Education - Child Care & Education
Portland’s solid sense of community, reinforced by consistently high marks for its quality of life, makes it a fine place to raise a family. But even here, child care can be difficult to find, especially for infants and toddlers, and choosing a school causes much soul-searching among parents of future kindergarteners and of families moving into the area. Parents are often bewildered by the number of decisions they must make in choosing the nature and scope of their children’s care and education. To make those decisions easier, we survey the territory for you. And you may also be interested in other local resources. Two free publications, Metro Parent and Portland Family, offer regular updates on child-care facilities in the area and on local schools. Another good source is Portland Monthly, which compiles extensive data from the state on local public and private schools. And informal networks through community centers, libraries, religious organizations, and word of mouth can put parents in touch with good caregivers and schools.
1. Buckman Elementary School: Arts Magnet Program
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 916-6230
Address: 320 Southeast 16th Ave.
Description: Buckman has an award-winning arts program that incorporates dance, drama, visual arts, and music into the regular curriculum. Students are encouraged to use their artistic gifts to devise interdisciplinary approaches to research projects and other academic work. The student body is astonishingly diverse, with about 10 different languages heard in the halls. The teachers are also diverse, and make use of the “multiple intelligences” approach to learning. Families are deeply involved in this beloved school.
2. Cedarwood Waldorf School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 245-1477
Address: 3030 Southwest 2nd Ave.
Description: Cedarwood School, with 125 students, is based on the Waldorf philosophy; it is in the process of acquiring full Waldorf accreditation. They provide prekindergarten through eighth grade education, with much attention to the arts, as well as Spanish and Japanese. The school is just south of downtown, in the Lair Hill neighborhood, making it convenient for commuting parents.
3. French American School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 292-7776
Address: 8500 Northwest Johnson St.
Description: Since 1979 the French American School has been immersing students in the language of diplomats, and its graduates have gone on to great successes in Portland and far beyond. The school is devoted to academic rigor, a nurturing environment, and small class sizes. There are 440 students in the school, but this number includes Gilkey Middle School. The elementary school serves prekindergarten through fifth-grade students.
4. The International School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 226-2496
Address: 25 Southwest Sherman St.
Description: The International School, which teaches 235 children ages three through grade five, offers full-immersion programs that nurture as well as challenge students. The school focuses on traditional academic areas in its small classes (the average student-to-teacher ratio is nine to two). Languages taught at the International School include Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish.
5. Whole Child Montessori Center
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 771-6366
Address: 5904 Southeast 40th Ave.
Description: One of a number of Montessori schools in the Portland area, Whole Child is distinguished by its excellent teachers and its beautiful children’s garden. Whole Child teaches preschoolers through kindergartners; their graduates are remarkably well prepared for the first grade. Children are encouraged to follow their intellectual paths on their own, but in an atmosphere of supportive preparation that enables the children to effectively teach themselves. The well-designed garden, with its evergreens, flowers, bridges, paths, and perennials, makes a wonderful place for children to roam safely and freely, reconnecting their modern little minds to their bodies.
6. Da Vinci Arts Middle School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 916-5356
Address: 2508 Northeast Everett St.
Description: This public middle school, founded by a group of parents in 1996, serves 300 students who come from the entire metropolitan area. It’s an arts magnet, and students must apply to get in; classes are a mix of age groups. Besides special instruction in visual arts, dance, music, theater, and writing, the school requires rigorous academic classes infused with aesthetic principles.
7. Harriet Tubman Middle School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 916-5630
Address: 2231 North Flint Ave.
Description: Harriet Tubman Middle School has a special, interdisciplinary focus on the health sciences and biotechnology. It has formed community partnerships with, among others, Legacy Emanuel Hospital, Oregon Health and Science University, and the American Lung Association. Tubman students can work alongside research scientists and others from these organizations. Many electives, such as marine biology, are not available to middle school students elsewhere in the district.
8. Gilkey Middle School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 292-9111
Address: 8500 Northwest Johnson St.
Description: Part of the French American School, this school provides bilingual education in German, French, and Spanish, but it also offers an international track in which no previous foreign language experience is required to attend. Small class sizes and an academically rigorous program are added features. (See the French American School, under Private Elementary School Programs, for more information.)
9. Benson High School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 916-5100
Address: 546 Northeast 12th Ave.
Description: Benson is highly regarded in Oregon for its professional and technical programs that take kids from school to work. After their sophomore year, students at Benson choose a major and supplement it with real-world experience in jobs and internships. It has been honored as a New Century School by the US Department of Education.
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
11. Riverdale High School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 892-0722
Address: 9727 Southwest Terwilliger St.
Description: Riverdale High School is a public school in a tiny district in Portland, but this small school’s reputation is formidable, with always-outstanding test scores. Its challenging curriculum emphasizes preparing for college and almost every Riverdale graduate is also a college graduate. (Riverdale is also unusual in that it charges tuition—quite a lot of it.)
12. Central Catholic High School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 235-3138
Address: 2401 Southeast Stark St.
Description: Central Catholic High School, teaching grades 9 through 12, is a college-prep school that emphasizes moral and ethical training in addition to its academically challenging program. About 800 students attend.
13. Northwest Academy
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 223-3367
Address: 1130 Southwest Main St.
Description: This independent, accredited school for grades 8 to 12 takes advantage of its downtown location to integrate the visual arts (painting, printmaking, and photography), the performing arts (jazz, dance, and theater), and media arts (film, video, sound design, and audio engineering) into its curriculum. Of course, all the traditional subjects are taught as well. The school has 60 students, who enjoy small classes (the average number of students is 15).
14. St. Mary’S Academy
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 228-7181
Address: 1615 Southwest 5th Ave.
Description: Catholic nuns established St. Mary’s in 1859, and since then it has educated more than 7,000 young women. Its long history has served it well—three times, it has received the US Department of Education’s Blue Ribbon award for schools of excellence, the only school in the region to be so honored. Its curriculum is academically rigorous but also imaginative, flexible, and interesting; graduating from St. Mary’s is shorthand in Oregon for being well educated. And don’t let the old-fashioned brick façade fool you—it is thoroughly wired, one of the most technologically advanced schools in the city. Enrollment at St. Mary’s is about 550, and the average class size is 13.
15. Creative Science School
City: Portland, OR
Category: Education
Telephone: (503) 916-6431
Address: 1231 Southeast 92nd Ave.
Description: This constructivist program for grades K–8 is based on the research of psychologist Jean Piaget. Its curriculum is fashioned to educate through activities such as observation, interaction, experimentation, and theorizing; independent thinking and problem-solving are prized very highly here. Subject periods are longer than at most elementary schools; an individual lesson might last an hour, and the particular unit may be incorporated throughout many lessons during the day. Children are encouraged to combine scientific reasoning with play. This program encourages a seamless transition between school and family life by involving parents deeply in the school.