At its Aug. 20 meeting, the Portland Board of Public Education unanimously approved the appointment of the members of the district’s new Community Advisory Committee on Attendance Boundaries for PreK-8 Schools.

The new Boundaries Committee is tasked with evaluating whether, and how, the district should redraw the enrollment boundaries for some or all of its elementary and middle schools to achieve more equitable enrollment and demographic balance. Also, the committee will consider whether changes should be made to the district’s current middle school model to better reflect current and future enrollment and better promote equity and achievement.

The Board approved a resolution establishing the Boundaries Committee at its June 18 meeting. It determined that the committee would include Board members, PPS staff members, current students or recent alumni and parents and community members.

Board Chair Sarah Lentz said the district received nearly 60 applicants representing different aspects of the community. The Board’s Appointments Committee did a blind review of the applicants (reviewing their applications without knowing their names), and selected 14 to recommend to the full Board to approve. “I feel proud of the list we’re putting forward,” Lentz, who is a member of the Appointments Committee, said at the Aug. 20 meeting. “It’s really encompassing of a lot of areas of our community.”

The 14 new members are:

● Sarah Lentz, Board of Public Education chair and PPS parent

● Usira Ali, Board of Public Education member and Portland High School alum

● Priscila Bitencourt, PPS McKinney-Vento Liaison supporting students experiencing homelessness.

● William Lamb, PPS Transportation Department staff member, union leader, and PPS parent

● Marley Rodriguez, student leader at Deering High School

● Rob Foster, Portland High School alum and PPS parent

● Boyd Marley Boyd, principal of East End Community School

● Marisa Ayala, principal of Lincoln Middle School

● Anny Fenton, PPS parent

● Kate Knox, PPS parent

● Lauren Gauthier, community member and parent of a preschool-age child

● Ariel Linet, community member and parent of a preschool-age child

● Hannah DeAngelis, community member and parent of a preschool-age child

● Damon Yakovleff, PPS parent

Read more about the committee members.

The Boundaries Committee’s first meeting took place on Aug. 22 and the group plans to meet monthly. The committee is slated to update the Board at its Dec. 3 meeting, and present a recommended map of school boundaries to the Board on Feb. 4, 2025.

The last time the district consolidated school boundaries or changed school configurations was during the mid-2000s. Since that time, the district’s demographics and enrollment patterns have changed substantially. At the elementary level today, there are significant differences between schools based on student demographics – in economic status and multilingual status – student performance, class size, and overall enrollment. There are similar variations at the middle school level. In addition, PPS’ middle school staffing and instructional model is based on house teams of 100 students each, but the schools currently are closer to 70 to 80 students per team.

Any adjustments in boundaries will require adjustments in transportation, staffing and resources between schools. These adjustments may result in overall savings or a shift in resources from one school to another.

One of the five priorities of the district’s new strategic plan is “Systems: Streamlining Operations for Equity, Efficacy, and Accountability.”That priority includes an initiative to “design and implement a sustainable multi-year financial model that enables PPS to successfully implement the strategic plan and equitably allocate resources across the district.” The review of preK-8 boundaries and the middle school model by the Boundaries Committee is a part of that initiative. Watch the Board’s Aug. 20 meeting.