A school budget is a combination of the expertise from professional educators and a board of residents who provide oversight. City councilors with minimal understanding of the school budget can harm children.
Portland Public Schools is unable to afford universal dyslexia screening. My daughter struggled from kindergarten through fourth grade. She had daily stressors of having unidentified learning differences. She “wasn’t failing enough” to be tested by the school. We had to use our own resources for private testing and found she had dyslexia.
Portland Public Schools wants to have dyslexia screening as other districts have, but funding isn’t available. This system failed her, and thousands of other kids, because these nuances are not understood by the City Council when arbitrary cuts are made.
Support Question 5. Remove the City Council vote. Protect seniors with property-tax-rate freezes. Fund public education so it is accessible by all children, including those with learning differences.
Bill Anderson
Portland
Send questions/comments to the editors.
