PPS decision ‘rains on our parade’ PDF  | Print |  E-mail
Written by Malia Robinson, Alli Swift, and Taylor Bailey   
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Every year since 1907 the Junior Rose Parade has been a day to look forward to. There are marching bands, toddlers in red wagons, dancers, cotton candy and ice cream, and school, at least since Grant’s founding in 1926, gets out at 11: 30. Not this year.
This year, although the parade will go on as planned, Grant, and all neighborhood schools, have been told they will have a full day of school and many students and teachers are disgruntled by the change.
Principal Joseph Malone seems to almost encourage students to arrange an excused absence on June 3. “Students can still go [to the parade],” he says, “as long as their parents say it’s alright. We will just still be having school that day.” Students who wish to attend the parade must submit a note signed by parents or guardians to the attendance office before, or within three days after the parade.
But it is not just that the parade takes place while Grant will be holding class, but that the parade actually ends on the lawn in front of the school. Beginning around 10 or 11 a.m. onlookers begin lining the streets and snow cone vendors and ice cream trucks park on the Grant lawn, blaring their trademark tinny music. Sometime around 2 p.m., the front of the parade washes down Tillamook Ave. and splashes against Grant High School. Then, marching bands, dancing middle school students, tiko drums, fi re trucks, giant fl oats, juggling unicyclists, plush mascots, and hundreds of small children wander the front lawn and the street in front of the school.
“I’m a pretty good teacher but I can’t compete with a parade outside my window,” said teacher Jamie Zartler. Many other teachers share this view. If little things such as nice weather can distract students, how can a teacher be expected to keep them focused during a parade?
“People are just going to skip or get a note anyway,” said junior Stephanee Wilson. Even teachers were bragging about racing to call substitutes after a meeting on May 4, when Malone broke the news to the staff and some are planning to just take their classes as a “field trip.”
Traditionally, the school building is locked and dark by the time the parade arrives, ensuring that the hoards of people trying the doors looking for water or a bathroom can’t get in. This year may prove a security challenge as students seem likely to still be coming and going, and even if the doors are locked, it seems probable that the public will be in the halls while students will be in the park.
There are also concerns over logistics. Parking, which is a hassle even on normal days, will not be allowed the day of the parade on NE 36th St., US Grant Pl., and NE Tillamook Ave. near campus. Students who ignore the “No Parking” signs will be quickly and efficiently towed. Those who normally drive to lunch may return to find their parking spaces on side streets long-since filled.
But a more serious problem may be for those planning to leave the neighborhood after release from school. Roads will be blocked for the parade, and school busses carrying marching bands and other student groups will crowd the street, not to mention the parade-goers who drove to the event. “I live out of district; we normally get picked up [after school]. It’s going to be a nightmare that day,” said senior Edward Louie. Parents who normally pick their students up after school will need to get creative. Even Tri-Met busses and Max can fi ll up after the parade.
To justify the decision to have school, PPS cites two reasons: increased pressure from the state to meet the 990 required hours that students attend school each year, as well as issues of fairness across the district, as the parade typically pulls from Hollywood schools more heavily than other neighborhoods. Portland schools already have one of the shortest school years in the nation and this year’s snow days didn’t help. By adding this day to the calendar, PPS adds another couple valuable hours to the school year and Grant adds a full day for seniors.
However, the fact that June 3 is the senior’s last day is important issue for Grant that is causing passionate responses to the change. Many students face the untenable decision of whether or not they wish to attend the parade, when that would mean missing their last day of school. Many have gone to the parade every year since kindergarten, it’s a tradition, but they don’t want to miss my last day of high school either.
So while seniors decide how to spend their last day, other students get notes from home, and teachers request substitutes, administrators at Grant are looking at different options to accommodate the parade. Vice Principal Brian Chatard has proposed an afternoon senior- faculty softball game, along with a barbeque for seniors. Students could walk from the game to watch the end of the parade. There was even some discussion of combining the Senior Picnic with the afternoon events, but ultimately coordinators decided it should remain on June 4 as originally planned.
Other concerns about the day extend past just the Grant community. With students in class, the audience of the parade will be much smaller than it has been in the past. Additionally, students who are in the parade will be missing class time, instead of just dedicating a free afternoon to the event. Teacher Pardis Navi feels “really sorry for the little kids. Small children must now decide between school and the parade—and that’s a position children shouldn’t be placed in. PPS has decided to rain on our parade.”
 
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