Teachers and parents told the Portland Policy Committee on Nov. 24 that large elementary classes are undermining instruction and teacher retention, and they urged a class-size policy that accounts for multilingual learners, students with IEPs and other needs.

"My son is in classes that are really loud. It's really hard to focus on work," said Emily Liebling, a Reiki parent and 14‑year district teacher, who described fourth-grade classrooms of about 24–25 students. "I'm advocating for a more nuanced and data-driven policy for class sizes that would take into account ... English language learning, ESOL numbers, social-emotional needs, trauma behavior."

The committee heard similar testimony from Reiki fourth-grade teacher Casey Donahue: "Just seeing whether we make the cap or not, that's not data driven. That's just a headcount," she said, arguing that straightforward enrollment cutoffs do not reflect school-level needs.

Why it matters: Committee members said class-size policy could affect equity, instruction and teacher workload across Portland Public Schools. Small schools and schools with high shares of multilingual learners and low-income students may be most sensitive to cap changes.

What the superintendent presented: Dr. Ryan Scallon walked the committee through three tools intended to inform a new IIB class-size policy: a BoardDocs heat map showing school-level ratios of leaders and supports; a model that projects how changing maximum class-size caps affects required teacher counts and approximate costs; and section-level enrollment data from Infinite Campus showing actual class sizes by subject and teacher.

Scallon used illustrative scenarios to show trade-offs. For example, lowering kindergarten caps from 20 to 15 (an illustrative example) would add about 11 teachers at an approximate cost of $1,100,000 based on current October 1 enrollment data; changing K–5 caps to 16 in the model added roughly 66 teachers and an estimated $6,700,000 in salary and benefits. Scallon cautioned these are estimates that do not include future cost-of-living adjustments or space constraints.

The presentation also highlighted that changes in caps tend to benefit smaller schools more than larger ones: "Longfellow would drop by 7; Ocean by 4; Presumscott by 5 and a half," Scallon said when illustrating the modeled effects. He pointed to Reiki’s November 6 section data showing fourth-grade class sizes of 22, 22 and 24 as evidence the classroom experience matches public comment.

Board responses and next steps: Committee members pressed for options that prioritize high-need schools. Scallon recommended piloting targeted supports (for example, adding EdTechs to specific Title I classrooms) with time-bound evaluations rather than immediately adopting districtwide caps. He also recommended soliciting feedback from elementary-network leaders to decide where limited investments would have the most impact.

The committee did not vote on a class-size policy on Nov. 24; members asked staff to provide a cleaned-up draft, share the tools (some are available publicly on BoardDocs and in the meeting materials), and gather building-leader input to inform the next discussion.

Ending: The committee agreed to continue the IIB discussion at a future meeting after staff-produced, school-leader-informed recommendations and clearer budget projections are available.