Oregon Public Broadcasting

An ambitious restructuring of the high school system in Oregon’s largest school district means fewer neighborhood schools and more magnet programs. Rob Manning reports.

Portland has nine neighborhood high schools. The new re-design would drop that to six, while adding up to six magnet programs.

Portland school leaders will decide on specific buildings in the fall. Decisions to close, or alter neighborhood schools will likely be contentious, as they were for Portland’s grade schools, a few years ago.

This re-design is more about going after nagging achievement inequities between poor and wealthy inequities between poor and wealthy parts of Portland, than it is about finances, according to Portland Public School officials.

The idea is to give students options. First, neighborhood schools would be bigger and therefore could offer more electives, more consistently. Second, the new high school magnets could offer more specialized pre-professional, or arts programs, for instance.

The re-design also has major facility implications:  it calls for renovating or rebuilding up to four high schools. The design plan comes before the school board next week.