Don't Close Humboldt

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — April 12, 2006

Don’t close Humboldt!

Jeff area unfairly targeted for yet another poorly planned upheaval

Portland, Ore. - Among the many serious concerns we have about Vicki Phillips’ rapidly impending top-down reconfiguration of Portland Public Schools, the closure of Humboldt Elementary stands out as one of its most senseless and destructive aspects. We urge the public and School Board to consider:

• Why would we close a school that is a shining example of closing the “achievement gap”? At Humboldt, 96% of kids qualify for free/reduced lunch yet 91% of third-graders are meeting or exceeding benchmarks, up from 56% last year. This is an absolutely outstanding achievement that should be celebrated, nurtured, and built upon. Instead the plan is to close the school, and send the children across I-5 to a consolidated school at Ockley Green. Why mess with this success?

• Why would we close a school in a growing neighborhood, where a large new housing development is going in right across the street? The Housing Authority of Portland will soon be building 129 units of affordable family housing adjacent to Humboldt, with 100 kids expected. How does it make sense to take away the neighborhood elementary school just when new housing is becoming available? Moreover, Humboldt is located between two of the hottest neighborhoods in the city. Why not preserve, and promote to new families, the neighborhood’s outstanding elementary school?

Is this all about propping up a poorly planned K-8 at Ockley Green? If there has been insufficient interest in the redesigned Ockley Green arts magnet, don’t try to “fix” that or make the numbers look good by closing down a superb neighborhood program and shipping kids in to fill the building. That is unconscionable.

• Why would we send families out of their neighborhood and across I-5 when the supposed goal is to increase parental/community involvement? Humboldt has outstanding community involvement, including a neighborhood resident with no children of her own who serves as PTA president; a grandfather who volunteers to mow the lawn; a monthly movie night that is open to the community; and much more. Community members, particularly the majority who are lower income, are far less likely to be able to stay involved if they must travel across I-5 to a distant school.

This has been the pattern again and again in the many closures in the Jeff cluster: parents being told there is “no safety problem” with their children crossing major arterials to get to school. Low-income and parents of color being told that sending their children to a distant consolidated school is going to make it easier for them to be involved in their child’s school. This is simply not true!

Even worse, the long-term plan for Humboldt appears to be to uproot these families yet again, and eventually send them to King School, located on the other side of MLK. These families are not pawns in a PPS chess game! If the goal is to increase success and reduce transitions, keep Humboldt open! And by the way, despite being a high-poverty school, Humboldt already has PE, art AND music.

• Why close a school that has just started a successful three-year grant? Staff training time has already been invested, the Early Reading First and Reading First programs are up and running, test scores are up and 4-year-olds are reading. What will happen to this money when Humboldt is closed? Applegate and Kenton were in a similar situation last year with their $5.2 million federal grant. The money will only follow the students if all of them decide to attend Ockley, which is unlikely.

• Why we would close a building that is in the best possible condition and move kids to a building with significant structural issues? The Humboldt building is in far better condition (rank = 1, best possible on a 5-point scale) than at Ockley Green (rank = 4). Rather than using money to retrofit Ockley Green for elementary school students, that money should be used to improve the Ockley building for the existing middle school grades.

• Why not “downsize” by removing the 40-year-old portables at Humboldt? If the four classrooms’ worth of 40-year-old portables were removed from the Humboldt site, the building would have only 18 classrooms and thus its “density index” would sharply increase to within the District’s stated criterion for efficient building usage. Portables are supposed to be temporary. Why do schools in N/NE Portland have 40-year-old portables when Forest Park received new $400,000 portables last year?

• Why is the Jefferson cluster being disproportionately targeted for closures? Last year 3 schools closed and Boise-Eliot was moved to the Grant cluster. If PPS continues to nip away at Jefferson feeder schools, pretty soon there will be no need for a Jefferson High School. Is that the plan? Who will occupy the newly reconfigured Jefferson High School scheduled to open fall of 06/07? If there were a “clear and compelling” need to close Humboldt, as the Superintendent stated in her recent press conference, then why wasn't this discussed as part of the Jefferson cluster redesign process?

• Why is it necessary to close Humboldt so fast? Out of all the proposed school closures, Humboldt, located in the predominantly Black Jefferson cluster, is the ONLY school would be closed immediately. Some schools were removed from the draft closure list. Others were deferred to their respective communities for a community-based discussion to decide which school the community thinks should close. (This is itself highly problematic, but at least has a veneer of consideration for parents.) Why aren’t Humboldt Elementary and the Jefferson cluster given the same consideration?

Bottom line: Humboldt is receiving unfair treatment, some may say "separate and unequal" treatment. There shall be no further school closures in the Jefferson cluster!

The Neighborhood Schools Alliance is a diverse group of parents, teachers, and community members from all areas of Portland working together to support and strengthen our neighborhood schools.
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