QP The $60 Million Question: Where Did the CBSE Go?

Portland Public Schools has a $60 million question on its hands: What happened to the Center for Black Student Excellence voters approved in 2020?That project was written directly into the bond language. Voters were told their money would build a dedicated center focused on Black student achievement. But today, that center has effectively disappeared.In testimony to the Bond Accountability Committee, Cascade President John Charles warned that PPS is attempting a quiet bait and switch. The district has renamed the project the Grice Adair Center for Educational Excellence—a name that never appeared on the ballot—and the original CBSE no longer shows up in the new bond update. The district’s website now redirects CBSE searches to a “Website Under Construction” page, with old documents scrubbed away.Why the sudden erasure? After a civil rights complaint last year, the district rushed to strip the project of its name and racial identity. By February, the U.S. Department of Education had opened a formal investigation.Now, instead of a center for Black student achievement, the public gets a vague “FACE” landing page with no mission, no curriculum, no programming, and no operating budget.Bond measures are not blank checks. Oregon bond law doesn’t allow districts to take money approved for one project and quietly spend it on another. If PPS believes it can’t legally deliver the CBSE it promised voters, it should say so—and ask voters before repurposing the funds.The Bond Accountability Committee should insist the bond funds be used on the CBSE or go back to voters for permission to repurpose the funds.Click HERE for John Charles’ Testimony to the BAC.Click HERE for the 730-word extended commentary.