Portland Public Schools board approves plan to renovate Jefferson High School

As board members convened at Jefferson High School Tuesday for a board meeting, safety was top of mind for many, including Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero. He opened the meeting with a statement regarding shootings outside of Portland high schools, citing the most recent incident this week at Cleveland High School.

“As gunfire rattles another PPS community, I urge our community to come together and work collectively towards resolving the social problems plaguing our neighborhoods,” Guerrero said.

In addition to the shooting at Cleveland, there have been two recent shootings near Jefferson this fall. Students were injured in all three incidents.

In a statement shared after the board meeting, district officials outlined steps school administrators typically take in response to safety threats. Those steps include locking classroom doors when there’s a threat outside of a school, locking down a school building if there’s a threat inside of a school, and adding campus safety personnel if needed. District officials also said there are plans to add additional interior and exterior cameras across all school campuses using funds from the bonds voters approved in 2020.

But PPS officials were at the North Portland high school Tuesday for another reason: to approve a plan to modernize the high school.

Jefferson modernization plan maintains historic exterior

With Tuesday’s unanimous vote, Jefferson moves ahead as the next school to be modernized and the first to be updated using funds from the 2020 bond. The project now moves into a design and then construction phase.

The newly renovated Lincoln High School opened this fall, and construction is underway at Benson Polytechnic High School, which also includes the district’s Multiple Pathways to Graduation building. Cleveland and Ida B. Wells are up next — as the last high schools in Oregon’s largest district to be overhauled since construction efforts began a decade ago.

Jefferson’s modernization plan is the result of a months-long process. The final plan, one of four options, retains the shell of the campus’ original 1909 building, but architects recommend a full renovation of the inside.

Other new components include a courtyard, a new theater, as well as new performing arts and athletic spaces. The school’s outdoor track and field areas will remain, with a new grandstand and field house to be added.

Officials say the school plan meets education specifications required of comprehensive high schools. Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero noted that the school would have additional space for performing arts, including a 1,000-seat theater, as well as space to support partnerships with nearby Portland Community College, and nonprofits Self Enhancement, Inc., and Latino Network.

“Jefferson High School, as proposed, would be the largest high school campus in our portfolio,” Guerrero said. “The square footage, as listed, would ensure that fine and performing arts will have double the space of a typical high school.”

Construction is set to begin on the project in 2024, with a goal to complete construction by Fall 2028.

Students will remain on campus during construction, as happened most recently with students during the Lincoln High project.

The estimated cost of the project is $366 million. That includes the $311 million originally outlined in the 2020 bond proposal, as well as contingency costs.

PPS Senior Director for the Office of School Modernization Marina Cresswell said the project’s long timeline means costs could change. By the time construction begins in 2024, it will have been five years since initial planning began in 2019.

“That amount of time — you are going to have fluctuation in your pricing with or without a pandemic,” Cresswell said.

“Even during construction, the cost is going to fluctuate.”

Cresswell added that the recent McDaniel project came in under budget, and anticipated the Lincoln renovation may too.

Jefferson High School’s size, safety among concerns going forward

Current enrollment at Jefferson stands at around 600 students, the district’s smallest comprehensive high school. The plan is for the newly modernized Jefferson to serve 1,700 students.

In approving the modernization plan, the board added an amendment to increase enrollment, directing the Superintendent to “initiate a process to develop a plan to increase student enrollment at Jefferson High School.”

Jefferson has a unique dual-enrollment boundary, which allows families of eighth graders in the area a choice. They can either select Jefferson as the neighborhood school they’ll attend, or they can choose one of three other high schools in North or Northeast Portland, depending on where they live.

The initial amendment included more detail about setting boundaries and identifying feeder middle schools, but the language was removed by school board members, out of concern that setting boundaries would negatively impact the school’s majority Black and Latino student population.

Under the amendment, the Superintendent has until the 2026-2027 school year to start the process but a recommendation must be presented to the board by June 2027.

During the public comment period for the Jefferson modernization, safety at Jefferson — the site of two recent school shootings — was a top concern.

“At parent-teacher conferences here, the only thing parents were worried about here at Jefferson was, what are we doing to make this place safe?” said Montral Brazile, a PPS parent and staff member. Brazile mentioned that a temporary police officer has been on-site at Jefferson in response to the recent shootings.

PPS student representative Byronie McMahon, a senior at Cleveland, also talked about gun violence near Portland schools and her experience being in literature class during Monday’s shooting at her school.

“Gun violence is a pervasive American problem and I think that the solutions have already been voiced, and it’s really going to come down to that community partnership and working with the agencies within our communities that also are trying to solve and mitigate the harm and mitigate the likelihood of instances of gun violence,” McMahon said.

Plans underway to support ‘culture of Black excellence’ with new center

Other commenters urged the district to consider minority contractors in the Jefferson project, continue collecting input from community members, hire more teachers of color, and maintain rigor in the school’s academics.

Given Jefferson’s historic connection to Portland’s Black community, district officials have expressed intentions to better support Black students through the Jefferson modernization as well as the district’s new Center for Black Student Excellence.

District officials shared an update on CBSE progress with the board Tuesday, outlining the problem of “underinvestment, systemic racism, lack of coordinated systems of support, and discriminatory practices.” At the same time, officials articulated an opportunity to “redefine the future by advancing a culture of Black excellence; unifying and elevating the Black educational experience; and improving outcomes for Black students.”

Over the next year, a series of groups including a design team, and the Center for Black Excellence Board will collect feedback from community members, hold open houses and present recommendations to the board. The goal is to bring forward a vision, a comprehensive plan, a facilities plan and an operations plan. The district’s Innovation Studio, described as a “problem-solving accelerator,” is leading the process.

“We are aggressively moving through our design process,” said Innovation Studio founding manager Camille Idedevbo.