Larger Schools Means More Traffic and Hidden Long-Term Costs

With Portland’s Office of Transportation considering more taxes to pay for road widening and with Portland Public Schools considering more taxes to pay for enlarging elementary schools, it is time to consider if Portland wants larger schools and the resulting costs and traffic or if it could make better and more economical use of its current roads and existing school facilities.

Background: Elementary Schools Double in Size
Portland Public School’s target size for Elementary Schools has doubled, from 200 to 300 a few years ago, to a whopping 400 to 600 students now. This change to school size slipped into the “schools reconfiguration” process a few years back without much public debate. This doubling of the “ideal” school size was obscured by misinformation during the rush to close schools. There has been no proven savings from these school closures, but the costs of doubling the target size for schools continue to mount.

Here are some of the unacknowledged costs to Portland from shortsighted school changes:
Trailers and Tax Bills
Only one elementary school in the Wilson cluster supports the target of 400 to 600 students. In the short-term, this will mean compromising school quality with more trailer classrooms or hastily built school annexes. In the long-term, there will be a huge capital bond, tax bill to enlarge schools, making permanent Dr. Phillip’s notion of an elementary school.

Closing More Small Schools and Trading Public Lands for More Traffic
More quality small schools will need to close to transfer children to the 400 to 600 student mega schools, spreading heartache and tumult across the city again and again. These efficient small schools will then be rented to private religious schools or sold to land developers.
Rental of public schools to private institutions will bring hundreds more cars per day into each effected neighborhood, many of these cars from outside Portland. We have only seen the tip of this additional traffic iceberg. For example, PPS has already courted Mitch Charter School in Tualatin to leasing its schools.

Transfers and Traffic
Portland Public School’s open transfer policy allowed many parents of children from small closing schools choose to transfer their children to small alternative schools, small charter schools or other neighborhood schools instead of allowing there child to be bused to a larger school. These transfers have added hundreds of cars per day per neighborhood to our streets.

Private Schools
With the panic and disrespectful atmosphere created by school closures, many parents moved their children to private schools. This shift to private schools has drained enrollment and funds and added more cars to our streets. PPS is surrendering students and land to private schools, and since these schools pull children from across the city, private schools place an even larger burden on public transportation infrastructure than do public schools.

Families Moving Out of Portland
Many families disenfranchised by the top-down push to larger schools have moved out of Portland to more stable and equitable school districts. While this may have helped the transportation issues, the long-term costs of losing Portland families are self-evident.

Losing the Heart of a Neighborhood and More
The loss of a school at the center of a neighborhood fragments the neighborhood and damages relations between neighbors. It ignores the synergy that exists between all the members of neighborhood from preschool to elderly, and the power of attending school with people who know you well. It also makes the neighborhood less desirable to people with or without children. Beyond being the most important institution in a young citizen’s life, schools have other social and emergency uses that, when lost, are not easily or cheaply replaced by a neighborhood.

Trading Neighborhood Character for Millions in NEW Taxes
The character of neighborhoods and their streets are damaged due to larger roads with more traffic, noise and pollution and less trees. Expanding roads to handle children driven to new schools, private schools, alternative schools and charter schools will cost us millions in new transportation taxes and leave us with a lot fewer trees, like Oleson Road.

Safety Health and Environmental Costs
There is an increased risk of traffic accidents from increased schools traffic. Increased pollution and green house gasses from schools traffic have led to health and environmental concerns. With childhood obesity and diabetes at an all-time high, closing small schools will mean fewer children being able to walk or bike to school.

Now that PPS enrollment has begun to rise again, lets consider the long-term costs from this push to larger elementary schools. The current “Reshaping Schools” process that Portland Public Schools has undertaken should be better linked to transportation policy and a true accounting of all costs. We need to take a more holistic approach to schools, neighborhoods, transportation and funding, while making the best use of our current roads and existing efficient small quality school facilities.