"Every single day affords us opportunities to inspire our students. Once a student has that 'aha' moment, a light goes on and a hunger for learning takes hold. 

"We as a community must foster and promote a collective vision for public education so that every student -- regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic situation, special need or ability -- has access and opportunity to kindle his or her unique spark, and to build the knowledge and skills to achieve their goals.

"We owe our students this."

 -- Guadalupe Guerrero, Superintendent, Portland Public Schools

Portland Public Schools is committed to academic excellence and personal success for all students. Central to this commitment is racial equity and social justice. We intend to continue the cultural transformation of Portland Public Schools -- the changes in policy, people, and practice necessary to create a culturally responsive organization that ensures the success of every student by name. This work is necessary to prepare every student to navigate and compete in a culturally rich society and global economy.

In 2011, PPS adopted a Racial Educational Equity Policy which called out pernicious disparities in our schools and identified the district’s role in eliminating them. Since then, PPS embarked on a five-year plan that resulted in several achievements. But there is still work to do. Under the leadership of Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero, PPS will embark on an inclusive planning process to surface high leverage opportunities to build on this important work into our three-year road map for Racial Equity and Social Justice. We are reapplying our efforts to these goals will draft plans to continue our journey to result in better outcomes for students of color and all students at PPS.

In alignment and coordination with the vision, strategic planning and budget processes, we will examine where we stand as a district and develop an updated plan to identify opportunities, priorities and updated goals.

We recognize that efforts from the prior five years have resulted in significant personal growth for administrators, teachers, students and families. Our next challenge is to transform our collective culture so that we are prepared to build equitable systems.

Our aim is to work to evolve PPS Equity and Social Justice practices to a comprehensive, defined framework with clear system-wide equity and social justice actions and measurable results that lead to improved outcomes for all students.

See: Racial Equity & Social Justice presentation to the PPS Board on Oct. 29, 2019: