We’ve posted the schedule for the 2008 Parent Leadership Conference, to be held at Benson High School on February 9. Click here to see it. We’ve also posted copies of our flyer for the conference in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Russian (with Somali and Mandarin on the way). If you can help us promote the conference to your school community, please download the flyers here, and post them on your school bulletin board, or in other appropriate community meeting places (with permission, of course.)

If you have questions about the conference, be sure to check out our PLC pages on this website, or email roger at cppsportland dot org.

(This letter was also sent to the CPPS mailing list earlier this week)

We think it’s important to bring to your attention the work that Community & Parents for Public Schools and Stand for Children have been working on to reform the current Portland Public School teacher hiring and transfer policies.

We’re writing to update you on the tremendously positive response we’ve received thus far in our drive to help teachers and students by reforming Portland Public Schools’ ineffective hiring and transfer policies. We’re excited about the community dialogue that is happening on this critical issue, and by the momentum that is building for reform. And now, together with you, we need to step up the pace.

If you’ve already endorsed our reform proposal – thank you! Please forward this email to others who want to improve our schools.

If you haven’t signed on yet in support, please read on. We hope you’ll endorse these common sense reforms today.

No one wins with the current teacher hiring and transfer system in Portland Public Schools. Students too often end up with teachers who don’t want to be at their particular school or aren’t the best candidate for the job. Teachers are currently shut out of hiring decisions, forced into positions without their consent, limited in their transfer opportunities, and pushed out of PPS to suburban school districts by impersonal, bureaucratic rules.

The good news is, the system can be changed, and you can help. Hundreds of Portlanders have already endorsed the reforms, including scores of Portland Public School teachers. We’ve been in dialogue with teachers around the city, and the overwhelming majority of them are supportive. The teacher hiring and transfer issue is complex, but we’re finding that parents, principals, and concerned community members are all excited about a long overdue fix for PPS’s broken system.

Click here to read the common sense, pro-teacher, pro-student recommendations developed by CPPS and Stand for Children.

Click here to sign on as an endorser. Together, we can achieve long overdue changes that will increase teacher job satisfaction and improve student achievement.

Thank you,

Doug Wells
President
Community & Parents for Public Schools

Rachel Langford
Portland Director
Stand for Children

The 2008 Parent Leadership Conference is a little over a month away (February 9, 2008, 8 am – noon), and we hope you are all planning to attend.

We have posted news on the workshops, keynotes, registration and other conference details at:

http://www.cppsportland.org/plc/

Both PPS Superintendent Carole Smith and Portland Schools Foundation Executive Director Connie Van Brunt will be joining us – we’d love to have you there as well. We also have free childcare available – but you must register soon so we know you’re coming!

Mayor Tom Potter will relocate his office to Jefferson High School from January 14-18. Events include an open house on Thursday, January 17th from 6 – 8 pm, a PPS Board meeting on 1/14 at 7 pm, and the Mayor’s State of the City Address at 11:30 am on Friday, January 18th.

For more information, download this PDF, available on our website.