Dear PPS students,

In three weeks as your superintendent, I’ve been continually impressed by the quality of teaching and learning happening in Portland. In my school visits, I see ample evidence that the district is fulfilling its core mission and we’re setting up our students for success.

Because I’m new to this district, I want to share a little about my background so you know where I’m coming from with an observation like that. I come to Portland with over 40 years of experience in education. I’ve been a teacher, a counselor, a principal, and a superintendent. I’ve worked in four states: Georgia, Colorado, Tennessee, and Oregon.

This is also my third time having to work with a Board and staff to figure out the best way to reduce district operations by a significant amount. To say this process is hard is a huge understatement. You see the system working like it should – but you also lack sufficient money to continue it at current levels.

I am committed to explaining our budget process and, once we make them, budget decisions. And I’ll be upfront: we will disagree, because reducing $30 million from the central office alone is simply not doable. Superintendent Guerrero already made significant reductions with our biggest expenses and cut $40 million from our central office over the last two years. With 90% of our operating budget paying for classrooms and schools, the reductions we must make require changes in schools – including staffing.

I know you’ve begun to hear about some of the proposed changes from principals and impacted staff members. I want to clear up any misunderstandings, and stress that we are in the middle of this budget process. These are initial staffing decisions and we have much more to figure out before April 23 – and more time until the Board’s votes on the budget (May 19). You can learn more about the full budget process here.

I particularly want you to know that these initial staffing decisions were proposed with the goal of reducing operations with minimal student impact while supporting student achievement.

The first and broadest change is that we will have fewer homeroom teachers next year. We’ve used one-time resources to lower class sizes, but with those funds ending and lower enrollment, we must get by with a smaller workforce. Even with these reductions, class sizes will only be raised slightly, returning to roughly what they were during the 2021-2022 school year (average elementary classes of roughly 23 students, and middle school classes around 31 students).

We have also preserved students’ access to arts by changing how arts educators are allocated to each school. The result is a slight reduction in the number of arts educators, and some arts educators who have been at just one school may now work at multiple schools over the course of a week. But our students will continue to receive the exact same access they currently have.

By shifting dozens of staff from the buildings where they currently work, we will continue to provide robust student supports – albeit in a more targeted approach. We propose to fund kindergarten educational assistants at 35 hours a week in schools that have 60% or greater historically underserved students, and to concentrate social workers at Title 1 schools and high schools. Academic interventions in K-8 schools will design targeted, data-driven, individualized plans to close significant and persistent learning gaps, and instructional coaches will continue to maximize teaching and learning.
And faced with hard tradeoffs, you also end up adjusting some valuable programs that you know have an impact on students because those programs are further from our core mission. Two examples you may have heard about are unassigning Makerspace staff at 9 of our 81 schools, and eliminating dedicated Library Assistants, who provide operational support but do not have a regular instructional role. We will continue to support library services.

In a context like this, all of our options are hard for some part of our community. Our path forward must be marked by empathy, grace, and respect, and the presumption that we’re all trying to do what we believe to be best. It’s my intention to keep you updated as I can along the way to the full budget proposal on April 23.

Sincerely,

Dr. Sandy Husk
Superintendent