Enrollment Balancing in North and Northeast Portland Shows the Consequences of Overbuilding High School Capacity

At the root of the debate over boosting Jefferson High School’s enrollment lies a math problem.

Portland Public Schools’ enrollment projections don’t justify modernizing all nine of its high schools. But the school district has now passed bonds to do just that, and plans to scale Jefferson back up to a comprehensive high school—meaning it will provide students with multiple paths to graduation, including an array of Advanced Placement courses and electives.

Doing so requires increasing the school’s student body, which this year hovered at 391. But it’s hard to do that while ensuring that the student body of each high school stays above 1,100 by 2030–31, which district officials say is necessary to justify comprehensive programming. In one of the final three enrollment scenarios PPS prese