Rose Festival Early Call
PORTLAND
Waterfront Village opens this
Memorial Day weekend fo r the
first time ever, starting three
weekends o f Rose Festival fun.
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Volume XXXVIV, Number 20
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Established in 1970
,portlandobserver.<
www.portlandobserver.com
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Wednesday • May 20. 2009
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Heated Discussion
Emotions boil over for
high schools do over
photo by J ake T homas ZT he P ortland O bserver
Roosevelt High School Boosters got up early Saturday morning to demonstrate their commitment to the north Portland school during a high schools redesign forum at neigh­
boring Jefferson High School. The Roosevelt supporters also are battling a school district decision to transfer their popular school principal without a public process. Parents
and alumni say Deborah Peterson has been extremely effective at leading Roosevelt.
by J ake T homas
T he P ortland O bserver
A community forum to con­
sider a complete redesign of the
city’s public high school sys­
tem provoked emotional and at
times heated reactions from lo­
cal residents, revealing under­
lying ten sio n s betw een the
school district and the commu­
nity it serves.
Saturday at 8:30 a.m., about
200 parents, students, and com­
munity members trickled into
the basement of Jefferson High
School to share their thoughts
on Portland Public School's am­
bitious and daunting plan to
redesign its high schools.
Zeke Smith, chief of staff to
PPS S u perintendent C arole
Smith, stood before the crowd
speaking into a m icrophone
asking for opinions on the spe­
cific aspects of the redesign.
Smith and at least two board
members also attended
The responses began on a
As Smith got ready to move
tense note.
One woman complained that to another question. Teletha
it w asn’t clear where Boise- Benjamin, a former educator
Elliott Elementary fit into the and PPS volunteer, rose to in­
plans. Another exclaimed that terrupt him.
“You know there’s something
“we shouldn’t be experiment­
ing with our kids.” And another in this room today that if we
declared that the whole conver­ don’t acknowledge it we’re just
sation was premature since the whistling in the dark and that is
district’s kindergarten through a level of distrust in this room,”
eighth grade system was so said Benjamin to applause. She
flawed that students entering then went on to ask that the dis­
high school were woefully un­ trict apologize for implementing
past changes without listening
prepared.
to the community first.
Carole Smith quickly seized
the microphone and acknowl­
edged that the district had made
mistakes in the past that have
g en e ra te d su sp icio n , but
added, “W e’re not going to
overcome that today.”
“1 don’t ascribed ill intent
anywhere but I also think we’ve
ended up doing things where
you try and solve one problem
and it creates threç others,”
said Smith.
PPS's high school redesign
aims to drastically reshape the
high school system in hopes of
addressing the achievem ent
gap, unequal access to course
offerings across high schools,
and Portland’s 8.4 percent drop­
out rate.
The district is currently grap­
pling with three broad concep­
tual ideas, one of which Smith
will settle on next month.
continued ' y f on page A4
Coach on Mission to Help Jefferson
Matthew
Todd returns
to his roots
by J ake T homas
T he P ortland O bserver
M atthew Todd, 4 7 -y e a r-o ld
Jefferson High School alumni, can
be found on the baseball field be­
hind his Alma matter trimming the
grass and m aking sure that the
grounds are in tip-top shape.
Todd is on a mission. He wants to
revive the sport at Jefferso n in
hopes that it will inject a new sense
of pride in the north Portland school
and the area surrounding it.
"I'd like to see baseball played on
that field every night of the week,"
said Todd.
Having played the sport as a stu­
dent at Jefferson he remembers de­
veloping bonds with other players
that are still with him today, and
wants students to have the same op­
portunity he had.
The sport has steadily declined
at Jefferson over the years, and cur­
rently only has a junior varsity team.
Todd explained that it’s trying to
keep interest sustained in baseball
T1Week in
The Review
photo by M ark W ashington /T hf . P ortland O bserver
Baseball players at Jefferson High School get some tips on the game
from long time volunteer community coach Matthew Todd. A former
graduate o f Jefferson himself, Todd is working to revive the sport for
his Alma matter and the school's Portland community.
ward was a three-time All-American
for Oklahoma. He spent 12 seasons in
the NBA with Indiana, Sacramento
and Phoenix.
Tisdale Dead at 44
Dealers on Closure Ust
Former Oklahoma star
and
NBA
p lay er
Wayman Tisdale, 44,
died Friday after fight­
ing cancer the past two
years. The 6-foot-9 for-
Timberline Dodge in Portland and
Gresham Chrysler in Gresham are
listed among nearly 8(X) Auto deal­
ers nationwide that will lose their
new auto stock as part of Chrysler’s
bankruptcy plan. Timberline plans
I
to fight the closure. See story, page
A ll.
Racism Shocks Mom
A white woman who moved with her
adopted African-American son to the
small town of Alsea in western Or­
egon, says she's shocked someone
burned a cross on her lawn last week­
end. It appears somebody wrapped an
old sheet around the wood cross and
set it afire.
at the high school level. He said that
the sport needs to be played regu­
larly in order to keep kids interest.
But in the Pacific Northwest, this is
especially hard because the high
school season ends ju s t as the
weather turns sunny.
"It's hard to keep kids interested,
unless they're truly com m itted.
When the weather is so horrible it's
easy for them to get distracted and
want to do different things," said
Todd.
Todd wants to breathe new life
into the sport by starting a Babe
Ruth team based in north and north­
east Portland that will com pete
against other regional teams during
the summer. He already has 16 kids
from the area tentatively on the ros­
ter.
Although the team will be inde­
pendent from the school, Todd
hopes that it will eventually attract
enough interest to eventually jump
start a freshman, junior varsity, and
varsity teams at Jefferson.
So far he has support from the
school's administration.
“I am totally excited about Matt
Todd,” said Jefferson High School
Principal Cynthia Harris who regu­
larly sees Todd priming the field and
(AP) -- Former NBA forward and
Portland Trail Blazer Brian Grant re­
v ealed M onday that he has
Parkinson’s disease and is starting a
Web site devoted to his fight with the
neurological disorder.
The 3 7 -y e a r-o ld G rant told
ESPN.com that he was diagnosed in
January w ith “young onset
Parkinson's" and began having trem­
ors in his left hand last summer. He
consulted tw o other w ell-know n
continued ' y f on page A4
continued ' y ^ on page A ll
Jobless Stays at 12 Percent
New figures released Monday show
that Oregon’s unemployment held
steady in April at 12 percent. The rate
is still more than double the 5.5 per­
cent in March 2008. That means more
than 250,000 people report being out
of work.
Brian Grant
Former
Blazer has
Parkinson’s
Same disease
afflicting Ali
at N ike’s world headquarters in
Beaverton. The cuts represent 5 per­
cent o f the shoe and apparel
company's global work force.
Nike to Cut 500 Jobs
Nike says it will cut about 1,750jobs
worldwide, including about 500 jobs
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