It’s a long way from North Portland to Washington, D.C., but Dana Nerenberg never forgot why she was there: to represent her students.

Nerenberg is the principal of Sitton Elementary, and last school year she had the honor of being chosen as a School Ambassador Fellow. The Department of Education program brings together public school teachers and principals from around the country to learn about and have their say in the federal policy-making process. 

Pick up your gardening gloves, shears and paint brush and head over to your neighborhood school this Saturday for PPS’s annual cleanup celebration.

Students, parents, staff and community volunteers are invited to take part in Project Community Care day from 9 a.m.-noon, Aug. 26. Join the cleaning party and support local schools with projects like weeding, pruning, planting, pressure washing and painting. 

All students who were receiving free or reduced-price meal benefits at the end of last year must complete a NEW meal application for the 2017-18 school year. Students who have not submitted a new application will be required to pay full price starting Thursday, October 12th.

Applications are available at your school office, cafeteria and online at www.pps.net/nutrition.

If your child attends a Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) school, you do NOT need to submit a free or reduced-price meal application. All students at CEP schools do not pay for school meals. The CEP schools are: Alliance @ Meek, Boise Eliot/Humboldt, Cesar Chavez, George MS, Harrison Park, King, Lent, Pioneer @ Youngson, Rigler, Rosa Parks, Scott, Sitton and Woodmere.

The Portland School Board on Friday unanimously voted to hire Guadalupe Guerrero to lead Portland Public Schools as its next superintendent.

Guerrero, now a deputy superintendent in San Francisco Unified School District, has dedicated himself to ensuring that all students – especially those traditionally underserved – have access to a well-rounded education that sparks learning and success in school.

After talking to the incoming Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero about the Whitehurst story, we agree that there are many unanswered questions about how the school district handled the case that need to be addressed so that going forward our students are safe in their schools. As a parent, this is not at all how I would expect the school district to investigate and address student concerns about a district employee. The student reports about Whitehurst’s behavior are horrifying and deeply troubling. 

I have talked to Board Vice Chairs Julie Esparza Brown and Rita Moore about the case. We are troubled by how student complaints were handled, and there is also a lack of documentation and appropriate follow up in many cases. For these reasons, we plan to bring in an outside investigator to review the facts of the case and provide recommendations to the Board and Superintendent. We feel strongly that this case requires an independent and thorough evaluation.

In too many cases, the school district complaint policy has not served our students and the new School Board is committed to fixing it so that students and families can raise issues and have them addressed in a timely and responsive manner. At the last School Board meeting, we referred a draft complaint policy and administrative rules to a Board Task Force that I am chairing.  We will work with parents, staff and the broader community to build a functional complaint policy and process that is responsive to our students and school community.   In addition, the Board strongly supports prioritizing the hiring of a Title IX coordinator to track and address complaints and have communicated that to the current school district leadership.    

Julia Brim-Edwards, chair PPS Board