Oregon’s largest school district, Portland Public Schools, is under enormous financial pressure due to declining enrollment and rising costs, like many districts in the Northwest.
Leaders are bracing for pushback from parents as the district prepares a plan to close up to 10 of its schools by fall 2027. PPS is also on the receiving end of criticism from its largest labor union over a newly discovered $14 million budget deficit.
FILE - Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong talks with fifth-grade students at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, June 5, 2024, in Portland, Ore.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
PPS Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong appeared on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” Friday to discuss the district’s challenges.
PPS has previously announced cost-saving measures it is taking this year, such as reducing travel and furloughing senior leaders for five days. Superintendent Armstrong is taking six days unpaid.
Armstrong says she’s hoping the district can agree to a furlough agreement with the unions representing teachers and staff, but any decision has to be agreed to at the bargaining table.
However when it comes to how the district got to this challenging point, Armstrong was reluctant to point fingers. She said her predecessor, Guadalupe Guerrero, went years without a full financial leadership team.
“There’s always impacts when you have a lot of transition, a lot of turnover, and you struggle to find a CFO,” Armstrong said.
The Portland Association of Teachers, the union representing PPS educators, said they want answers for how PPS got here.
“It is in large part the mistakes and misplaced priorities of PPS Administrators that again got us to financial crisis, and it must be accountability for PPS Administrators that solves it,” PAT said in a statement shared Thursday.
Related: Portland Public Schools faces mid-year cuts due to just-discovered shortages
The union statement mentioned that Armstrong said they should “judge her based on how long she accepts ‘prolonged incompetence.’”
“Without systemic change, the wave of constant chaos inside PPS will not stop,” the union continued.
PAT asked that “budget holders” at the district take responsibility for the district’s issues by taking more furlough days and alleged the financial problems are due in part to “incompetence.”
“Absolutely not” was Armstrong’s terse response to the union’s allegation on “Think Out Loud” Friday.
PAT asked the district to more seriously evaluate what central office administrators do and make changes accordingly, so that the district can “make cuts into management personnel deep enough to impact the budget and protect students from cut impacts.”
Related: Portland Public Schools considers furlough days to make up multimillion dollar budget gap
Armstrong said a reorganization that reduced 13 administrative positions is a step in the right direction and will make a “significant” difference for PPS.
“We prioritize what happens in the classroom,” Armstrong said. “So I want to make sure that our teachers are equipped with all the things that they need, they have the instructional materials, they have the learning, they have the support, they have the mentorship if they’re new to the profession, to be able to deliver the quality instruction — I think that’s what our families depend on.”
As the district considers potentially painful cuts to close its budget deficit, it’s initiating another set of plans likely to be unpopular in parts of the city. Armstrong intends to close between five and 10 schools in the next year and a half.
On “Think Out Loud,” Armstrong said board leaders will take seismic concerns and enrollment into consideration when making decisions. The superintendent will present a list of schools marked for closure, but she did not give a time frame for when those conversations would begin.
“It’s going to be difficult,” Armstrong said. “School closures have happened in this city before, and as we continue to decline, we’re going to need to reduce the number of schools. And I think schools and communities, it’s personal … it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be a loss.”
