City Ignores PPS Zoning Code Violations and City School Policy Violations, Worsening Segregation

6/24/08
LYNN SCHORE AND SHEI'MEKA NEWMANN OF JEFFERSON HIGH SCHOOL PTSA /
STATEMENT TO PLANNING COMM RE DRAFT WORK PLAN

Good evening. My name is Lynn Schore. I live in the Ashcreek
Neighborhood in SW Portland, my neighborhood school is Smith, and my
children go to Hayhurst and Jackson. I'm a proud member of the
Jefferson High School Parent, Teacher, Student Association, and the
Neighborhood Schools Alliance. This is my friend and esteemed
colleague from Jefferson PTSA, Shei'Meka Newmann.

We consider the Comprehensive Plan to be the Constitution of the City
of Portland. When we study the City School Policy, we see that it
is the very soul of Portland's Comprehensive Plan. Our
City's entire Comprehensive Plan was clearly built around that one
policy. The City School Policy deeply affects every single
Goal in the Comp Plan. It affects every individual Policy within
Goal #s3 (including the Neighborhood Plans), Goal 4, Goal 9 and Goal
11; and impacts every other Comp Plan Goal as well. Without
the City School Policy, the whole Comp Plan would fall apart.

ZONING VIOLATIONS BY PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN SCHOOL CLOSURES AND GRADE RECONFIGURATIONS

Portland Public Schools is violating our City's zoning laws. The
City of Portland refuses to enforce the Zoning Code against Portland
Public Schools. These violations are resulting in segregation,
concentration of poverty, and lack of equal access to education in the
City of Portland. The people are being denied their right to
speak out against what Portland Public Schools plans for our schools,
City and children.

The City School Policy lays out the City process which should occur
before school closures. That process was not followed by PPS and
the City. Similarly, the Zoning Code lays out a process which
must occur before grade configuration changes are made in PPS. The
Zoning Code regulates public schools and school land by requiring a
Land Use Review (LUR) for all changes in PPS grade configuration.
During school closures and reconfigurations in the past five years, PPS
neglected to go through the proper LUR processes when it closed and
reconfigured schools.

Having recently become aware of this fact, citizens are now filing, and
will continue to file, zoning violation complaints against PPS
regarding Jefferson High School, Madison High School, Tubman and other
PPS schools. The City, via statements from Compliance Services,
admits the Complaints are valid.

According to a message I received from Michelle Seward at Compliance
Services, the City has placed our complaints "on hold … and in monitor
status" (see attached). Seward also stated: "At this point, the
Bureau of Planning is going to be looking at possible changes to the
Schools and School Sites Chapter through a legislative process."

By treating our citizen complaints in this manner, the City and Bureau
of Planning are not following protocol. The City's putting these
citizen complaints on hold and in monitor status is admitting the rule
violation. Yet the City is not enforcing the zoning code to which
it expects everyone else in Portland to abide.

There is one more thing we want to point out: in spring 2006,
Jefferson student Britney Marcell, in a speech before the PPS School
Board, also proved that PPS was in violation of State law with these
grade reconfigurations. PPS needed to get the approval of the
Oregon State Board of Education before making these changes, but failed
to do so. The schools where the violations of State law occurred
are within City property, and thus are subject to the City's zoning
code.

Laws exist to protect the citizens and their rights. The
neighborhoods and children of Portland have been seriously harmed and
suffered damages because of PPS's zoning code violations. We need
consistency, honesty and transparency in enforcement of the zoning
code. We know the Planning Commission cannot enforce the law, but
it can lobby the City to do so. We want the Planning Commission
to advocate that the City issue violations to PPS at these schools, not
put them on some sort of monitor status until the City can get the laws
changed so PPS won't be in violation!

The Planning Commission must lobby the City to issue these violations
against PPS. To do less would be to shield PPS from remediating
racial segregation. It would shield PPS from mitigating damage
done to citizens and CHILDREN whose rights have been violated. We
are not only talking about our property rights here: we are also
talking about the civil rights of all children in Portland to equal
access to education.

The very first goal of the City School Policy is as follows:

1. EQUAL ACCESS TO EDUCATION
GOAL: Promote equal access to and benefits from quality education
for all Portland residents regardless of their race, sex, age,
religion, handicap, or their economic or cultural background.

The Planning Commission can lobby the City to issue these zoning
violations, and be part of the city-wide effort to provide equal access
to quality education for ALL students in Portland Public Schools.
We want one unified, equitable Portland Public School district, not the
separate and unequal district we have now. The Commission has actual
Code to address this terrible problem. You
have the zoning code, the City School Policy, the Comp Plan, and the
Flynn-Blackmer audit of the PPS Transfer Policy. Please take
action to hold PPS accountable for these violations of state law, the
City School Policy and City zoning code.

SCHOOL CLOSURES AND THE CITY SCHOOL POLICY

During PPS school closures, of which we have had approximately 20 in
the last six years, Goal 2 of the City School Policy lays out a minimum
nine month process before any schools can be closed. Our
neighborhood schools and neighborhoods were generally given a six week
to two month process from the time when the schools were announced to
close and when they were gaveled closed by the PPS School Board.

Despite hundreds of appeals from the Portland citizenry for the City to
step in and review the school closures because of the issues of
transportation, neighborhood livability, ability to walk and bike to
school, air pollution, environment, equal access to education, equity,
safety in crossing arterials, and many other issues, the City of
Portland and Council told the citizenry they could do nothing.
And we recently found out that this isn't true. The City School
Policy laid out the steps the City not only could have taken, but was
required by Code to take. Yet the City did nothing.

There is a very direct relationship between a city's Zoning Code and
it's Comprehensive Plan. The Comp Plan is a document stating major
Goals for the city. The goals are implemented through other
documents such as city budgets, the Implementation Code and Zoning
Code. Currently the City School Policy, the Comprehensive Plan,
and the Zoning Code, are strong documents regarding the relationship of
schools to land use, transportation, environment, educational equity,
good urban livability, etc. Those three city documents are
consistent with each other, as they should be.

Unfortunately, the City has for years neglected its own approved goals
and policies related to school closures, equal access to education,
zoning etc. The public is just now becoming aware of how PPS
neglected to follow the Zoning Code and the City School Policy over the
last 6 years or more.

THE DRAFT WORK PLAN

Portlanders want the Planning Commission to ensure that the current
regulations related to school closures, equal access to education,
zoning violations, etc. are being properly enforced. Thus far,
they haven't been.

Why should the public buy into or even participate in a public planning
process to create a new Comprehensive Plan, when the City of Portland
hasn't bothered to enforce the current Comp Plan and zoning
code? Across this entire City, you have parents and
neighborhoods who have lost faith in public process because of Portland
Public Schools and actions related to school closures and grade
reconfigurations, without due process or proper data. The Bureau
of Planning will have to work very hard to overcome this.

Thank you for your volunteer service to our community.

Lynn Schore
Jefferson High School PTSA
Neighborhood Schools Alliance
Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs

Shei'Meka Newmann
Jefferson High School PTSA