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I would love to focus the spotlight on North Portland’s Jefferson High School, and examine the real reasons behind its deeply rooted reputation as a “failed school”. Many accept its reputation without question, but a growing number are also uncomfortably aware of the insidious kind of racism that has guided the school district’s treatment of Jefferson for the last several decades. As a resident of a rapidly changing and vibrantly diverse neighborhood, I want to examine whether the school’s past failures really can (as it currently is) be blamed on its neighborhood constitution, or if a continuous and systematic stripping of its resources might be at fault. Whatever the answer, I think we need to take a closer look at the historical facts lining the fall from greatness to despair, and what it needs to become to reflect the - for Portland - unusual diversity of the area it’s in. As part of that discussion, I also want a dialog to attempt finding a satisfactory explanation to the recent and hitherto unexplained sudden removal of its principal. 

posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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