Portland Public Schools polls parents about pending budget problems at East Portland meeting

These cuts will affect outer East Portland schools in Lents, Montavilla, and Madison South, as well as schools in other parts of the district …

This Portland Public School District ‘Community Engagement’ meeting gets underway to explain cuts needed for them to close a $50 million budget gap.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

The Portland Public School District (PPS) on January 22nd announced a nearly $50 million budget gap, and then announced several public in-person meetings to get input on their potential solution to that problem. The first of these meetings was held in East Portland, on that same Thursday evening, at Cleveland High School.

“Today, we released our preliminary draft recommendations to close our $50 million budget deficit,” PPS Chief Accountability and Equity Officer Renard Adams told East Portland News before the meeting began in the school’s Library.

Facilitating the meeting is PPS Chief Accountability and Equity Officer Renard Adams.

“Tonight is one of our ‘community engagements’, where we’ve invited community members, parents, and stakeholders to come hear us talk through these preliminary recommendations, and learn more about them,” Adams explained. “And we are also going to gather feedback from people who are attending.

“We hope to find out on what people give us the ‘thumbs up’, ‘thumbs sideways’, or ‘thumbs down’, as we go across the categories of cuts that we’ve released.”

People arrive from across the school district to listen and participate in this meeting.

The fifty attendees heard that the $50 million budget shortfall for the 2026-27 school year was driven by three major factors: Rising costs, blamed on inflation; reduced public funding, including federal pandemic relief funds drying up; and declining enrollment – because fewer students means less state funding.

The proposal recommends a 6% budget reduction across the district, with about $25,700,000 in cuts to the schools, and reductions to Central Office costs by $24,300,000, partly by eliminating 288 positions.

Positions tentatively set for reductions in PPS pared budget include:

97 positions from elementary and K-8 schools
45 positions from middle schools
65 positions from high school and “Multiple Pathways to Graduation” levels
108 positions from central office services

Attendees raise their hands in response to a query.

This will be the fourth budget-cycle shortfall PPS has seen in as many years.

This trend in PPS budget deficits is why David Jones said he attended the meeting. “I think we’ve had declining enrollment for several years, and we’ll be getting less money from the state and federal government for the next few years.

“So, I want to make sure that decisions are being made to reflect the long-term situation, versus a short-term plan – [planning] as if funding next year will bounce back – because I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said.

No help from ‘billion-dollar bond’
In May 2025, Portland voters approved the renewal of $1.83 billion in bonds for PPS; however, those funds are earmarked for building repairs, safety measures, and school modernization – and in the case of Cleveland High School, completely replacing the buildings on-campus. Cleveland High’s students will attend classes in the Lents neighborhood, at the former Marshall High School campus.

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