PPS Forecasts Enrollment Decline Will Soon Hit Middle Schools

Portland Public Schools is starting to see its ongoing enrollment loss extend past the elementary school grades.

The school district has struggled with steep enrollment declines that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated. (Contributing factors include a declining birth rate and rising costs that have driven many families out of the city.)

As the district looks to close up to 10 schools in the upcoming year, officials have released projections that indicate most elementary, K–8 and middle schools don’t meet enrollment thresholds that allow PPS to offer stable programming.

In the past academic year, 27% of elementary schools were above 360 students, and 23% of K–8 schools and 40% of middle schools were above 500 students. (Those thresholds are based on prototypes from the state’s Quality Education Model. The thresholds are forecasted to allow for resources including librarians, arts teachers, and counselors.)

By the 2031–32 school year, the district forecasts just 18% of elementary schools will serve more than 360 students. That year, 15% of K–8 schools will meet enrollment thresholds.But middle schools are expected to see the most dramatic drop-offs in upcoming years—projections show just 13%, or two schools, will hit the 500-student threshold by 2031–32.

In an Aug. 4 School Board memo, Dr. Jon Franco, the district’s senior chief of operations, wrote that the district forecasts its enrollment declines will continue through the decade, though the rate of decline should slow down.

“Elementary school populations will continue to shrink and the impact at middle grades will be pronounced,” Franco wrote. “The steep decline that we saw from the pandemic is working its way through the system.”

Margaret Calvert, the district’s assistant superintendent of school improvement and modernization, told School Board members Tuesday night that 86% of the district’s declining enrollment it’s seen thus far has come from the early grades. Effects in middle grades will be felt in the next two years, she said.

In forecasts up through the 2031–32 school year, the district projects all nine of its high schools will be hold more than 1,100 students, in part thanks to efforts to redraw Jefferson High School’s boundaries.