What’s happening: 

Portland Public Schools (PPS) is restructuring the Southeast boundaries. Clark School, the building that houses the focus-option Creative Science School (CSS), is reverting to a neighborhood elementary school. PPS is proposing two options to relocate CSS. In Proposal A, Woodstock Elementary School would become CSS. Existing Woodstock students would go to other neighborhood schools. In Proposal B, Arleta School would become CSS. 170 of Arleta’s current students would be sent to other schools. Questions surrounding staffing the new school have not yet been answered, but the Arleta staff will likely be largely replaced by CSS staff. Arleta’s PTA, clubs, special programs, curriculum, and culture would no longer exist, instead being replaced by CSS programs and organizations. 

Read the proposals here: 
https://www.pps.net/enrollmentbalancing

The Arleta PTA is against both proposals, but especially losing our neighborhood school community to a focus-option school. Arleta, unlike Woodstock or CSS, is considered a historically underserved school. The Arleta PTA has worked hard to build community, serve our students and teachers, and elevate the voices of our Black, Indigenous, and families of color; Proposal B will wipe out all that work. Arleta School is more than a building, and we do not want to lose the community we have worked to build.

What can you do?

Sign this petition to show our opposition to giving our cherished neighborhood school to CSS! Visit ArletaPTA.org for more action items, for upcoming meetings, and for ongoing information. 

Read the letters Arleta PTA and our Inclusion Committee wrote to PPS, opposing the proposals: HERE and HERE

United We Stand,

Arleta PTA

P.S. Please do not feel obliged to make a financial contribution if invited to do so. That is not ArletaPTA asking, it is change.org. Thank you.