Ockley Green School offers glimpse into restructuring challenges headed for high schools

“What’s he doing here?” a wary Ockley Green student asked Assistant Principal Stacey Sibley, referring to this reporter.

“He’s writing a story on our school,” Sibley answered.

“Why would he want to write about us?”

“Because you guys are great,” Sibley says.

Ockley Green, a K-8 arts and technology magnet school, sits on a residential street in North Portland’s relatively well-off Arbor Lodge Neighborhood. Despite its location in the leafy subdivision off Interstate Avenue, Ockley has struggled to beat the odds and improve itself and its reputation as a tough inner-city school.

Ockley’s struggles with low test scores, insufficient budgeting, and low enrollment are typical of many public schools throughout North/Northeast and mid-county Portland. Ockley is also a poster child for reforms made to middle and elementary schools in North Portland that were done in the run up to today’s moves to restructure high schools.  Attempts to improve Ockley include expanding it from a middle school to a kindergarten through eighth grade school, closing smaller feeder schools, converting it to a magnet program, and pumping short-term federal grants. But five years later, improvements have proven to be unstable.

Five years after the restructuring, Ockley appears to have made gains but continues to struggle for cash, teachers, programs and students. The school has fought tooth and nail to maintain the gains that it achieved through a restructuring five years ago. In Ockley’s case, efforts to remake the school have still not addressed core problems of funding, staffing and the perception that their school has been labeled a pariah.