Portland faculty board votes to restrict faculty selection

After 43 years of unrestricted faculty selection, a brand new highschool admissions coverage is now in place for Portland Public Faculties.

The Portland Public Faculties Board of Schooling voted 5-2 Tuesday night time to restrict faculty selection. Board members Sarah Brydon and Abusana “Micky” Bondo voted towards the decision.

Portland Excessive Faculty, left, and Deering Excessive Faculty Press Herald workers file images

This yr’s eighth-graders, the Class or 2027, nonetheless will be capable to select between the district’s two largest excessive colleges, but when scholar populations will not be balanced the district will be capable to shuffle college students from one faculty to the opposite with the intention to make the scholar inhabitants sizes extra equal.

The vote got here after hours of debate, two failed amendments and public remark urging the board to not cross the decision.

For many years, Portland’s eighth-graders have been allowed to decide on between attending Portland or Deering excessive colleges, every of which is about as much as enroll round 800 ninth- by Twelfth-graders. College students can also enter a lottery to attend Casco Bay Excessive Faculty, which opened in 2004 and enrolls 400 college students.

However through the years, scholar curiosity in Portland and Deering has shifted backwards and forwards, resulting in oscillating enrollment numbers and diverging demographics. At the moment, Deering is smaller and extra numerous in contrast with Portland. The district says that shifts in scholar populations and demographics have made it difficult to anticipate useful resource and staffing want, and has created competitors between the 2 colleges and hindered collaboration.

However not everyone thinks that limiting faculty selection is the reply. At a college board assembly this month, round a dozen dad and mom and Portland educators stood as much as converse towards the plan, saying they fearful about college students being separated from their mates, that limiting selection would push individuals out of the district and take away company from households, that the decision doesn’t get on the root causes of why college students are selecting sure colleges and that the district ought to spend extra time contemplating this resolution. Extra dad and mom echoed these considerations Tuesday.

Even board members who voted in favor of the decision mentioned they have been involved that it didn’t handle underlying causes of why college students made the choice to attend both Deering or Portland.

Beginning with this yr’s eighth-graders college students will undergo the college selection course of like they’ve for years: eighth-graders serious about Casco Bay will enter the lottery, then those that don’t get in will resolve between Portland or Deering with the remainder of their class. However then, if class sizes will not be balanced, directors can reassign college students from the bigger faculty to the smaller one by coming into college students with out “range elements” right into a lottery.

College students with range elements embody these experiencing homelessness, college students with individualized training plans, college students who qualify totally free and diminished lunch, and English language or multilingual learners.

The district mentioned solely college students with out these elements could be within the lottery as a result of the district goals to heart the wants of numerous college students.

The district is working to make Deering and Portland extra comparable when it comes to day by day schedules and course choices, with the acknowledged purpose of addressing a number of the root causes resulting in the enrollment disparity.

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