Portland Public Schools Board Could Vote On New Boundaries by December

Ambitious timeline puts major decisions after school board elections

SUPER INTENTIONS: Smith knows the School Board lineup could change after the May election. "It is one of the most difficult elected jobs in Oregon," she says of the PPS board.
By BETH SLOVIC

The volunteer group guiding Portland Public Schools through what's bound to be a contentious redrawing of school boundaries have heard the official word on when their work is supposed to be finished.

The timeline is ambitious. It calls for the Portland School Board to vote on new boundaries as soon as Dec. 1, 2015 and not later than Jan. 30, 2016.

According to the new timeline, the volunteer group known as D-BRAC (District-wide Boundary Review Advisory Committee), will help PPS develop a community survey to poll people on their educational values. The survey will go to parents, teachers and other district residents in mid-March and seeks input on the boundary review process.

D-BRAC will use survey results to shape their recommendations. But those results won't be available until May. Between May and June 30, the group will "assess and apply community survey results in work to develop values based framework for future PPS boundary change." It will also "develop policy change recommendations to align with framework" and deliver those recommendations to Superintendent Carole Smith.

If all that sounds like feel-good policy talk, it's actually very nitty gritty stuff. In that two month time frame, the group is supposed to help resolve thorny questions such as whether some K-8 schools should revert to K-5 schools and whether, as a result, PPS needs to recreate additional middle schools.

This is the timeline's first potential hurdle. Those aren't questions that anyone can solve looking just at survey results. Those changes have significant budget and educational implications.

As a result, the school board is set to vote on those recommendations in July—just as several new school board members take their seats. (Four seats on the seven-member board are up for re-election in May.) That's the second potential hurdle.

PPS administrators would draw new maps based on the guidance from D-BRAC starting in August. Administrators would then bring proposed maps to D-BRAC in September or October.

Smith would then present a final boundary proposal in November for a vote by the school board in December or January. New boundaries would then be in place by fall 2016.


WWeek 2015

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