Oregon Public Broadcasting

Leaders of Oregon’s schools are wrestling this week with the potential consequences of rapidly shrinking revenues.

The state forecasts an $855 million shortfall in the current budget - and a far bigger hole for the two-year cycle starting in June.

The consequences for schools aren't good, even if they’re not entirely clear, yet. Rob Manning visited a Portland high school to get a sense of what options school leaders are considering.

If  you wanted to solve the Portland Public School District’s current school budget problem through layoffs alone, it would mean firing one out of every three teachers.

That’s not on the table, according to district spokesman, Rob Cowie. But he says the alternatives are not a lot better.

Rob Cowie: “One of the things that Portland Public Schools, and districts across the state, look at in this situation that’s that grim, is making cuts to the school year. It’s not an option we want to take, but it’s an option we have to look at.”

Cowie says there are really very few choices, even for Portland, which is in better shape than many other districts, because it’s built up a reserve fund. Still, Portland officials haven’t welcomed the governor’s idea: that teachers work at least a few days for free.

Marshall High School business technology teacher Clara Cook remembers the last time teachers worked for free in 2003, when the Portland district was drowning in red ink. She says it created tension between teachers who worked for free and staff who were paid.

Clara Cook: “I think it made for some hard feelings in the end. So, understanding it was a bargaining thing, we chose to do - but I don’t think it was something anyone would choose to do again.”

Ed Bear is the principal at Biz Tech High on  Marshall’s Southeast Portland campus. He’s already bracing for what is probably the leading solution: fewer school days.

Ed Bear: “My hope would be if indeed we’re looking at whether it’s five, or seven, or eight days, whatever that ends up being that we have to cut, I would rather see that done on a four-day week type model.”

Bear says cutting at the end of the year, is just lost time. But he says cutting during the year allows for more instruction. 

Ed Bear: “We could still get some continuity, you could - not in a negative way for the students - but you could assign more strategic homework, or activities that they could still accomplish the state standards through.”

Students see upsides and downsides to shortening the week for the rest of the school year. Biz Tech sophomore, R. Jay Manguino is hearing that a shorter week means longer days.

R. Jay Manguino: “All I heard was that we would be cut to four days, and we were going to add an extra hour and 30 minutes, so we’d get out at five or something. But we’d have three-day weekends, so it’s kind of good.”

Fellow student Ronnie McKenna is more worried about next year. He’s a senior, and he’ll be gone. But as senior co-president, he’s worried that cuts could mean elective classes will be gone for next year’s students.

Ronnie McKenna: “Like our wood class, or graphic design classes, or architecture classes. Those kinds of things bring kids to our school, and I’m kind of worried that students wouldn’t want to come here if there weren’t those electives.”

Principal Ed Bear says teacher layoffs at his school would almost inevitably lead to cuts in elective classes. That’s because his staff of 18 would get even smaller.

Ed Bear: “And so you take two or three people of those people out of the equation, you lose certain elective courses. You run the risk of way of just having too large core academic classes as well."

This social studies class has about two-dozen students in it. Staff cuts would likely make it bigger, and make the kind of small-group discussions they’re having this morning, harder to manage.

But Ed Bear says the alternative to staff cuts might be cutting a special program for students at risk of dropping out. He says the Step-Up program has shown results, but could lose funding.

Ed Bear: “It’s just not academic either, it’s behavioral. Very, very positive program, we’re seeing tremendous turnaround with students because they’re really being provided the extra support that they need. That’s at stake.”

Portland expects to get closer to final budget decisions for the current year, later this week. The legislature may give school leaders statewide a better sense of how the budget gap will affect them. And more details on the federal stimulus may emerge.

In the meantime, many districts - including Portland - are holding public meetings to help steer difficult budget decisions for the next school year.