Portland Public Schools

Students representing each class from the nine PPS high schools met at Cleveland High School on Dec. 1 for district-wide Student Council Summit coordinated by student Board member, Nick Paesler.

Topics of discussion among the more than 60 students included racial equity, advisory collaboration, school resource officers, leadership and networking.  Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero, as well as Board of Education members Paul Anthony, Scott Bailey, Rita Moore and Mike Rosen, were also in attendance participated in the sessions. 

The afternoon session was dedicated to the district’s Visioning initiative and involved a series of thought-provoking exercises for students to share their ideas about the future of education at Portland Public Schools. What will learning be like in the year 2030?  What skills will be necessary for students to have? How will technology change? 

The School Resource Officer breakout session was attended by Portland Police Bureau Captain Tasia Hager, who oversees the Youth Services Division that serves Portland's approximately 200 schools in seven school districts with nearly 100,000 students. 

Captain Hager held a question-and-answer session with students and shared that there were more than 5,000 school-to-police-bureau calls last year. Of those calls, 500 were crime related, and 13 arrests were made. The remainder of the calls were handled by the principal. 

During the nearly 90-minute conversation, students were given an overview of the intergovernmental agreement  between PPS and the Portland Police Bureau that is currently in review.  When asked if students know their SRO, only one student knew the officer’s name, another student said he didn’t know what a SRO is, and others stated they had not been introduced to their officers.  

Captain Hager commented, “One of the challenges is because the bureau is so short staffed -- they often call on SROs to work on patrol, leaving an SRO in schools for only three days a week. It is a goal to change that and this agreement would change that.”

There will be a student-led session to discuss school resource officers On Thursday, Dec. 6 from 3-5 p.m. in the Board auditorium located at 501 N. Dixon St. All high School principals sent out notices to students last Friday, encouraging them to attend.

See a full set of photos from the conference

-Cameron Vaughan