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By Elizabeth Hovde
Portland Public Schools is facing allegations that it put out racist posters. It's also being criticized for cultural insensitivity after banning rap music on buses. Portland's Parkrose School District has received a request to start an after-school Satan club on a school campus. That's all just in the past month.
The hits will keep coming in an era far removed from the one-room schoolhouse. Now school districts could use a handful of rooms just to house the public relations and legal staffs needed to navigate a highly litigious, sensitive constituency occasionally bent on grandstanding.
Taxpayers should be annoyed. Schools are being nitpicked, used for political statements and rarely given the benefit of the doubt. I can only imagine the amount of time and resources drained by so many distractions from the primary task of educating students.
PPS couldn't put a number on it, but there was this, somewhat related: The district says it is seeing an increase in public records requests. From July 1, 2015, through September 15, 2015, there were 16 public records requests. During the same timeframe in 2016, there were 79 public records requests. Such requests are an important part of transparency in government. But it's reasonable for PPS to charge some sort of records request fee, to weed out the frivolous ones and stop one-hit wonders from utilizing the useful tool to the public's detriment.
Being swamped with public records requests is just one example of what can eat up a school district's time. The controversies listed above also chomp.
Take the ad pulled early this month after complaints were made that it was racist. Why was the ad racist? Because it was highlighting PPS' Reconnect Campaign, which seeks to re-engage high school dropouts, and it featured four people -- all of color. Never mind that all four of those people were involved in the campaign and willing to be featured on an ad that was going to be posted around the city, according to Courtney Westling, the interim chief of community involvement and public affairs and director of government relations for the district.
How sad that PPS would have been better off staging that photo with four high-fivin' white guys. Featuring real people involved in the life-changing work and willing to represent it, regardless of race, backfired.
Sure, sitting on the sidelines, we say we can be sure we would have caught the potential PRtrophe. But we might not have.
"This particular ad includes students who graduated as a result of outreach efforts and the staff who are on the Reconnection Services outreach team," Westling told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "However it does not represent the students of all races and ethnicities that have been successful through the efforts of our reconnection work, nor does it represent all the races and ethnicities of students that need to be reengaged."
This PPS mea culpa came a week after the district reversed a ban on rap music on school buses. Rap was on the out list as the district was hearing several complaints about the genre. I get that. I ban the stuff in my home. It's too often obscenity-laden and carries messages I don't want around my kids. But saying it was not allowed on buses angered some. (Religious and talk radio were also banned along with rap.)
I think the best solution would have been to ban all radio on buses. ("Enjoy the view, kids!") Instead, school districts have urged bus drivers to use their best judgment in regard to radio stations.
Add Satan to the list of distractions. I listened to an OPB Think Out Loud segment highlighting an organization called the Satanic Temple. It wants to shut down Bible-based, parent-permission-requiring, after-school programs in some schools by acting as if it wants to bring its own program to a Portland school.
It's part of a national campaign, and the Satanic Temple hit several communities with its agenda recently. Whether or not it succeeds at reminding us all why a clear separation between church and state is important, it will create headaches for many districts, even those not targeted.
Schools face a pile of time-consuming, frivolous -- and not frivolous -- issues all the time. I'm glad a bunch of pretty interesting ones hit Portland in the same season. Perhaps it will inspire more understanding by taxpayers of everything that adds up when we talk about tax dollars devoted to education.
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Elizabeth Hovde's column appears on the fourth Sunday of the month.