Earlier this year, the Portland metro area endured a vigorous ice storm that knocked over more than 675 trees and killed 15 people. Many homes were damaged, and two PPS schools suffered damage extreme enough to leave them closed for the rest of the school year.
Icy roads and sidewalks made transportation unsafe, so during this time, all PPS schools were closed for four school days. Markham Elementary School and Robert Gray Middle School suffered extensive damage to ceilings, pipes, flooring, and drywall, and are now closed for at least the remainder of the school year.
PPS’s temporary solution to continue the education of students at Robert Gray is to have them learn in makeshift classrooms inside Jackson Middle School. There are classrooms set up in the common areas (what they call pods) inside Jackson, the library, and the cafeteria.
These environments can be distracting as other classes and other activity is happening in the same place. Robert Gray and Jackson have different schedules, so students are moving through the common areas as other students are in class. The cafeteria and the library have folding walls that separate the students who are getting lunch and the students who are in classes, but other facilities such as the common areas do not have this advantage.
“I have some classes in pods. That’s where two classes are in the same place, like a big hallway. I have a little trouble with that because the other class is making noise and talking while we’re trying to learn,” said a 6th grader from Robert Gray. “It’s hard for me to focus, my mind goes to the other class and what they’re talking about.”
Mike Street, an 8th grade math teacher from Robert Gray, teaches in the library with five other teachers. “I think the district did a great job of initiating us and getting us in place. They did that much better than I anticipated,” he said. “The district planned this to be 2-3 weeks, and now it’s the rest of the school year, and since the 2-3 weeks have been over, it hasn’t been great. We want to get people out of the pods because it’s been disruptive.”
Street also said the plan was to match Jackson and Robert Gray’s bell schedules to try and reduce distractions.
