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Discipline and Behavior Reporting
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Physical Restraint and Seclusion Data Reporting
In 2011 the Oregon Legislature passed a physical restraint and seclusion bill (HB 2939) that formalized existing state requirements and added significant additional reporting requirements. In 2012, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) updated the state regulations on physical restraint and seclusion and PPS updated its administrative directive (AD) on the use of physical restraint and seclusion to comply with the new requirements.
Oregon law requires that “[e]ach entity that has jurisdiction over a public education program must prepare an annual report detailing the use of physical restraint and seclusion for the preceding school year . . .” The summaries immediately below are available to satisfy this requirement. For further information about reporting requirements or the Oregon Administrative Rules governing physical restraint and seclusion, please visit: https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/displayDivisionRules.action?selectedDivision=2562 (for reporting requirements scroll to 581-021-0559 Reporting Requirements for the Use of Physical Restraint & Seclusion)
Click here to view the PPS Administrative Directive on Restraints and Seclusion
Physical Restraint and Seclusion Summaries
2019-20 2018-19 2017-18 2016-17 2015-16 2014-15 2013-14 2012-13 2011-12 2010-11
Discipline Referral Reports
The following reports include three years of discipline referral data for Portland Public Schools. For purposes of these reports, "referral" means only those office discipline referrals that resulted in an expulsion or out-of-school suspension. The first set of reports listed below (Discipline Referrals by Outcome) also report in-school suspensions and special education removals (these latter two categories are not included in the Discipline Referrals by Ethnicity or Relative Rate reports). Low level interventions and delayed expulsions are not included in any of these reports. To help protect student confidentiality and to mitigate misinterpretation of some results, results are suppressed for ethnic groups with fewer than 10 students enrolled.
Major Discipline Referrals by Outcome* (WE ALONG WITH OTHER GROUPS PUSHED ODE to Report Discipline Disparities)
2018-19 2017-18 2016-17 2015-16 2014-15 2013-14 2012-13 2011-12 2010-11 2009-10 2008-09 2007-08
Major Discipline Referrals by Race/Ethnicity*
2018-19 2017-18 2016-17 2015-16 2014-15 2013-14 2012-13 2011-12 2010-11 2009-10 2008-09 2007-08
*2019-20 and 2020-21 Reports are not available due to comprehensive distant learning, as the data are not comparable to prior years.
Relative Rate of Major Discipline Referrals by Race/Ethnicity.
The relative rate is a comparison of the rate of major discipline referrals for each non-White student group compared to the rate for White students. For example, if Hispanic students have a relative rate of 2.3, that means that group of students was 2.3 times more likely to have a discipline referral resulting in an expulsion or out-of-school suspension than White students in that school. This reports reflects unduplicated counts of students. Individual students with multiple referrals are counted only one once as an individual.
Interpret results with caution: Because rates of referrals are very sensitive to the number of students enrolled in ethnic groups, any change in referrals where there are a small number of students in a group will show up as a large change in the referral rate (for example, in a group of 10 students, one student accounts for 10% of the rate). For this reason, results are suppressed for groups with fewer than 10 enrolled students. Even with groups of 10 to 30 students, caution should be used with the results in this report, especially in interpreting the relative rates. We encourage the user of these reports to reference the school enrollment reports to get a sense of the numbers of students in each ethnic group.
Relative Rate of Major Discipline Referrals by Race/Ethnicity*
2018-19 2017-18 2016-17 2015-16 2014-15 2013-14 2012-13 2011-12 2010-11 2009-10
*2019-20 and 2020-21 Reports are not available due to comprehensive distant learning, as the data are not comparable to prior years.
PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS
501 N. Dixon St
Portland, OR 97227
(503) 916-2000
System Planning And Performance
Oregon’s Black and Indigenous Kids Are Disciplined at Twice the Rate of Their White Classmates
Portland Public Schools has drastic discipline gaps between white and Black children, especially in middle schools.
Black and Indigenous kids are disciplined at twice the rate of their white classmates. (Alex Witwer)
Published August 5, 2020
Updated February 8 2021
Life in Portland for Black and white people is overwhelmingly different. In the coming weeks, WW will explore these contrasting realities—the inequities that have molded the Black experience in this city and state. This week, we look at discipline rates.
A 2018-19 Oregon Department of Education report grading public schools indicates how often Black Oregonians are viewed as troublemakers before they reach adulthood—they are disciplined at twice the rate of their white peers.
The report, released in May 2019, stated that Black students had the second-most incident reports: 12.6%. American Indian/Alaska Native students were slightly higher at 12.8%. White students accounted for only 6% of incident reports.
Portland Public Schools has even more drastic discipline gaps between white and Black children, especially in middle schools.
A 2018-19 PPS report says Black students accounted for 46.1% of all the major discipline incidents reported, including expulsions and out-of-school suspensions in PPS middle schools, while white students made up 5.2%.
Disciplinary actions can have a ripple effect on other aspects of students' lives, such as their likelihood of dropping out of school, or worse.
"Discipline practices (suspensions and expulsions) are strongly linked to youth involvement in the juvenile justice system and greater likelihood of dropping out of school," says a Coalition of Communities of Color report.
Statistics bear that out: The high school dropout rate for Black students between 2017 and 2018 was 5.9%, but only 3.3% for white students, according to the state report.
This reporting has been funded in part by a grant from the Jackson Foundation. See more Black and White in Oregon stories here.
About Latisha Jensen
Latisha Jensen grew up in Bellingham, WA and studied journalism and Spanish at Washington State University. She has freelanced for The Spokesman-Review, Washington State Magazine and Portland's Street Roots. She loves to dance and cook vegan food.
In Portland Public Schools, a Far Higher Proportion of Teachers Than Students Identify as White
“We are criminalizing behavior that is not criminal,” says former PPS teacher Nichole Watson.
Portland Public Schools building. (Brian Burk)
Published December 2, 2020
Updated February 8
Portland Public Schools severely lacks teachers of color. White-identifying teachers make up 89.2% of all PPS teachers while Black teachers make up less than 1%, according to a 2019-20 report by the district.
Yet students of color make up 38.5% of PPS's enrollment, while only 10.8% of teachers identify as nonwhite. Hispanic teachers make up the largest nonwhite demographic, at 5.2%. However, this group still has the biggest percentage gap in representation, because Hispanic students make up 23.7% of the student population.
Black children make up 2.3% of the student population, and white children make up 61.5%. The percentage of white teachers exceeds that of white students by 27.7 points, and every nonwhite racial demographic is underrepresented.
WW has reported the lack of representation in other areas, such as mental health providers and doctors, where the patient-provider relationship is vital. The same dynamic can be found in public education.
Nichole Watson, principal of Prescott Elementary School in the Parkrose School District and a former PPS teacher, said the lack of diversity among Portland's educators overlaps with other issues. One example is PPS's inability to retain teachers of color—one reason Watson, who is Black, left the district in June.
"I thought I'd teach there forever, but I also needed to be safe, and I also deserved elevation and [for someone] to put the support around me for me to be successful," Watson says. "All the things we know don't happen and ultimately why teachers of color leave any district."
Lack of diversity among teachers also goes hand in hand with the disproportionate rate at which Black children are disciplined. "We are criminalizing behavior that is not criminal," Watson says. "I don't criminalize that behavior; I see that through the lens of my own experience. I can contextualize it."
When children of color have teachers with shared backgrounds, they can develop deeper relationships with them, Watson says, and relationships are crucial for student success.
"When you have educators of color in a space, their culture brings a different perspective in your building, and that different perspective also sees children and serves children differently," Watson says. "That lens has often been missing from the conversations that really deeply impact how our children, especially children of color, experience school."
This reporting has been funded in part by a grant from the Jackson Foundation. See more Black and White in Oregon stories here.
About Latisha Jensen
Latisha Jensen grew up in Bellingham, WA and studied journalism and Spanish at Washington State University. She has freelanced for The Spokesman-Review, Washington State Magazine and Portland's Street Roots. She loves to dance and cook vegan food.
What Does Portland Public Schools Do When a Student Contracts COVID? Less Than You Might Expect.
Based on how the district has handled elementary schools, school officials are still figuring out how to test kids.
Chalk drawings on a Southeast Portland school playground. (Sam Gehrke)
Published April 21
Updated April 21
COVID-19 case counts in Multnomah County are rising as middle and high school students return to Portland Public Schools classrooms this week.
County officials reported 109 cases of the virus per 100,000 people over the past two-week reporting period, which ended April 11. At 200 cases per 100,000 people, PPS middle and high schools wouldn’t have reopened.
Even with case counts rising, studies suggest that if schools take precautions, they will not be the source of increased spread of COVID-19 in the larger community.
But the district must make sure kids aren’t bringing cases home. Based on how the district has handled elementary schools, school officials are still figuring out how to test kids. RACHEL MONAHAN.
Incidents:
As of April 19, Rose City Park and Hayhurst elementary schools, as well as Lincoln High School’s athletics program, have each had two documented cases of COVID-19.
Portland Public Schools says the cases aren’t connected. “At this time, we have not seen any indication that there has been transmission within a school site,” says Karen Werstein, a spokeswoman for the district.
Cases are each from different classrooms of students, Werstein said.
PPS has seen 15 total cases since spring break, when in-class instruction resumed on some days. Elementary schools with a single case include Boise-Eliot/Humboldt, Bridlemile, Faubion, Laurelhurst, Lent and Markham. Two Head Start programs, at Clarendon and Sacajawea elementaries, as well as Jefferson High School’s athletics program, also each have a single case.
What does PPS do when a student tests positive?
It offers testing to anyone who shows symptoms at school. (It also asks everyone in an affected classroom—known as a “cohort”—to quarantine for 10 to 14 days.)
Public health officials recommend testing if you have had contact with someone who tests positive for COVID. Younger kids are more likely to not to show symptoms when they get COVID-19.
That’s important because the district initially said it can’t test anyone who doesn’t show symptoms.
“We do offer testing for staff or students onsite,” says PPS’s Werstein. “We’re only allowed by the Oregon Health Authority guidelines to test students or staff if they experience symptoms. Once quarantined, if they develop symptoms, we ask them to work with their health care provider, as we will not bring potentially positive staff or students onto a campus for testing. We will help them find free testing options in the community if they are not at school already.”
Werstein later acknowledged that the district can test asymptomatic cases if the public health authority says so. (The rapid tests that PPS uses aren’t as accurate with asymptomatic cases, so it may be better to test elsewhere.)
What’s next in testing?
Federal funding may provide an opening for the state to provide districts across Oregon to test all students on a regular basis,as has been done in Massachusetts. That’s what at least one Portland School Board member would like to see.
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“This is an equity issue,” says board member Rita Moore. “In the absence of an effective, reliable surveillance screening system, it’s substantially more difficult to convince families of color that sending their kids back to the classroom is safe, because we don’t have any evidence.”
About Rachel Monahan
Rachel Monahan joined Willamette Week in 2016. She covers housing and City Hall.