Portland Public Schools officials will spend the upcoming school year exploring a couple strategies to boost enrollment at Jefferson High School. It’s currently the district high school with the lowest enrollment: just 459 students.
The move comes shortly after voters approved a $1.83 billion bond presented by PPS in the May election. A substantial portion of those funds are allocated toward school modernizations at Jefferson, Cleveland and Ida B. Wells high schools. Of those three rebuilds, it is Jefferson’s size that raised the most concern among several education economists WW spoke to in March, who cautioned against spending close to half a billion dollars to revamp a school with less than 500 students ( “Too Many High Schools,” WW , March 19 ).
But Jefferson’s supporters say t