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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