East Portland Immigrant Communities Question Equity Of School Proposals

Parents on Portland's east side told Portland Public Schools they're concerned about inequities, as advisers and board members consider

possible school boundary or building changes

across Oregon's largest district.

At a meeting Monday morning focused on East Portland's Asian-American community, parents repeatedly raised concerns about apparent inequities in the proposals.

One parent said that a proposal to change a handful of Southeast K-8 schools into elementary schools, "consolidates a lot of inequity into Harrison Park" — the school slated to become the local middle school for grades six through eight. 

Another parent asked why a nearby school with less poverty, Lewis Elementary, would send its students to a middle school with less poverty: Sellwood.

One Chinese-speaking parent voiced support for the district's Mandarin programs, but said Portland administrators should do more for Cantonese speaking families. Another parent, speaking through an interpreter, asked if the changes would result in smaller class sizes.

Parents also questioned the omission of focus-option programs — such as the Richmond Japanese Magnet Program. One parent suggested changing the middle school for that program from Mount Tabor to a potentially re-opened Kellogg. 

Others raised questions about safety and transportation, which could become bigger concerns if students are traveling longer distances to unfamiliar buildings.

Equity, transportation, quality programs and language support were front-and-center at a Spanish language meeting Tuesday, held at Madison High School.   

"There are many different schools, some of the schools have immersion programs, and others don't," one parent said, through an interpreter. "Supposedly, the district has to balance it all out, have the funds to balance it out ... some of the schools get more. There shouldn't be a difference. We are all the same."

A parent identifying herself as representing Cesar Chavez K-8 repeated the call for changes that are equitable for all schools.

She compared plans to split high-poverty Chavez K-8 into an elementary and middle school, with the proposal's plans for more affluent Astor K-8, in the more affluent neighborhood near University of Portland.

"Astor School — less than half a mile away — they don't have any of the changes for that school," she said. "It's not fair. Where is the equity?"

Foreign language programs also came up at the Madison High School meeting. A parent from Bridger K-8 worried the school's Spanish immersion program would be harmed.

"The Spanish immersion curriculum — we have built a community, and now they're telling us that's being destroyed," she said. "All these kids are going to be spread out, and we worked so hard to be united."

A former administrator at Portland Public Schools, G.M. Garcia, also raised concerns about the effect on language immersion programs. She said the district needed to clearly articulate plans for how immersion programs will be affected.

But Garcia said the changes could be an improvement, if it led to more Latino students getting higher-level math at a middle school.

"If kids don't have access to advanced math," Garcia said through an interpreter, "the possibility — it's hard to succeed in high school."

Garcia urged parents to put less emphasis on transportation, and more on the difference in programs between K-8s and middle schools.

Editor's Note: OPB does not typically publish stories with quotes attributed to unidentified sources. At these two meetings on Monday, Nov. 17, participants were not required to identify themselves. OPB was unable to otherwise identify participants. However, OPB concluded that publishing the perspectives communicated at this meeting was important enough to public understanding to exempt this story from OPB's usual standard for identifying sources.