Dear PPS Families and Students,

We are pleased to share that more than 6,500 PPS staff have reported being fully vaccinated. As the first K-12 school district in the state of Oregon to announce vaccine requirements for all staff, we know the importance of everyone doing their part to end this pandemic by getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Dear PPS Community,

Thanks to your feedback, we continue to make refinements to our COVID-19 Dashboard, making it even easier for PPS families to see the latest reports of students or staff who have been asked to isolate or quarantine.

Dear PPS Families,

Last week we shared with you a short survey that will help us know how many of our students (ages 12 and older) are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and/or desire to quickly access the vaccine for younger students  (age 5 to 11, once approved). As of Thursday morning (September 23) , more than 23% of students have completed the survey, with 94% reporting that they were fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Dear PPS families,

As students need to quarantine and/or isolate due to a potential COVID-19 exposure, we want to provide you and your student with clarity on the guidance and the resources we are making available to teachers, schools and your family so that your student can continue learning from home if it is required.

Dear PPS Families and Students,

Thank you, again, for your patience as we work through the bus driver shortage. Please know our team is exploring every option, big and small, to provide the best possible service to our students and families during this challenging time.

Dear PPS families, students and staff,

Beginning next week, families will receive a consent form to opt-in to participate in our free COVID-19 screening testing program, which is a partnership between the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) and PPS. Screening testing provides early detection of COVID-19, even when individuals have no apparent COVID-19-like symptoms. 

Dear PPS Families and Students,

We share your concern about the continuing transmission of COVID-19 in our community and remain deeply committed to keeping our students, families, staff, and community healthy and safe. Portland Public Schools plays a critical role as a partner to county and state health authorities in limiting the spread of COVID-19 in our community. We take seriously our responsibility to monitor and communicate every on-site COVID case we become aware of, so that we too can do our part to limit the spread of the virus by asking students and adults to isolate and/or quarantine^[1] from others.

Tomorrow (September 16), families will receive a brief survey (5-10 minutes) about your students and the COVID-19 vaccination.

In short, we’d like to determine how many of our students (ages 12 and older) are fully vaccinated against the virus and as we anxiously await approval for the COVID-19 vaccine for younger students (age 5 to 11), we’d like to plan for targeted outreach for families to quickly access the vaccine. The information you share will help us prioritize vaccine access and outreach to schools this fall.

Dear Families, Students and Colleagues,

Today begins Latino Heritage Month, an annual opportunity to celebrate and recognize the power of our multiracial Latinx community—past, present and future.

We wanted to remind you of the special Grand Opening Ceremony of the fully remodeled McDaniel High School on Saturday, September 18 at 11:00 a.m. at the front of the school (2735 NE 82nd Ave.). The ceremony will be followed by tours of the new campus.

Dr. Renard Adams, an accomplished educational leader with a history of using data to drive school support and district improvement, will join Portland Public Schools as Chief of Research, Assessment, & Accountability, Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero announced this week.

Dear PPS Students, Families and Staff,

With our ongoing commitment to keeping you informed, we have built an improved and more informative COVID-19 Monitoring Dashboard.

Portland Public Schools has been hit hard by the shortage of bus drivers that is impacting schools and districts all over the United States.

Dear PPS Families,

As many of you know, we are experiencing an ongoing shortage of licensed bus drivers in Portland Public Schools. As a result, we have had, and will continue to have, some routes that have had to be canceled and others that have seen pick-up or drop-off times altered. 

Through the generous support of voters and the passing of the 2020 School Bond, Portland Public Schools (PPS) was able to secure $53+ million dollars in funding to support the purchase and implementation of new curricular and instructional resources. This has enabled PPS to undergo an adoption process, in which our instructional resources will be evaluated and, if deemed necessary, will be replaced, updated and/or added. We have four years to complete this work and have already begun with some of our core content areas. Please see this newsletter for additional information on the current adoption happenings. 

Dear PPS Families,

You are receiving this message because your student’s school will have part of its bus schedule affected by the statewide shortage of school bus drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dear PPS Community,

We made it! After a year and a half since our schools closed for full in-person learning, our classrooms were once again joyful centers of learning.