The hard decision to close Jefferson High

Faced with a collapsing budget, decades of declining enrollment and near the end of a year-long campaign to downsize high schools, the Portland School Board may choose to close three neighborhood high schools next week -- including North Portland’s embattled Jefferson High.

The school board must not delay difficult decisions. The number of high schools the city supports is far less important that the quality of education they can deliver. And by that fundamental measure, it may be time to close Jeff.

In March, the Sentinel’s last printed editorial recommended that PPS close Jefferson and retool it as a career-focused school in partnership with Portland Community College. This idea has come up several times since March. The plan could bring a new focus to the Jeff campus and also relieve overcrowding at PCC.

In May, Superintendent Carole Smith suggested that Marshall and Benson close instead of Jefferson. But in the last two weeks, faced with a state imposed $18 million budget cut, it appears Jefferson, too, is back on the table.

So, once again, things are going to get heated on the campus sitting between Killingsworth and Kerby. But in order to make a rational and informed decision on Jefferson’s fate, the hard issues of race, discrimination and PPS’s decades-long decline need to surface. Here are a few points about each:

No high school in Portland has such a fixed sense of communal identity as Jefferson. In a city that takes a unique pride in its high schools, that’s saying a lot.