Jefferson High’s bleak enrollment forecast may end school choice for 2,000 area students

By Naomi Inman

Last week, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong announced her plan to end Jefferson High School’s “dual-enrollment policy”—which allows families in its boundaries to choose between Jefferson or nearby Grant, Roosevelt, or McDaniel high schools instead. Translation? No more school choice for families in North Portland, choices they have enjoyed since 2011. As Willamette Week’s reporter put it directly, “PPS Considers Requiring Students in Jefferson Catchment to Attend the School.”

It seems, now that Jefferson has a half-billion dollars to build a “world-class school” with capacity for 1,700 students, fewer than 400 students will cut the ribbon on opening day, according to Portland State University’s Population Research Center Enrollment Forecast for 2033-34.

Ms. Armstrong’s May 29 Memo proposes tackling the problem by ending these options for nearly 2,000 students who currently attend neighboring high schools. Her analysis of the situation states that, “of the 2,384 high schoolers who live in a Jefferson Dual Assignment zone and attend a PPS school, 381 students (15.9%) attend Jefferson.” The School Board will study and decide on this required attendance at Jefferson by the fall of 2026.

Until now, Jefferson area families have enjoyed the most progressive policy in the city regarding school choice. Now that the $2 billion school bond has passed, they are proposing to take that choice away. This strategy is backwards, and it is bound to fail. One better option would be to research opportunities districtwide to expand school assignments and let parents sort out which district school best serves the individual needs of their child.

Armstrong says she wants Portland to be a model for the nation. To date, 35 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, have enacted some form of school choice legislation. Letting parents choose among district schools would be an excellent path for the future of Jefferson High School and an excellent model for Portland Public Schools.

Naomi Inman is External Relations Manager at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization. As a staff journalist and writer, Naomi helps Cascade make the case for free-market policies through media affairs and publications.

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