Skip to main contentIn some ways, Whitaker Middle School students are little better off today than they were a year ago, when they attended a school permeated with toxic mold and radioactive radon gas.
Although an article in this newspaper (see "The Poisoning of Whitaker," WW, May 23, 2001) led to the closure of Whitaker last spring, it wasn't until July 31--about a month before school started--that district officials decided to make the closure of Whitaker's building, at Northeast 39th Avenue and Killingsworth Street, permanent.
Whitaker's staff scrambled to relocate to two different interim sites in Northeast Portland. To complicate matters, about 200 fewer students than expected enrolled, triggering a round of staff layoffs.
A recent visit to the Lakeside campus, at 5135 NE Columbia Blvd., which houses Whitaker's seventh- and eighth-graders, reveals that the change of scenery has brought no end to the school's dysfunction.
Located on a busy four-lane highway smack in the middle of an industrial corridor, Whitaker Lakeside has all the charm of a county jail--and fewer facilities.
Equipment such as textbooks and microscopes were lost or left behind when the school relocated. Lakeside's makeshift library--a tiny 12-by-14-foot alcove--still has several bare shelves. An adjacent area for intensive reading instruction has no doors. Its 25 gleaming new iMacs are loaded with $30,000 worth of reading software, but because there is no server linking the machines, they are functionally useless.
Down the hall, in the school's computer lab, 20 of 25 computers are six years old and effectively have no Internet access. Teacher Sid Leader shuffles the five functioning machines among classes of 25 students, but even these lack some of the most basic software.
Teachers say students have been jerked around by constant schedule changes caused by staff cuts and a foul-up on federal Title I funding.
"Kids at this school are treated like no other kids in the district," says teacher Amy Ridabock. "They're just pulled from one class and sent to another with no notice."
Beyond the diminutive library, brain-dead computers and scheduling chaos, Whitaker students endure conditions that would cause many parents to scream.
For instance, half of the school's covered play area is stacked high with scaffolding and miscellaneous equipment. The other half, which is set up as a basketball court, is covered with paint chips that have fallen from the roof. Because the paint is believed to contain lead, the entire play area is padlocked.
The adjacent playground is a haven for Canada geese, which have carpeted the grass with feces.
That leaves a paved parking lot behind the school as the primary outdoor play area. Parked in the lot are three aging semi-truck trailers, which teachers believe contain asbestos that was previously removed from the school building. A sign on one of the trailers reads "Danger--Asbestos."
The story's no different inside. Junk computers and a pile of surplus medical equipment meant for Benson High School occupy much of the space in the girls' locker room, which lacks even benches to sit on. The adjacent gymnasium is littered with trash and almost devoid of equipment. "This is worse than Whitaker," says PE teacher John Mays.
New principal Tom Pickett, the school's third top administrator in the past year, blames the state of the school's facilities on the last-minute move and says conditions will improve.
But Pickett, who won recognition for turning around Portsmouth Middle School, says his first priority is raising Whitaker's test scores--the lowest of any middle school in the state last year--by doubling the amount of math and language-arts instruction.
"Last year Whitaker had three fully functioning labs and a large library, and yet the results that they got were less than spectacular," he says.
Pickett concedes that his relationship with teachers is frosty but attributes that to the sweeping changes he's instituted.
Special-ed teacher Cindy Long isn't so sure. At an informal meeting of teachers on Friday, Long spoke for the disappointment of several of those present. "We were optimistic about this year," she says, "but the longer it goes on, the more we feel like we're being thrown away."
No one seems to know what to do about Whitaker. Interim superintendent Jim Scherzinger wants to rehabilitate the school's Killingsworth site, a decision that board member Marc Abrams questioned sharply last week.
Originally, Abrams explained, the district planned to raise $3 million by selling Lakeside. But under Scherzinger's plan, it will pump more money into Lakeside and spend at least $300,000 just to keep Whitaker from falling further into disrepair.
A consultant's report said the district would have to spend at least $8.3 million to make Whitaker habitable again. Meanwhile, new enrollment figures show that the elementary schools that feed Whitaker are steadily losing students.
Abrams suggested converting one of those elementaries into a middle school. "Instead of selling a building, we're essentially adding a building," he says. "It's a missed opportunity."
WWeek 2015