These are the first negative words I’ve heard about this new superintendent. Wow. She’s thinking about property development, right?? Interesting.

I don’t know when Jefferson was built, but I know it was before WWII. Up until the late ’60′s, both Jefferson and the surrounding neighborhood were majority white–like 99% (as was all of PDX then). At that time, Jefferson was well-regarded, a very desirable school, similar to any other hs in town.

I think it was the building of I-5 that started everything going downhill. The white families left and were replaced by a mostly poor and black population, as the freeway rendered the neighborhoods no longer desirable to those who could afford better. But it was still a well-attended high school. The transfer policy did not yet exist, either.

When the feds starting demanding desegregation plans from urban districts, Jefferson opened the first magnet program in PDX, for the performing arts. This was intended to bring white students back to Jefferson to reintegrate the campus. The arts program was well-received, but since participation did not require enrolling at Jeff(!), the plan did not accomplish its purpose.

Then, in the early ’90s, we passed Measure 5, which destabilized school funding. Bit by bit over time, the acclaimed performing arts program at Jefferson was dismantled, to be replaced by a series of bizarre and ineffective experiments (which are still going on today–this Gates grant is really just the latest in a series) that had the cumulative effect of emptying out the building. NCLB only accelerated the process.

When I moved here in 1992, Jeff had over 1000 students. Today it has barely half of that. Every “new plan” is supposed to boost enrollment, but they always have the opposite effect. (How is sending the girls down to Tubman supposed to boost enrollment at Jeff???) No one is stupid enough not to see that, so that is why I think the PPS agenda is to shut Jefferson down and sell it either to PCC or to property developers. I think that is what Carol Smith meant when she said “Jefferson is gonna be great.”

Hope this info is helpful.

I moved to Portland from St. Louis. For those of you not familiar with St. Louis, the public schools in the city of St. Louis are in the worst shape they have ever been. See this post for more info.

I raise the specter of St. Louis because I can see PPS going in this direction in the next 10 to 20 years. In short, an increasing abandonment of public schools, declining enrollment, declining educational quality, flight to the suburbs, huge growth in private, parochial, and charter schools, and increased racial and economic segregation. What can be done to prevent this fate? I ask myself this question a lot these days.

During the Jefferson design team “process,” Superintendent Phillips sent design team members on school site visits to Texas and NY to visit KIPP schools. The trips were probably funded by Gates or PSF, but PPS would never answer the question of where the money came from for site visits.

Here’s a link to a blog posted on the NSA website about the conservative and privatization influences Vicki Phillips imposed on the design team process:
http://www.neighborhoodschools.....g/node/197

Pau G, You’re wrong about Vicki Phillips deserving credit for trying something at Jefferson. Jefferson has been subjected to almost constant reorganization/reconstitutions, etc. for years. It would be difficult for ANY high school to thrive under that amount of upheaval. Ms. Phillips was doing what many have done before her – experimenting on Jefferson because PPS can get grant money for trying new things at low income and minority schools.

Everyone agrees that improvement was needed at Jefferson. The saddest thing is that some of the best gains at the school were happening immediately prior to the latest Phillips/PSF/Gates-directed reorganization into 4 separate academies.

We’re not just back in the old boat. We’re still in Vicki’s boat, which she abandoned. We’re bouncing rudderless through the rapids, headed for the rocks. It’s an affront to those of us in the Jefferson community who have clearly and repeatedly voiced our desires for Jefferson (a comprehensive high school) but have been rebuffed.

Again, we see this kind of problem arising from the open transfer policy. But what problem does that policy solve?

I have to (mildly) dissent from your last comment. I’ve only been in the district seven years, but the problems with Jefferson preceded Phillips.

You may not like the academy “solution,” but give Vicki credit for trying *something*. Previous boards simply ignored the growing problem.

Now we’re back in the old boat–just closing our eyes and ignoring the issue.

I have lived all over the country and never seen a school district run for the benefit of real estate brokers before. Everyplace else I’ve been, school property has been treated as a public trust. Properties that were declared “surplus” (for sale) had already been replaced by the acquisition of another property. I find it extremely bizarre that a School Board would publicly state a goal of trying to divest a school district of its property assets, but that is exactly what happened here. If you want some history, check out my guest column on Terry Olson’s blog, dated Sept. 24.

Now that she’s gone, nobody on the board has the guts to admit they were sold a bill of goods by Phillips and Gates. Instead, they’re pursuing the type of architecture that would literally set in stone the “academies” concept, a concept the greater Jefferson community has resoundingly rejected.

Most of the current board will be long gone before their time bomb explodes.