School Community

Today is the final day for Portland Public Schools students in grades eight through 11 to enter the district lottery to attend a high school outside their neighborhood.

Last year, more than 1,100 students sought and won a spot at a high school other than the one designated for their part of town. That included almost 400 students accepted at citywide vocational magnet school Benson High and another 92 who transferred to Franklin High, most of them from the adjoining Marshall High neighborhood. Lincoln, Grant and Cleveland each said yes to 27 students wanting in.

The number of students whose transfer wishes are granted this year is expected to be far lower — probably half as many as last year. The district is trying to make its seven surviving neighborhood high schools more alike in size and course offerings — and as part of that, is requiring more students to attend their neighborhood school.

The school board voted to close Marshall and to shrink Benson from about 1,000 students down to 850 or smaller. It also declared Jefferson High a citywide community-college-oriented magnet school intended to be less than half the size of other high schools.

So, with the district dialing back on transfer options, where is a student who doesn’t think their neighborhood high school is a good fit for them to turn?

By the numbers, the most openings are at Benson (240 freshmen slots, 10 sophomore slots), Jefferson High Middle College for Advanced Studies (100 freshmen slots, 75 sophomore slots) and Roosevelt High (90 freshmen slots, 30 sophomore slots).

Students wanting to transfer to the city’s five highest achieving neighborhood schools (Cleveland, Lincoln, Grant, Franklin and Wilson) are pretty much out of luck. Cleveland, Franklin and Wilson have no available spaces for transfer students, and Grant and Lincoln each will accept just 25 freshmen transfers and 5 transfer students in the other three grades.

As with other games of chance, this lottery is one that students must enter to win. The deadline to file, whether on paper or online, is 5 p.m.

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