Like many eighth graders, Lola thinks a lot about high school. An avid dancer, she’s leaning toward enrolling at Jefferson High School in North Portland, a school known for its strong dance program. She has pored over the curriculum, emailed the school’s artistic director, and was so excited about a field trip to the school everybody calls “Jeff” that she could hardly sleep.

And yet.

“She’s torn,” says her mom, Kristen Jessie-Uyanik. “She wants to go to Jefferson, but she is under the impression, and she’s probably not far off or wrong, that she is the only one [who wants to go] among the people she knows best.”

Jessie-Uyanik is white and lives in the Sabin neighborhood in Northeast Portland. Lola’s friends are likely all going to Grant High School. Since its rebuild and reopening in fa

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