Oregon’s recent winter weather severely damaged multiple school buildings in Portland, rendering them unusable and leaving hundreds of families frustrated in the process.
Dozens of parents gathered at Portland Community College’s Sylvania campus for an open house on Saturday to hear the Portland Public Schools’ plan for getting the schools reopened and express their many concerns.
The meeting was organized by state representatives Daniel Nguyen and Dacia Grayber, both of whom represent Southwest Portland.
School district officials have announced that students at Markham Elementary School and Robert Gray Middle School would temporarily move to different campuses while the schools undergo massive repairs.
Robert Gray suffered 10 breaks in its main water lines due to freezing temperatures, damaging the ceilings and leaving the floors soaked and deformed.
Burst pipes led to extensive damage across Markham Elementary’s western portion. PPS Chief of Staff Jonathan Garcia said they explored using only a portion of the building, but that it would have likely slowed repairs.
The district had asked Portland Community College if its Sylvania campus — located near Markham — could temporarily host students, but was told the college could not accommodate hundreds of elementary students, Garcia said.
Severely cold temperatures and icy winter damaged buildings across the Portland metro area earlier this month. High winds and ice knocked down trees and power lines, damaging dozens of homes and leaving thousands without power for days at a time.
Twelve people died from hypothermia and cold-related accidents, such as trees falling through homes and electrocutions.
Markham and Robert Gray are not expected to open again until Feb. 19, but that date is subject to change.
“It’s still fluid until mid-week, when we have more details about the project plan for rebuilding these two schools,” Garcia told OPB.
It’s unclear how much the repairs will cost, but the district will be seeking reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and through the district’s own insurance policies, he said.
In the meantime, students at Markhamwill be assigned to one of four schools: Capitol Hill, Hayhurst, Maplewood, and Reike. Students at Robert Gray will share facilities with Jackson Middle School, a former high school that has larger buildings.
Much of the parents’ concerns revolved around lost learning time and the safety of having many more students in a single classroom. PPS students have already lost weeks of class time due to a prolonged teachers strike in November and severe winter weather this month.
Having crowded classes in unfamiliar school buildings, many argued, would only exacerbate the lost learning.
“As a parent, not being able to provide this for my son is so horrible,” said Erin Conner, the mother of a first grader at Markham. “This is a lost year.”
Other parents asked administrators why more hadn’t been done to prevent pipes from bursting in the first place, such as preemptively turning off water meters.
Garcia acknowledged the district could have done more to prevent damage, but added that the winter weather trapped many employees at home and couldn’t reach school sites for days. Visibly frustrated, he also lamented the lack of funding for school operations from the Oregon State Legislature.
“We have over a billion dollars of deferred maintenance, because we’re not getting the necessary investments from the state,” he said.
Correction: The story has been updated to say the teachers strike at Portland Public Schools happened in November 2023.
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