Policy committee forwards middle-school boundary cleanup with option for current students to stay

The Portland Board of Public Education’s Policy Committee voted unanimously May 11 to forward a set of proposed middle-school attendance-boundary adjustments to the full board, while adding language to preserve the option for students already enrolled in affected middle schools to remain at their current school.

Dr. Sarah Warren, the district's chief of strategy and operations, told the committee the cleanup is intended to align middle-school feeder patterns with elementary boundary changes the board approved in February 2026. “That’s really the goal of this. It’s a relatively minor adjustment,” she said, describing the proposal as a way to prevent students from being split from the peers they attend elementary school with.

Dr. Warren read the draft language the committee considered and summarized the effects as of March 2026: one northern change would move a group of students from Moore to Lincoln (23 students in grades 6–8, as counted in March), another area’s change affected 23 students who would be in Talbot and 10 students tied to Longfellow, and a southern cleanup would affect one current middle-school student. Dr. Warren emphasized those counts were “as of March.”

Committee members asked whether the draft should specify who is eligible for the option to stay. After discussion about map labels and an identified misstatement in emailed notes, a committee member proposed inserting the words “currently enrolled” into the sentence that grants the option to remain. The proposed edited sentence reads, in the committee’s wording, “however, currently enrolled middle school students in the affected areas will be given the option to choose to stay in their current school until they enter high school.” The committee agreed that the King→Lincoln map language should be corrected where notes had incorrectly referenced King→Moore.

Chair Maya Alena moved to forward the recommendation to the full board; a committee member seconded the motion. By roll call vote the committee approved the amended recommendation unanimously (committee member Ali Ali: yes; committee member Yusra Ali: yes; Vice Chair Maki Bond: yes; Chair Maya Alena: yes).

The committee’s action sends the edited boundary language and corrected maps to the full board for final consideration. Dr. Warren said the district will clarify the map labels and the draft language before the full-board packet is prepared.