Portland's Historic Public Schools Deserve Preservation

by Cathy Galbraith

I doubt that I am the only person who feels that the amount and duration of community review and decision making is often “inversely proportional” to the importance of the issue, when it comes to deciding the future of historic resources. Neighborhood Associations are finding themselves in situations where they need to drop everything in order to provide formal comment within a tight time frame on development proposals that will bring huge and irreversible changes. In other situations, there are admirable schedules established with meaningful participation by a new committee – such as the master planning revisions to Mount Tabor Park that will take a year to deliberate.

There are significant decisions about to be made regarding the future of nearly the entire collection of buildings owned and managed by Portland Public Schools. PPS’s Reshaping Schools: Creating a Plan for the Future is a massive undertaking that includes physical analysis of complex sets of conditions. (See website)

There is a welcome yet inadequate inclusion of an “architectural and historic focus” in the public documents; but this information wholly relies on the City of Portland’s 25+ year old Historic Resources Inventory, long out of date and always short on sufficient information and evaluation.

Public schools are the heart of many neighborhoods, educating multiple generations over time; these buildings embody a huge investment of fiscal and natural resources, dating to their construction. These buildings are public facilities with strong physical and aesthetic presence, and their future is as or more important than any collection of buildings throughout the city. Attention to conditions and needs presented by traditional and historic buildings that house our most important population – our children – is long overdue. The issue is timing…the review process outlines a three month process for review, comment, and decision. Don’t the sheer number of buildings, their importance in every neighborhood, their individual and collective historic and architectural significance, and the massive costs of the total physical efforts proposed for these buildings deserve more than a mere three months of consideration?

The future of long-standing and historic schools is not just a Portland concern, but a national issue of great significance. Our partners at the National Trust for Historic Preservation have invested in developing resources we can all learn from; see Historic Neighborhood Schools and also Restoration vs. Replacement—The Role of a Feasibility Study (PDF). These well-written publications provide a framework for local consideration of an issue with tremendous impact in cities across the country. Portland is no exception – and the “Portland Process” generally invites, encourages, and accepts thorough community discussion of community issues. Is there one more important at this time than the future of our neighborhood schools? Can we engage in a discussion that avoids polarizing? Can we include accurate and current criteria to fairly and thoroughly examine the historic and architectural significance of this collection of school buildings? This will take longer than three months, but I think we will collectively regret it if we don’t.