The following letter was distributed by King PTA members to Humboldt parents this morning at Humboldt School.  The proposed closure of Humboldt is being executed prior to the decision being voted on.  PPS has given Humboldt families until today to transfer to another school rather than be merged with Boise-Eliot. This option to transfer is not being openly offered to Humboldt parents however.

“Together It Takes a Village”

April 15, 2012

Dear Humboldt School Parents, Guardians and Community Members:

On behalf of the King School community of parents and community members, we would like to reach out and extend our support to all of you at this very frustrating and unsettling time. Portland Public Schools’ recommendation to close your school and consolidate your student body with Boise-Eliot appears to be more of an already made decision rather than a mere recommendation.

Since King School is in close proximity and is a neighboring school to Humboldt, this pending recommendation heightens the awareness and reinforces the concerns our school community has had with Portland Public Schools. These concerns and accountability of how neighborhood boundary decisions are made by PPS has been an issue that we have tried to be proactive about in regards to obtaining answers from PPS.

The recommendation to consolidate your students with Boise-Eliot doesn’t make sense when your school is closer to King School which has more capacity and larger facilities. In an on-line April 5, 2012 PPS website article, Judy Brennan, who oversees PPS enrollment and transfers, said: “the district uses a variety of factors, including transportation and facility size, when deciding how to shift students. For example, King PK-8 School is close to Humboldt but across from Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a major road, making Boise-Eliot a better choice.” Also, in the April 2, 2012 PPS Budget Message, Superintendent, Carole Smith, stated to the PPS Board of Education that “Staff will be talking to students and their families from both Humboldt and the Young Women’s Leadership Academy about choices for next year. We will work to provide ways for students to have an option to stay together with their current classmates, as well as the possibility of attending their neighborhood school.”
As such, did you all, as parents, have any input on what neighborhood school would be best for your student? Many of you expressed during the Thursday, April 12th public comment meeting that the majority of you take pleasure and appreciation in being able to walk your student(s) to school. Sending them, now, to Boise-Eliot would remove that as an option for many, as well as destroy the sense of community that you all have worked hard in building for yourselves and for your children. In addition to that, many of you also expressed confusion and uncertainty of what options and deadlines you have in regards to what school may be best for your child, should you not agree with sending them to Boise-Eliot.

With that said, the King School community shares in your idea of creating a strong community, as well as being invested and committed to the excellence of your child’s academic achievement. Over the past three years, we have labored to create a strong foundation at King School that supports, not only academic achievement amongst our students but also, a well-rounded educational and learning experience for our students. We are achieving this through solid leadership, direction and advocacy from our Principal, Kim Patterson, becoming an International Baccalaureate school (which supports a holistic way of teaching and learning), establishing community partnerships that support our programming and student enrichment (SEI, Ethos Music Center, Wordstock, Playworks, SUN and Literary Arts), having strong parent involvement and leadership, as well as being fortunate to have resources through a three year, 5.5 million dollar School Improvement Grant.

We are seeing the fruits of our labor and would welcome your students and families to join our school and parent community with open arms. So please know that King School is an option for you and there’s plenty of room. Having your community energy, passion, commitment and dedication to your neighborhood school would be a cherished asset to what we have established. Not only would it, together, create a larger student body but, it would also reinforce a stronger core program and community. We realize and understand that as Humboldt and Young Women’s Leadership Academy are being considered for closure, PPS’s actions show a lack of regard for north and northeast Schools, specifically as it relates to high minority populated and lower-income schools. Therefore, none of us are exempt from experiencing these hasty decisions made by Portland Public Schools.

If you are interested in remaining in your neighborhood school zone and would like to consider King School as an option/choice, receive more information or tour/visit our school community, please contact us at 503.916.6456 or email info@kingpta.org. Also, note that you may have been told that you have a deadline to make a transfer choice by Friday, April 13th or by Monday, April 16th. If that is the case, and you are interested in transferring to King School, you can contact Judy Brennan, Director of Enrollment and Transfer, at 503.916.3205 or jbrennan@pps.net and she will see that you get into King School. Again, we are ready and prepared to receive you so there should be no problems with getting in!!

Let’s use this opportunity to take a stance together against our bully of a system. Our motto at King School is “Together It Takes a Village”. At this time, this statement is true more than ever so let’s join hands and efforts in reflecting that.

Sincerely,
King School PTA