This Week in PPS #4: update

October 5, 2009 12:01 am by Steve Rawley

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This week in PPS, the school board and community get their first chance to really dig  in to high school redesign, and the PPS Parent Union kicks off.

But first, a review of last week’s news.

• On PPS Equity.org, Parent Polly Zagone tells more of the story that Beth Slovic introduced in Willamette Week September 23. Zagone complains that her son, who was given a modified diploma, was denied the basic education the state requires local school districts to provide. Zagone lists the eleven so-far-unanswered questions to the district, beginning with: Is Pioneer a school? If not, what school did my son graduate from?
• The Lincoln High football coach discipline situation has been resolved, but the football program is left hanging. Portland Public Schools has fired head coach Chad Carlson, who refused to step down. Two assistants stepped down, and can coach next year.  A fourth coach was suspended for three weeks.
• In The Oregonian, Kim Melton writes about the dearth of environmental education in Green Portland. This as the North American Association for Environmental Education prepares for its annual conference and symposium in Portland Tuesday through Friday this week.

This week in PPS:

• The school board will begin to dig deeply into the high school redesign at their regular board meeting tonight. According to senior staff and board members, it is becoming more clear which specific issues — such as the nature of  modifications of the transfer policy — will be directly addressed and decided by the board, and which will be left largely to staff. The board meets at 7 p.m. at BESC, 501 N. Dixon St., and is aired live on Comcast channel 28 in Portland and rebroadcast through the week.
• Kevin Carroll is the featured speaker at An Evening With the Black Parent Initiative, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday the eighth at Cha Taqueria, 305 NW 21st.
• On Friday, the PPS Parent Union holds a kick-off press conference and rally at the Mallory Avenue Community Enrichment Center, 126 NE Alberta. The Parent Union is also holding a Parent Information Gathering Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Blvd.
• Corrected information: Portland Public Schools holds the first of two all-day meetings this week on high school reconfiguration, getting down to nuts and bolts about the size and number of neighborhood schools that will remain. The meeting is Friday the ninth from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Marshall High School in southeast Portland. The second meeting is Saturday, October 17 at Rosa Parks Elementary in north Portland, also 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (The original version of this report listed the second meeting as October 10, not October 17. We regret the error.)

Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.

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