The Fight Continues as PPS Faces Near Daily New Controversies and Crises

Greetings!

I wanted to post an update to keep everyone in the loop that supports the preservation, renovation and expansion of Cleveland High School in SE Portland. Since our last communication the following has occurred:

1. The City of Portland has issued the demolition permit to destroy every single structure on the main Cleveland High School campus, including EVERY bit of the National Register of Historic Places and Portland City Landmark-eligible original historic school building. This permit is not appealable and is automatically issued.
2. Portland Public Schools, including the Board of Education as well as Superintendent Armstrong continue to refuse to answer questions or make any public statements about how the public design process for Cleveland failed and how the public was misled, despite all parties being presented with compelling evidence months ago that the process was biased and non-transparent and critical information was withheld from the public. 
3. The project architect, Mahlum Architects, has not been able to deliver a finished design plan for the school, indicating that there may be rough seas ahead for this project and likely the public may not be pleased with the design initially submitted.
4. PPS is out of compliance with ORS 358.653, the state law that demands that public agencies mitigate the loss of historic structures by submitting to the State Historic Preservation Office specific plans on how they propose to do just that. As of Friday of this past week, PPS has submitted nothing to the state. While the fact remains that the only way to mitigate the loss of this historic school is to NOT demolish it (and instead renovate, restore and expand it), non-compliance this late in the process is a concerning sign. 
5. PPS continues to face near weekly financial and public confidence crises, including reducing instructional days, furloughing staff, deciding which schools it must close due to declining enrollment, hiring an out of state firm in a 61 million dollar contract to manage the modernization program and that firm providing a job to the Superintendent's daughter. 
6. PPS faces these challenges while simultaneously planning on needlessly demolishing a school their own consultants said was among the best examples of intact historic architecture in the district and is a good candidate for renovation, restoration and expansion-and asking the public to pay nearly 500 million dollars for the privilege.
7. PPS has no idea which of the perhaps 5-12 schools they will need to close in the future including schools that may be feeder schools to Cleveland. The optics of demolishing Cleveland while simultaneously closing schools will be potentially devastating to PPS.

While I empathize with PPS and the complexity and challenges of operating a major school district, the public simply cannot and should not have to stand for this type of conduct. Transparency, accountability and responsibility are the hallmarks of good public policy, and we have stayed far from that with regard to this project. PPS risks further eroding public trust if they continue to blindly push this project forward. 

What You Can Do:

Please continue to reach out to PPS Superintendent Armstrong at karmstrong@pps.net as well as members of the School Board at schoolboard@pps.net and encourage them to pause the demolition of Cleveland High School and return to the design process-and this time FULLY DISCLOSE the information that was denied to members of the public initially.

Please forward this petition to your friends and neighbors and consider posting it on your social media. 

Please consider reaching out to your elected leaders who thus far, have remained remarkably silent regarding this project. 

Thank you! Together we will continue to fight to ensure that the students of Cleveland High School have a wonderful campus that they can be proud of-not a set of anonymous shoeboxes borne from a process that was anything but transparent or equitable.