At a meeting on Tuesday, Superintendent of Portland Schools Xavier Botana confirmed that claims of discrimination made by students at two separate protests last month are backed by data.  The main concerns of the students were that the adults in their schools weren’t meaningfully listening or responding to their concerns, specifically about discrimination, and that perpetrators are not being held accountable.  Superintendent Botana told the Portland Press Herald that this didn’t come as a surprise to him, citing a workshop he held to discuss the concerns directly with students.

Data shared by Botana showed that students of color, particularly Black and African-American students, are more likely to be suspended.  While Black students are only 30 percent of the district they accounted for 47 percent of middle school suspensions.  Additionally, students said that teachers don’t respond appropriately when white students use racial slurs.  “We have a lot of data that asserts that what the students are telling us is real”, Botana told the Press Herald.  He continued by saying that “it’s important to understand these are consistent themes across all three of our middle schools.”

The protests that spurred this research by Portland Public Schools were held about a month ago at both Lyman Moore and Lincoln Middle Schools.  Students at King Middle, Portland’s third public middle school, did not hold a protest although they shared similar concerns regarding discrimination as their peers.  In Botana’s presentation, he listed pervasive student-to-student mistreatment, lack of community, disparate treatment and a lack of structure for addressing student concerns as the main issues consistent across all three schools.

School board member Nyalat Biliew, who graduated from Portland Schools in 2013, told the Press Herald that she was disappointed to see student’s expressing concerns similar to issues she saw when she attended school.  “It always ends up being the kids that have to express themselves for these problems to be in the spotlight and for the teachers to be held accountable,” she said.  “It’s crazy we have kids here reminding us these problems are still so real.”  At the conclusion of the meeting, many members of the school board expressed their plans to create a more inclusive and supportive network within the middle schools. Superintendent Botana has previously stated that he will leave Portland Public Schools at the expiry of his contract at the end of the 2023-24 school year.