Another Way to “Balance” Jefferson Cluster
Oregon SOS supports "no more closures" of our public schools. Join members of the community this Saturday at 1 pm at Jefferson High School to support keeping the Jefferson Cluster of schools open. The following blog post is by Elizabeth Thiel, a parent and teacher at Vernon School in NE Portland.
Again, Portland Public Schools is talking about fiddling around with schools in the Jefferson Cluster in a process called “enrollment balancing.” The district has proposed closing Vernon, merging Vernon with King, closing Woodlawn, merging Chief Joseph and Ockley Green, relocating Access, and/or moving Boise Elliott/Humbolt to Tubman, all as possible ways to achieve “optimal enrollment numbers”.
People in the Jefferson cluster have been through this before. We were among those experimented on with the great K-8 transition 7 years ago. We had all our neighborhood middle schools taken away. We’ve seen a boys’ academy and a girls’ academy come and go. Jefferson High School has been redesigned more times, I think, than anyone can keep track