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Safe Structures PPS, a parent advocacy group that led a groundswell in 2025 that successfully pressured Portland Public Schools to earmark $100 million of its $1.83 billion school bond for seismic upgrades, is now calling for the district to be more transparent about its plans for that money.
Faced with persistent declining enrollment, the district in early October released two scenarios that would close 14 and 11 schools respectively.
In a letter to PPS Superintendent Dr. Kimberlee Armstrong on Tuesday, Safe Structures outlined its concerns that under the proposals many students would still occupy PPS’s highest-risk buildings and the district proposes closing several schools that have already received seismic investment.
Some of the examples of schools that might close with recent seismic upgrades include Lewis Elementary, Maplewood Elementary, and Stephenson Elementary. It also includes Marysville Elementary School, which is the most recent school to have received a full retrofit and has contractural obligations to a state agency that funded it.
In the letter, parents also asked what would happen to some of the schools promised retrofits with the bond money (nine schools were identified for upgrades in late 2025 through an elaborate process that ranked them based on risk, facility quality and enrollment).
Now, the district proposes possibly closing Rose City Park Elementary School, one of two schools it had eyed for a full seismic retrofit, and Beach Elementary School, where a retrofit is slated to cost about $10 million.
The letter asks PPS to shed light on where money saved from these two projects would go. (The district is supposed to allocate bond funding to eight to 10 schools that pose the greatest risk of injury or death.)
“To assure the PPS community—not to mention the voters who supported the bond itself—PPS must do more to outline how it will reallocate any funds for planned retrofits at schools now slated to be closed,” wrote Per Olstad, a parent with the group.
A district spokesperson tells WW that in alignment with direction from the Portland School Board, PPS is pushing forward on design and engineering work “at the pace necessary to prioritize seismic work funded by the 2025 bond.”
“If a school slated for seismic work is closed as a result of the rightsizing process, staff will utilize our already-established seismic project selection strategy to identify and propose projects for a Board decision,” the spokesperson says. “Discussions regarding school property will occur following the Board’s final decision on Dec. 15th.”
