A Monday afternoon meeting of the Portland School Board’s facilities and operations committee grew heated after its members split on whether to discuss prepared updates on the Center for Black Student Excellence.
The committee is chaired by Virginia La Forte, and also includes School Board Vice Chair Michelle DePass and board member Rashelle Chase-Miller. A couple of hours before the meeting, staff at Portland Public Schools posted a couple items to the agenda related to the CBSE. (PPS is currently conducting a due diligence process on a development in Albina called One North, and the documents posted contained new information about the CBSE’s programming, alongside additional costs the center would incur.)
The conflict emerged at the outset of the meeting, after DePass asked La Forte to remove the agenda item from discussion, arguing that Black community members who had advocated strongly for the project were not given enough notice to attend. La Forte initially refused to do so, arguing that the committee was just receiving a due diligence presentation and that there would be no deliberation. Deliberation, she noted, would take place on Nov. 18, where she encouraged community involvement…