Pre-K to 8 Attendance Boundaries
The Attendance Boundaries Advisory Committee for Pre-K to 8 schools was established by the Board of Public Education in June 2024. Beginning in August 2024, the Boundaries Committee met monthly for more than a year to review a wide range of ideas and scenarios, with the aim of finding the best path forward to ensure equitable and effective educational experiences for all students. The Committee also conducted over eight community engagement sessions during its tenure.
The Committee's final meeting took place on November 20, 2025. A report on the Committee's work and recommendations is being prepared and will go to the Board at its meeting on January 27, 2026.
The Board will not be making any decisions at that meeting. There will be opportunities for public comment and Board discussion prior to the Board taking any vote on the Committee’s recommendations and findings.
The Committee’s charge was to explore whether the district should redraw enrollment boundaries for elementary and middle schools to achieve more equitable enrollment and demographic balance—and, if so, how best to do so. Additionally, the Committee was tasked with considering possible changes to the current middle school model to better reflect enrollment trends and support student achievement.
In its work, the Committee identified five key priorities:
- Utilization: Balance building utilization at the current, 5-year, and 10-year forecasted trends
- Demographics: Take a district-wide perspective by considering socioeconomic, linguistic and racial diversity within and across schools
- Neighborhood Schools: Work to maintain neighborhood schools
- Transportation: Consider transportation impacts, and work towards limiting the amount of time required on a bus
- Minimize Impacts: Minimize the number of students impacted by boundary adjustments
However, the Committee often found that the interaction of those priorities was extremely complex and that making adjustments to realize one priority — such as by adding students to a school with low building utilization — could result in unintended negative impacts on the other priorities, such as increasing the economic disparity of that school. Balancing the percentage of low-income students in a building was particularly challenging due to the geography and housing options available in each neighborhood in Portland.
As a result, the Committee’s report is recommending very few boundary change proposals at the elementary level. Also, the Committee was not able to come to consensus on middle school boundaries, and the report made to the Board on January 27 will reflect that.
The final Committee report, however, is expected to include some potential policies and budget considerations for the Board. In addition, based on the learnings in this process, the report may include a recommendation to review boundaries every five or 10 years.
Committee Members
The Attendance Boundaries Advisory Committee was composed of Board members, staff, and community members that included parents and a student. All 15 members were Board-appointed and brought a wide range of perspectives to this important work. Here are the members who helped guide the Committee’s conversations:
The work of the Committee, which met monthly from August 2024 to November 2025, involved the following:
- Reviewing current boundaries
- Digging into specific issues impacting boundaries – including transportation, budget, crossing guards and more
- Identifying the capacities of each school
- Making proposed adjustments in alignment with the Committee’s five priorities
- Landing on a draft scenario to solicit community feedback
- Scheduling community engagement opportunities
- Layering on 5- and 10-year enrollment projections
- This includes births and housing builds
- Adjusting the draft scenarios based on 5- and 10-year projections
- Scheduling additional community engagement opportunities
- Developing an implementation plan
- This is where questions such as timing, allowing a student to remain at a school even if boundaries change, etc. would be addressed
Draft Maps Considered
As part of its work, the Committee discussed a number of maps that illustrated possible scenarios for adjusting boundaries. These draft maps are not final and are shared here for informational purposes only.
*Please note that you’ll need to click on each map to view all the pages proposed in each scenario.
Meeting Recordings
Recordings of the committee’s monthly meetings are available for public viewing on the district’s YouTube page:
