina,” she said to the crowd, to loud cheers. “This is Albina. You have a vision and I trust you to figure out what you want to do in that space.”
The School Board will vote on whether or not to approve the purchase on Dec. 2.
