This Week in the Mercury
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
News / Schools School Board on Terminating High Schools: "We'll Be Back"
Posted by Stefan Kamph on Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 9:59 AM
After months of negotiations, false starts, scares, controversies, rallies, impassioned speeches, tears, speculation, and secrecy, Portland Public Schools' High School Redesign is officially... tabled until next year.
[record scratch] What? At a meeting last night where Jefferson and Marshall Supporters, as well as Sam Adams, were prepared to weigh in on the closing of Portland's most minority-attended schools, Carole Smith made a surprise announcement:
Given the complexity of the issues we are tackling, and my understanding of current board interests, board leadership and I have agreed that my staff will suspend preparation of requested board resolutions...Board leadership and I are in full agreement that the board is not in a position to vote on these questions now.
We are also in agreement that this is not the end of this process.
Instead, on the first day of summer, this is the right moment to collect our breath, see how far we have come in this conversation and determine the path forward.
The place erupted in cheers after she announced the delay. The redesign isn't being scrapped, but the district is backing off its previous plan to start implementing changes this coming September. The board will take up discussion on high schools again after school starts.
I thought the proposed timeline was nuts. We're talking about completely reinstalling a curriculum, moving around tons of teachers, growing or shrinking student populations by the hundreds, canning athletic teams, teaching people how to navigate the new attendance boundaries... all on a compressed timeline. On a practical level, this delay makes perfect sense. But it sure did take a long time to admit that, and few people at the district mentioned the sense of headlong rush and last-minute scramble. The cacophony of "Don't Close My School" protests certainly wouldn't have sped things along.
Sam Adams was along to commend the board's decision to delay the process. His sudden involvement with the process could be a good thing or a bad one.
More thoughts on this to come.
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