Oregon Live - District 91��Ƭistration

How many hours is your child in school? It depends on your ZIP code

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:17:10 +0000

Oregon’s ignominious status as a state that offers one of the shortest school years in the country is an open secret. Most states mandate that schools offer student instruction for at least 180 days a year; Oregon is one of just 10 states that instead requires a minimum number of hours. That typically translates to school years that average about 165 days.

But Oregon’s vast disparities from school district to school district are far less well known and understood.

Under the state’s long-standing system of local control, each district bargains separately with its labor unions, arriving at different decisions around the length of the school day, time set aside for lesson planning, professional development, parent-teacher conferences and grading, all of which affect school calendars.

Oregon spent $35 million on summer school last year. Did it pay off?

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 14:25:20 +0000

Oregon’s investment in paid dividends in 2025, a new report by state education officials suggests, though they conceded that a persistent lack of standardized goals and measurements to draw across-the-board conclusions on student outcomes.

�ճ�� on the 2025 outcomes, which will be presented to lawmakers on the Legislature’s Joint Subcommittee on Education on Tuesday, arrives just as the Oregon Department of Education has intended to cover the next three years of summer school programming.

Whistleblower sues Oregon over school funding formula that shortchanges poor students

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 16:23:10 +0000

A former data analyst for the state of Oregon has filed a wrongful termination suit alleging that he was dismissed after trying for months to call attention to systemic problems with the state’s method for funding schools that serve large numbers of students from low-income families.

Jesse Helligso’s suit against the state of Oregon and the Legislature was filed Nov. 5 in Marion County Circuit Court. He is seeking $556,667 in damages to compensate both for lost wages and the physical and emotional toll of the situation.

The lawsuit describes Helligso’s effort in the winter and spring of 2025 to alert lawmakers to fundamental issues with the formula it has used for decades to calculate how much extra money is due to schools according to how many of their students live at or below the federal poverty line.

Youth Voices: Oregon’s new ban on cellphones in schools is underway, but students are finding loopholes

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 14:32:54 +0000

Oregon leaders, from legislators to school board members, have hailed Gov. Tina Kotek’s executive order implementing a new bell-to-bell ban on mobile devices in schools statewide, saying it will improve everything from academic outcomes to mental health. But the reality inside high schools around the state doesn’t exactly match that rosy vision.

The Oregonian/OregonLive asked a team of its Youth Voices reporters to document a regular day during the first weeks of the cellphone ban in high schools in Portland, Beaverton, Eugene and Bend.

The high school journalists found that enforcement of the new ban is spotty and remains dependent on individual teachers and building administrators. Students, meanwhile, are finding ways around it, even as some concede that the new policy has improved their classroom experience.

Oregon school district, running out of money, loses superintendent

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 13:29:53 +0000

The superintendent of the Silver Falls school district has resigned, just two days after budget officials there said the district is in danger of running out of money to pay its employees by the end of June.

Superintendent Scott Drue resigned Wednesday, according to on the school district’s website.

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Beaverton takes the lead in Oregon school districts’ drive to electrify school buses

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 18:24:53 +0000

The movement to switch to electric school buses is accelerating around Oregon, and is leading the way.

Already, the district — Oregon’s third largest with 39,000 students — has the largest electric school bus fleet in the state, with 28. Those no-emissions buses account for nearly 70% of the 42 currently on the road for Oregon public schools.

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7 Portland-area school districts cut ties with nonprofit that shines a light on data

Tue, 12 Mar 2024 15:32:42 +0000

Several hundred well-heeled Portlanders flocked to the Portland Art Museum last month to rub elbows and raise their paddles for , the educational equity nonprofit that’s long been a fixture in the city’s philanthropic scene.

Only a handful of those in the audience at the glitzy, $1,750-per-table benefit knew that the leaders of six Multnomah County school districts and the region’s education service district had quietly severed ties with the organization 2 ½ months earlier.

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