Dear PPS Community,

As we head into the holiday weekend, we know that the strike and our closed schools are  weighing on all of us.  Following the overnight bargaining session on Sunday, the parties agreed on 17 articles in the contract. However, critical issues remained unresolved, including whether parents should have a role in classroom placement decisions about a student who is not their child. 

On Monday afternoon, we sent a compromise proposal on class size committees and remedies when class sizes exceed district thresholds. On Tuesday evening, we sent to the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) revised language that makes room for parent voice on school-wide class size issues while safeguarding the decisions about individual students to their parents and each school’s professional administrators and educators.  

Tonight, we were disappointed to receive an incomplete proposal from PAT that also did not respond to either of our proposals on class size committees.

We know the language in this contract matters so that we can best serve our students. We urge PAT to respond to these remaining issues quickly, so we can get our children back into school on Monday.

Despite the uncertainty of this unresolved contract, we wish you a restful and peaceful Thanksgiving.  We will provide additional updates on Friday as we continue to work on an agreement that will get our students back into the classroom. 

PPS Board of Education