[March 21, 2025]
Meet Christy Splitt, New PPS Board Member
Christy Splitt was appointed to the Portland Public School Board on January 13, 2025, to serve the remainder of Andrew Scott’s term following his resignation. Splitt has filed to run for the seat in May election.
Splitt takes over the job at a busy time for PPS and SW Portland: The modernization plans for Ida B. Wells High School have been revised due to high costs, and the $1.83 billion bond campaign to fund the updates at Wells and Cleveland is now underway.
The Hillsdale News recently spoke with Splitt about her priorities for Portland Public Schools and her transition into the role.
With only a few weeks to prepare for the demanding job—while also parenting two young children and commuting to a full-time job in Salem—Splitt described the experience as “like having a baby and getting a puppy at the same time.”
She had considered running for school board since 2012 when she completed the Emerge Oregon leadership program, but with a toddler at the time, the timing wasn’t right. When Scott resigned, she worried there might not be strong candidates to replace him. “I thought I’d run in two years, but suddenly I was running now,” she said. “I knew I would run in May if I got the appointment—so many people invested time in getting me up to speed. I wouldn’t want to be in the seat temporarily after all that effort.”
Despite the unexpected timing, she jumped in, joining the committee led by Director Julia Brim-Edwards to develop a cost-reduction framework for the high school modernizations. She’s focused on learning what’s immediately necessary, saying, “I’ve managed to get the fire hose of new information down to a garden hose level.”
The Bond is the Priority
Splitt has prioritized the bond measure. “It will give us a new high school in our neighborhood and is so important to the people who live here and who I represent, so I’ve leaned into the bond quite a bit.” While the conversations about the improvements to the high school are important, she’s just as interested in the possibility of funding for middle and elementary school projects in this bond.
For the cost containment framework, she felt it was important to start out with the question: Why are we doing this? “It’s not that we want to lower expectations for the new schools, it’s that we want to spend our money as wisely as possible, and also to have funds available for other urgent projects all around the district.”
A cost analysis commissioned by PPS helped shape the framework committee’s work. Initial reporting highlighted the cost differences between Portland and Beaverton high schools, but Splitt saw an “apples to oranges” comparison. “Beaverton’s scope was different—they already had facilities in place and didn’t need a new kitchen, for example.”
Other differences between the Portland and Beaverton projects that Splitt observed:
“One of the things that’s costing more is our commitment to the climate policy. It does cost more to build buildings all-electric, but over the long-run it will save money. There’s also a law in Oregon to include a percentage of green energy technology in any public building over a certain threshold, and Beaverton’s just not doing it. In 25 years they will be having to retrofit that building, or paying through the nose for natural gas."
Splitt thinks it’s important to keep the commitments the district has made: “My background is in climate change and this is a recently-passed policy, so sticking with it seems like the right call for Portland. While it adds to the bottom line upfront, it saves money in the long run.”
Splitt pointed out that the Portland district also has rules around equity in hiring contractors that Beaverton does not have.
Enrollment and Budget Cuts
Splitt is skeptical of the PSU projections that show continued enrollment decline across the district and would like to learn more. Her impression is that past school closures didn’t end up saving much money. “My gut says that 2020 was an anomaly, a combination of covid, the protests, homelessness and the drug crisis. While some of these are still ongoing issues, deciding that this is a trend seems not realistic to me. It was just a funny moment in time when so much was going on.”
Splitt wants to keep in mind the lessons learned over the past few years. In her mind, schools are a delicate balance between a place of learning and workplace. While she wants to keep both in mind, she recognizes that in PPS during the pandemic, the workplace trumped the learning environment. “Now we’re seeing how hard that hit kids in the long run, so finding balance would be something I would be seeking,” she said.
Beyond the bond, Splitt is deeply concerned about the $40 million in expected budget cuts. She has long advocated for increased school funding at the state level and serves on the board of Community and Parents for Public Schools. “I’m proud to be part of a group organizing community events, trainings, and town halls,” she said. “I’m hopeful we can secure more funding from the legislature to avoid further cuts and restore past reductions. My daughter’s school has lost staff every year she’s been there.”
Splitt points out that if the state had followed the Quality Education Model approved in 1999, Oregon students would have seen an additional $22 billion for education since then.
She believes Oregon’s tax system needs reform. “The property tax system, the kicker rebate, even road tolling—all of it needs discussion. In most places, you pay to drive on roads, but here, we’re taking money from education to pay for them.”
Wells Redesign Unpaused, With New Look at Costs
On March 18, planners presented a new conceptual design for Ida B. Wells High School to the Portland Public Schools Board. The Board paused the public design process in December, as costs for each school reached the mid-400 million dollar range. In February, the Board issued a framework to guide the cost reduction work.
Key elements of the new design:
Building size reduced: From 331,000 gross sq. ft. to 295,000 gross sq. ft. Some rooms were made smaller or eliminated, but planners emphasized that the school will still meet or exceed the district’s Education Specifications (Ed Specs) standards that guide all of the high school modernizations. The band room in the new plan was reduced by 400 sq ft. to 2400, which exceeds the minimum in the Ed Specs.
Football stadium unchanged: The stadium will stay in its current east-west orientation rather than being rotated 90 degrees as initially planned.
Teen Parent Center will likely be eliminated. The February framework included space for this program only if the community deems it necessary.
Student Health Center is tentatively included in the new plan. Wells Principal Ayesha Coning stressed the need for an onsite health center, especially for Wells’ large immigrant and refugee student population. While four east-side high schools have health centers, none exist on the west side. According to the framework, a health center will only be included if a service provider is secured—Coning is currently in negotiations with OHSU.
Maintains an all-electric infrastructure in line with PPS’s climate policy. To reduce costs it will not pursue LEED Gold certification but will incorporate sustainable, cost-effective solutions.
The new design does not yet have cost estimates attached, but the changes are expected to yield savings of $20-$40 million.
Design is expected to be completed in the Fall of 2026. The construction timeline was not discussed, but the earlier plan to break ground in 2026 could be delayed.
The volunteer Design Advisory Group will resume meeting on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 at 6pm, at Ida B. Wells.
—Valeurie Friedman
Will a new high school benefit Hillsdale? Let us know what you think.