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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (July 12, 2017)
‘City of Roses’ Volume XLVI • Number 28 Beyond White Culture Summer Jobs for Youth Diversity at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Program is more than just a paycheck See Local News, page 3 See Metro, page 9 Established in 1970 www.portlandobserver.com Wednesday • July 12, 2017 Lolenzo Poe is retiring as a longtime educational leader for equity in Portland Public Schools. Committed to Cultural Diversity photo by Z achary S enn /t he p ortland o bServer ‘Our Kids Can Achieve’ Retiring school leader on defying expectations by Z achary S enn t he p ortland o bServer One of Portland’s most influential black educators has retired. Lolenzo Poe dedicated the past 40 years of his career to making public education in Portland more eq- uitable. He says that he plans to continue to advocate for academic accessibility for people of color and the disad- vantaged in his retirement. Poe has been one of the region’s defining figures in ed- ucation. As someone who attended Jefferson High School in his youth, he says that he has first-hand knowledge of racial disparities in Portland Public Schools. Low expecta- tions for students of color were prevalent in the district at the time of his attendance and remain for too many people today, he says. I was a student who, quite honestly, very few people be- lieved in,” Poe told the Portland Observer. “They thought that I wouldn’t amount to much.” With his potential untapped, Poe said that his grades faltered at Jefferson. A select few educators, however, understood his capabilities, and he obtained entrance to Oregon State University. “My counselors told me that it was probably for the best if I thought about entering the military,” said Poe. “At that time, there was the war in Vietnam. That didn’t seem like an attractive alternative to me.” After his college admission, Poe went on to earn both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from OSU. He says that despite entering the university with a low grade-point av- erage, his grades flourished once he began his studies at OSU. After working out of state in the private sector, Poe returned to Portland and began a 32-year stretch at Multnomah County, where he was later appointed by then-County Commissioner Ted Wheeler to serve as the c ontinued on p age 4
