On Feb. 10, 2026, Superintendent Ryan Scallon sent a letter to the PPS community with important information as the process for the upcoming budget for the 2026-2027 school year got underway with a public forum that night. The superintendent detailed the district's accomplishments during year two of the five-year Strategic Plan and also talked about the tradeoffs and challenges the district faces in the upcoming fiscal year 2027 (FY27) budget. He also shared updates about spring parent-teacher conferences, the return to an open campus lunch period at the high schools and plans for remote learning if schools were impacted by a possible upcoming snowstorm. 

February 10, 2026

Dear Portland Public Schools Community,

Thank you for your partnership and particularly the support the community has provided for students, staff, and each other this year.

Based on positive feedback about District communication over the past month, I am going to try and continue to provide regular updates. I am also going to try and keep them to a one-page maximum, whenever possible. Unfortunately, today is one of the longer letters!

This evening, we began our formal public engagement on the 2027 budget. Our district has made important progress toward achieving our five-year Strategic Plan goals, thanks in large part to the strategic budget investments made by our community. Last year, we saw improvements in academics as measured by state exams in all grade bands and in math and reading. Within those outcomes, we saw decreases in achievement gaps in reading for multilingual learners, students with IEPs, and economically disadvantaged students, thanks to the work of our teachers and our new reading curriculum. We also continued to invest in our Wabanaki studies curriculum and increased the number of students who have access to music at the high school level. While there are many more examples I can share, I want to emphasize again that our progress comes from strategic investments and the support of our community. Thank you!

As I shared at a community budget workshop this evening, we will also face tradeoffs and challenges in our upcoming budget. We recently learned that our share of state funding for the upcoming 2026-2027 school year will decrease by approximately $4 million, due to such factors as our lower overall student enrollment, fewer multilingual learners and students with IEPs, and a lower number of students who are economically disadvantaged, combined with a large increase in the City’s property valuation.

The state aid we’ll receive will cover only about 12 percent of the cost of educating Portland students. As a result, we are taking some short- and long-term actions to plan for next year so that we can contain expenses and lessen the impact of the new school budget on city taxpayers. For the short-term, steps include instituting a hiring freeze at Central Office and for all non-essential positions in schools. We are also holding all departments to 0 percent in their non-personnel budgets. These small action steps now will provide us with more flexibility as we plan for FY27. I’m presenting my proposed FY27 school budget to the Board of Public Education on March 10 and will share more specifics on our longer-term plans then.

The budget process will include multiple opportunities for public comment and feedback before it goes to city voters on June 9. We hope our community will stay informed and engaged throughout to help us arrive at a final FY27 budget that aligns to our Strategic Plan and provides the resources for the best possible outcomes for all our students.

I’ll also note that our spring parent-teacher conferences will begin in March. The schedule this spring is based on feedback from staff and parents after parent-teacher conferences last fall. The spring conferences will include one half-day early release for each school, outside of the usual one-hour early release Wednesdays, to provide more flexibility for families. Your child’s school will contact you with more specific information about scheduling.

I also want to share  an update on the closure of high school campuses at lunch time. This was done out of an abundance of caution during the period of increased immigration enforcement action to keep students safe. After consulting with our high school leaders, we will return to open campuses for lunch beginning on Wednesday, February 11th.

Finally, I want to note that we are watching the progression of tonight’s forecasted storm closely. We will let you know by no later than 5am tomorrow if we need to call a remote learning day. In the event that we do ask students to learn from home tomorrow, please remember that school lunches will be available for pick-up at select locations. More details can be found here. And, because we have now used all three of our designated traditional snow days for the year, please be aware that we expect the last day of school for students to be on Thursday, June 18. As a reminder, the district calendar can be found on our website.

Ryan Scallon

Superintendent