Portland teachers keep their jobs while small districts make dramatic cuts.
In order to protect classrooms, many Portland-area teachers have accepted pay freezes and other cuts. But while those schools will see few changes in the fall, smaller districts will have larger classes and fewer programs to make up for budget shortfalls.
Leaders of the three biggest metro districts – Portland, Beaverton and Hillsboro – asked employees to accept pay freezes, furlough days and other concessions. The result is that schools in those districts, plus David Douglas and Lake Oswego, will see little or no increase in class size and few cuts to front-line services.
On the flip side, schools in Gresham-Barlow, Tigard-Tualatin, Reynolds, West Linn-Wilsonville and Oregon City are laying off teachers, cutting elementary music and PE, pumping up class sizes and cutting programs to help struggling students.
Read the full article at Oregonlive.com.
