Page 4
August 8, 2018
Advocating for KairosPDX
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standards in reading or math.
KairosPDX is one of the
schools trying to turn that statistic
around, one student at a time, Pen-
son said.
“Kairos creates a program to
change things and improve out-
comes. And we are doing this.
While our sample size is low, the
early results are very promising.
In some cases, black students at
Kairos are outperforming black
students at other schools in the
districts over four to one,” she
said.
Part of how they achieved the
positive results was by hiring high
quality educators and holding
classes year-round, both proven
techniques of improving learning
outcomes. The school also creates
culturally specific curricula.
Meanwhile, the threat of being
forced to move to another location
seriously throws into question
whether the school can remain
open.
The school asked for a five year
lease from the district back in De-
cember, and in late June, the dis-
trict responded with its own offer
of a one year lease, as well as a
rent increase of over 30 percent,
KairosPDX board member Chris
Nelson testified to the school
Marsha Williams (from left), Zalika Gardner and Kali Thorne-Ladd
are founders of KairoxPDX, a public non-profit charter school
designed specifically to close the achievement gap for minority
students in Portland. Thorne-Ladd is the school’s current executive
director.
board last month.
As a compromise, KairosPDX
is now asking for a two year lease.
Penson said the school has
looked at ‘dozens’ of properties
in the Albina area in the past year,
and even hired a facilities person
to help them do so back in 2016,
but none of the locations met the
criteria to hold their more than
160 students.
“We are fully committed to giv-
ing the district their building back
and our own space. The only thing
we’re asking for is time. Our roots
in this community are essential
and we want to stay here. We are
trying our best to be fair and rea-
sonable; we have tried our best to
partner, I’m left with the conclu-
sion that the district just doesn’t
care about our kids.”
KairosPDX offered to partner
with Portland Public Schools ear-
lier this year to help train teachers
to be equity-focused, which the
district did not respond to, Penson
said.
The school previously received
a grant to train district teachers,
which they did, to high evalua-
tions, in its first year of operation.
Penson added that the main
mission the four founders of the
school committed to when they
started it was to close the achieve-
ment gap for underserved, minori-
ty students.
“We’re on track. We’re making
good on ours. So now it feels like
PPS gets to toot that horn. We’re
an asset. And so that’s why I’m re-
ally confused,” she said.
Upon reaching out to the dis-
trict, Portland Public Schools
cited a deficit of facilities district
wide, as well as the subsequent
obligation to provide additional
space to students at other schools
all over Portland as the main rea-
son for their offering.
“PPS appreciates the import-
ant work Kairos does as a charter
school for our community in ed-
ucating students who historically
have been underserved. We look
forward to finalizing a new one-
year lease agreement in support of
this work as our district works to
address a significant shortage of
space to serve all of the students
in our district,” a message from
the district reads.
Then-school board chair Julia
Brim-Edwards echoed a similar
sentiment following testimony
from KairosPDX spokespersons,
including Penson, at a school
board meeting last month.
“We don’t have extra space and
charter schools have an obligation
to find their own facility and we
believe that offering a one year
lease is a very fair thing to do and
are willing to enter into it. But we
also have....our board has a fidu-
ciary responsibility to PPS stu-
dents and we have a severe facili-
ties need and we’ve tried to offer a
lease with terms that are both fair
to Kairos but also fair to the rest
of the students at PPS,” Brim-Ed-
wards said.
KairosPDX staff will next testi-
fy to the school board on Tuesday,
Aug. 28.