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Portland Public Schools announced last week that it would continue to house Beverly Cleary K-8 School on three campuses for the 2015-16 school year.
The decision marks a significant reversal from just a few months ago when PPS administrators vowed to find a better short-term solution for Beverly Cleary's overcrowding. No other school in PPS is spread across three campuses. The delay means the K-8 would be spread across three buildings for a second year.
But the decision to hold off on a new plan for Beverly Cleary is also a sign PPS leaders, including the volunteers with the Districtwide Boundary Review Advisory Committee, want to resist short-term solutions for some schools that could further complicate efforts to balance enrollment across all schools.
Superintendent Carole Smith has made that rebalancing—a messy undertaking designed to promote equity across the district—a top priority. Right now, schools such as Beverly Cleary in the affluent Grant Park neighborhood are bursting at the seams, while schools such as Vernon K-8 School in the gentrifying Alberta area had too few students to offer robust programs.
Beverly Cleary's enrollment grew 50 percent between 2009 and 2014, while the district's overall enrollment grew by only 4 percent in the same period. PPS officials assume some parents cheat—temporarily renting apartments near the school, lying about their address or using grandma's address—to get their kids in to the sought-after school.
"While I know many were hoping the District would have remedied our three-campus reality for next year, we now know that won't happen," Principal Teri Geist wrote to parents last week. "Our job as a community will be to continue to make Beverly Cleary the wonderful school that it is, irrespective of our locations."
WWeek 2015