July 5, 2017
The
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INSIDE
Week in Review
O PINION
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Photo by Z aChary S enn /t he P ortland o bServer
Supporters of Benson High School rally to save sports programs from budget cuts. The alumni group
was led by former Benson coach and graduate John Slaughter (pictured from left) and Rob Johns,
president of the Benson High Alumni Association.
M ETRO
Fighting for Benson
page 9
Supporters rally
to save school
sports programs
Z aChary S enn
t he P ortland o bServer
Students and alumni of Benson
High School are keeping pressure
on Portland Public Schools to con-
tinue to fund athletic programs at
one of the district’s most diverse
schools. A group of students and
community members gathered
in front of the northeast Portland
school last week to show their
support for school sports. It fol-
lowed a protest one week earlier
before the Portland School Board.
John Slaughter, a Benson alum-
nus who has coached football and
held a number of positions at the
high school since his graduation in
1994, says that robust sports pro-
by
grams are essential to maintaining
the school’s elevated graduation
rates. Benson currently boasts
PPS’ third-highest graduation
rate, following only Lincoln and
Wilson.
“We all know that kids love
sports. It’s one of the reasons why
many stay in school,” Slaughter
told the Portland Observer. “It’s
ludicrous for us to be talking
about cutting sports.”
More than 70 percent of Ben-
son students are on free or re-
duced lunch programs, meaning
that they come from low-income
households. Slaughter said that
the school shouldn’t have to be
fighting for funding to keep its
programming in place.
Benson’s athletic programs
were first threatened in 2014,
when proposed budget cuts would
have chopped the school’s sports
teams. That was when Slaughter
first began to publicly advocate
and organize for the programs.
In a letter sent to the Benson
High School community, PPS stat-
ed that there are currently no plans
to make cuts to the school’s athlet-
ics division, though did not rule out
the possibility for future cuts.
“There is an ongoing process
to evaluate these programs,” the
letter reads. “When the district
moves closer to a decision in the
coming months, the public will
have an opportunity to offer in-
put.”
Slaughter, however, isn’t wait-
ing to provide the district with his
input.
“Instead of just sitting and wait-
ing for those proposals, we want
to be proactive,” said Slaughter.
“There’s a threat that the district
wants to impose some policy that
will take away our sports. Enough
is enough.”
City Sues Trump Over Sanctuary Cities
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
C LASSIFIEDS
C ALENDAR
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Portland has joined Seattle in
going to court to challenge Pres-
ident Donald Trump’s executive
order on “sanctuary cities.”
“It’s not merely that our cities’
values are under attack, it’s that
these attacks are against the law,”
Mayor Ted Wheeler said Friday,
in announcing the lawsuit. “To-
gether, we are standing up for our
values and the Constitution.”
The order threatens to strip fed-
eral funding from cities that refuse
to assist the federal government in
immigration enforcement.
In an amended complaint filed
last week in the Western District
of Washington, Portland and Seat-
tle seek a declaration that they are
acting consistently with federal law
and that the U.S. Constitution pre-
cludes application of the executive
order to deny them federal funds to
which they are otherwise entitled.
“We are pleased to have the
City of Portland join in Seattle’s
suit to protect our shared values,”
Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes
said.
Meanwhile, the Republican
Congress last week passed legisla-
tion to back up the threats against
sanctuary cities as well as crack
down on illegal immigration, but
Senate passage of the bills was
unclear.