April 25, 2018
The
Page 3
INSIDE
Week in Review
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
This page
Sponsored by:
page 2
King Elementary School parents are calling out the school district over plans to reduce staffing at the
school and say the proposal goes against the district’s own equity goals.
pages 7-11
Staffing Plans Upend King
Diverse school
faces huge cuts;
parents upset
d anny p eterson
t he p ortland o bserver
Parents at Martin Luther King
Jr. Elementary School, one of the
most diverse and historic public
schools in the heart of Portland’s
African-American
community,
are upset over proposed staffing
cuts for the upcoming school year.
Amid the 50th anniversary of
the school’s renaming last week
were celebrations of its historic
past and uneasiness for school’s
future.
Leaders of the King Parent
Teachers Association say the
school district’s recently an-
nounced plans to cut teaching, ad-
ministrative and other staff posi-
tions at King as it transitions next
school year from a K-8 program
by
M ETRO
page 9
to K-5, are too extreme and go
against the district’s own equity
goals. In addition, they say a long
term failure to draw more students
to King by expanding boundar-
ies over the long haul means the
northeast Portland school will fall
behind other schools and get short
changed again and again.
Eight full time equivalent po-
sitions—which could include a
number of part-time staff whose
hours add up together to be full-
time--are anticipated to be cut at
King which may include teach-
ers for English language learners
and special education, the school
psychologist, and Vice Principal
Yolanda Coleman, the PTA said.
Located at 4906 N.E. Sixth
Ave., King is one of eight K-8
schools that is converting to a K-5
school next year. Those conver-
sions, along with the opening of
two new middle schools and oth-
er changes have caused project-
ed staffing levels district-wide to
change.
A detailed report of each
school’s expectant enrollment
changes and subsequent funding
changes was released last Tuesday
by the school district, along with
a set of equity-based goals for the
changes, one of which is to “en-
sure schools have adequate staff-
ing to maintain reasonable class
sizes.”
Martin Luther King’s enroll-
ment is expected to drop by 21
percent along with a staff cut
equivalent to eight full-time po-
sitions, the report said, leaving
an anticipated student-to-teach-
er ratio of about 10 to 1 for next
school year. But those projections
explode to about 30 to 1 when you
remove special programs at King,
school officials said.
The school houses both a Man-
darin language immersion pro-
gram, enrolled via a lottery, and
c ontinued on p aGe 6
Condemnation of Bigotry Defended
O PINION
C LASSIFIEDS
C ALENDAR
pages 12-13
pages 14
page 15
The Oregon State Bar is stand-
ing by statements condemning the
rise of speech that incites racism
and violence even as it is poised
to give partial refunds of dues to
some of its members who were
upset by an adjoining statement
criticizing President Trump.
The two statements appeared
side by side in the lawyer group’s
recent news bulletin. One con-
demned the rise of hate groups, cit-
ing the white nationalist march in
Charlottesville, Va. last August and
the fatal Portland Max train stab-
bing in May. The second statement
went a step further and criticized
President Trump, saying he has
“catered to this white nationalist
movement, allowing it to make up
the base of his support and provid-
ing it a false sense of legitimacy.”
A Republican bar member
complained saying the statements
were too political, particularly the
second one, and in violation of
federal laws that prohibit partisan
actvities in state bar associations
that require mandatory participa-
tion for practicing attorneys.
A state bar spokesman said the
criticism of Trump was not meant
as the view of the group as a
whole and said its placement next
to the first statement was “ill-ad-
vised and confusing.”