Humboldt Elementary School closed as a neighborhood public school in 2012.
Aparna Vidyasagar / OPB
In the 1990s and 2000s, enrollment in Portland schools was shrinking. Demographers predicted the numbers could only go down or stay flat. Portland Public Schools closed or repurposed over a dozen schools over the course of last decade, much to the dismay of parents. In the process they eliminated the near-universal standard of separate elementary and middle schools, merging them into "K-8s".
Then the numbers changed. Enrollment has grown significantly in recent years, and demographers now predict thousands of new children will enter Portland schools in the next decade. In order to deal with the increasing enrollment, the district is considering altering boundaries or re-opening some of the schools they closed. That will likely mean the return of some separate elementary and middle schools, as current facilities are not built to hold large populations across nine grades.
We sit down with OPB news reporter Rob Manning to discuss the big changes that may come to local schools.