PORTLAND, Ore. — Thursday marks the tenth day that schools are closed due to a Portland Public Schools teacher strike.
Portland Public Schools officials announced Thursday that the earliest students can return to class is Nov. 27, since there's no school Friday or all next week, the latter due to the Thanksgiving holiday. PPS has also canceled family-teacher conferences that were scheduled for next week.
In a statement, the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) said that PPS did not confer with the union about its "unfortunate" and "unilateral" decision.
“Portland educators plan to continue bargaining and are hopeful that a fair settlement can be reached that would get students back to school and allow the first half of next week to be used as planning days or even possibly for student instruction,” the teachers union concluded.
PPS responded to the union, saying that "Monday and Tuesday were already planned to be down days for our transportation and nutrition services workers because of family-teacher conferences. It is also true that we would expect lower attendance for those days because they were planned to be non-instructional days. Given this, we cannot open schools those two days even if we were to settle tonight, tomorrow, or over the weekend — which we very, very much hope to."
Despite not being in class, high school seniors are still busy applying for colleges, though many still haven’t received recommendation letters, high school transcripts or other paperwork many colleges require.
“Yeah, it’s not fun,” Elle Hansen, a McDaniel High School senior said.
Hansen plans to attend Portland State but is trying to apply for scholarships. That has proven more challenging than usual without the help of school counselors.
Hansen, along with other students KGW spoke with, are rallying in support of teachers, though many seniors are stressed because some college application deadlines have already passed.
“Normally, I’d be able to go to my teachers, go to my counselors and ask them to send these materials,” Grant High School senior Wendolin Wilner-Nugent said. “But I can’t.”
Many early action deadlines passed on Wednesday. Many early decision deadlines passed earlier in November. Now, some seniors are worried they missed their chance to attend their dream school.
"I was hoping to apply to Seattle U's nursing program, and it's very competitive and hard to get into. I needed a letter from two teachers and a counselor," said Evan Burke-Doyle, a Cleveland High School senior. "I'm really bummed out that I may not be able to go there because of this."
A Portland Public Schools spokesperson said students should contact their principals and the school district if they are told they missed application deadlines. Administrators will then relay concerns to colleges and ask them to be flexible with Portland students.
So far, a PPS spokesperson said many colleges have been flexible.
The Pacific Northwest Association of College Admissions Counseling called on colleges to work with PPS students before the teacher strike began.
Regardless, some seniors said weeks of missed school has made it much more difficult to send off applications.
“I don’t have any support, like giving my writing to someone and seeing if it’s good,” said Grant High School senior Gunnar Trice.