"At Humboldt, small is beautiful" -- link to Tribune article

The Portland Tribune's Jennifer Anderson has written an excellent article about Humboldt School: "At Humboldt, small is beautiful / North Portland K-8 skirts closure with community love / Transfer Policy debated anew."

Here is a link to the article: http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=11894586202504180...

The article includes the following terrific quote from Humboldt Principal Williams:

Neighborhood school activists, parents and community members fought to keep Humboldt open, and won. Now, as the poorest and smallest nonmagnet K-8 school in the district, Humboldt’s supporters are trying to gain a foothold in the competitive free-market system of school choice in Portland.

As Williams put it: “As long as you have the haves and the have-nots, why would you want your child at a have-not school?”

Now in her fourth year as principal of Humboldt, Williams has seen the effects of the district’s liberal enrollment and transfer policy, which allows students to transfer to any school as long as there is space. At her school, 40 percent of neighborhood students transfer out, taking their state funding with them.

“I think there’s benefits to transfers,” she said, such as choosing a language immersion or magnet program, “but the policy does hurt the neighborhood schools.”

She added: “If all neighborhood schools were equipped with the necessities to give all kids an equal education, not just in curriculum, you would draw the neighborhood back.”

The article also discusses the deep analysis of the PPS transfer policy currently being done by North Portland Dad Steve Rawley on his blog, morehockeylesswar.org:

"It’s uncertain whether the policy review will result in minor tweaks or a major overhaul. North Portland parent Steve Rawley hopes for the latter.

The software engineer, who’s written extensively on the issue in his blog, morehockeylesswar.org, thinks the transfer policy should be rewritten to end neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers, starting at the elementary school level.

He also thinks the school boundaries should be re-examined, and magnet and language immersion schools should be relocated to poorer neighborhoods to give parents a reason to seek them out rather than flock to already popular schools.

How is he so convinced? Rawley, a member of the watchdog group Neighborhood Schools Alliance, has compiled data from the district to create coded maps that starkly show what he calls a reverse Robin Hood effect in schools throughout the city. Poor schools get poorer, while rich schools get richer. Both public school parents and nonparents should be concerned about the issue, Rawley said, because the quality of schools is an important piece of real estate values.

“We don’t have to do anything radical,” he said. “All we have to do is have everyone go to the school in their neighborhood.”

Nicole Breedlove, Humboldt Mom and this year's coordinator of Humboldt's Start Making A Reader Today (SMART) program, stated that "she would also like to see changes to the transfer policy, but wants to make sure there are quality schools in every neighborhood."

Thanks to Jennifer Anderson for the great Humboldt profile and insightful analysis of the transfer policy. Thanks for discussing PPS's policy of only restoring arts and music to schools over 400 students – that has created a truly unfair and inequitable situation throughout the PPS district this school year.

I'm so proud that Neighborhood Schools Alliance was part of the fight to save this wonderful Humboldt School from closure. Congratulations to Principal Jamila Williams, and to the entire Humboldt community, for the great neighborhood school they continue to create for our children!