Portland Public Schools announces 200 jobs cut as district grapples with $30M shortfall

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — After getting wind of Portland Public Schools cutting jobs, a line of educators organized a sit-down outside of district headquarters Wednesday.

They chanted, “Libraries are needed here.”

Folks spoke out against cuts to positions like assistant librarians.

“Students won’t have as much access to books because there won’t be anybody in there to be able to check out books to them,” said Catherin Tucker, a teacher librarian.

The district announced they’re cutting about 200 full-time employee positions — about half from the district, and half from the schools.

The Portland Association of Teachers has been very vocal in claiming that PPS doesn’t make enough cuts from the central office, so we asked them where they suggest the district make cuts now.

“I think that they really need to look at how they’re spending their funds, and they have a lot of outside contracts that they spend money on. They spend a lot of money on top administrative positions that seem unnecessary,” said Tucker.

Positions being cut include physical education instructors for students with special needs.

“They’re going to continue to have four teachers, and they’re going to take four of us away,” said Adam Hamler, adaptive PE specialist.

Hamler says he’s likely losing his job. He hopes something will change by showing the district all that they do for students.

Interim Superintendent Sandy Husk explained at Wednesday’s board meeting how they decided what cuts to make.

“So two of our guiding principles are that we are trying to minimize impact to students. I want to emphasize the try because I know this is going to have an impact on students and an impact on educators,” said Husk.

The district says inflation, declining enrollment, insufficient funding, and the loss of COVID dollars are all reasons they had to make these cuts in the first place.

“The proposed budget does propose to use $41.5 million of reserves,” said board member Patte Sullivan.

The board says they’re using reserves so that they wouldn’t have to make even more cuts to positions.