New Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong shares priorities for school year, cellphones on campus and other issues

Roughly half a million students across the state will begin the new school year in the coming weeks, including tens of thousands in Portland Public Schools this coming Tuesday and Wednesday.

Oregon’s largest school district is coming off a tough past year, which included a historic teachers strike lasting nearly the entire month of November, severe weather storms that substantially damaged some school buildings and a $30 million budget deficit that led to major cuts.

And now, a new leader is at the helm.

Kimberlee Armstrong began her career as a teacher in the Puyallup School District in Washington and most recently served as deputy superintendent of Evergreen Public Schools in Vancouver. PPS school board members unanimously approved the Portland parent as the district’s new superintendent in June.

As she heads into her first year as superintendent, OPB’s “Think Out Loud” guest host Geoff Norcross talked with Armstrong about her vision for the district and the challenges it faces.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Norcross: You previously worked in PPS and your children went to school in this district. Why was it important for you to come back and lead here?

Armstrong: “When you think of the opportunity in Portland right now to [raise] schools to the level that they need to be, to be able to put resources in the classrooms and to build an educational system that a city, the state, can be proud of — it was an opportunity that I didn’t want to pass.

I think I see myself in the students of Portland from all across the city … I grew up spending some time in homeless shelters, transition centers, free and reduced lunch was definitely a part of my life as we were a family impacted by poverty. And there are parts of our system, parts of our city, where I see that same concern or issues that are preventing a lot of students from accessing high-quality instruction in the classroom.

Norcross: You were a chief academic officer in the PPS previously. Was there something in the district that you thought, ‘We could do this differently,’ and that now you can do something about as the superintendent?

Armstrong: “I think one of the things that we could do a whole lot better, and I was excited to have this start in my leadership, actually, it’s already started, is to get out in the field and listen to the stories of our teachers. I’m so excited to build a relationship with our labor partners and to be united in the cause of high-quality education.”

Norcross: You mentioned your labor partners, and that brings up the strike. It was last year; it took up 11 instructional days. How do you plan to build trust between the teachers in the district and the administration?

Armstrong: “I will say that anytime there’s a loss of instructional time, it’s impactful. And I think that there are some beliefs that the impact was only [on] students and families. I think there was an impact [on] teachers as well. And I think rebuilding trust takes those deliberate actions over time. Like, I don’t want to just show up in classrooms and say, ‘Let’s start the trust and the relationship here.’

I want that to be demonstrated in the way that I show up and the actions that I take over the course of this year that show that I am about teaching and learning, that I support the work that’s happening in the classroom — and that I’m using my resources to support their learning.”

Norcross: What is your sense of where things stand in Salem on school funding?

Armstrong: “I am excited that our governor is in the conversations about raising the current service levels, and I think those conversations are progressing. I know superintendents around the state were meeting and collaborating and putting together an action plan to continue to focus on funding the work that needs to happen in schools. We also have facilities and other high areas of need where we need to continue to not just count on our legislators, but also our voters, to help us prepare environments for students that maximize learning.”

Norcross: The district is working on a policy to severely limit mobile phones on school campuses, with a policy likely taking effect in 2025. Where do you stand on this issue as a parent and as an administrator?

Armstrong: “I do know that cell phones are distractions. I think all electronic devices that are constantly alerting you to messages or videos or any other things out there … it is a distraction. … Any opportunity that we can get to protect our learning environment and to make sure that it’s a place where students are focused on learning is a good move.

Now, there [are] lots of conversations that we want to have around it, right? The reason why we’re not rushing into a policy right now is that we want to have the opportunity to hear from students, to hear from families and make sure that we get the move right, whatever it is that we decide to do.

I will mention, though, that schools right now have the option of implementing an ‘off and away’ expectation, where cell phones are … turned off, put away and not brought out. So, teachers and administrators don’t necessarily need to wait for a policy to begin to remove those distractions. But we do believe that if there is [school] board support and language through policy, I think it will help those conversations.”

Norcross: What are your goals for this first year?

Armstrong: “The first one, of course, is … the reestablishment of trust, and I think there’s the building of the trust for the first time. You know, oftentimes, we have these conversations, and we assume that, you know, trust was there to begin with. We know that we have experienced families and staff in our system who never really had the trust and faith in our system.

Second, is really focusing a conversation on safe and clean learning environments. That speaks to repair, that speaks to safety, that speaks to all those things that are in the environment of students.

Literacy is a huge goal. You know, I want to lift literacy and do a robust campaign that builds in our community and our partners to talk about what it means to build scholars while focused on literacy.”

You can listen to “Think Out Loud” guest host Geoff Norcross’ full conversation with PPS Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong here: