PORTLAND, ORE — The Occupy Portland Panel, invited as guests to a 6th grade current events class at the Astor School, were interrupted Wednesday afternoon just as students began naming off important world issues. The guests were told by the teacher, “The school district is not comfortable with us having this conversation.”The Portland Public Schools’ Board of Education includes this passage in their 6.20.010-P Academic Freedom policy document:

“In a public school system in a democratic society, academic freedom includes the freedom of the teacher to teach about controversial issues and to make available to the students a wide range of instructional materials and community resources.”

Public schools face some of their most severe budget cuts while Wall Street collects trillions in bailouts. Today, communities collect less and less in property taxes, the major funding source for public schools. As more homes are foreclosed on due to predatory lending practices by Wall Street banks, the property tax pool continues drying up for public schools. The public deserves to know the current events that are contributing factors.

Students should understand why their classrooms are becoming overfilled and their teachers underpaid, why there are no more arts programs. Understanding that the wealthiest Americans pay less in taxes than ever before, they would know where to lay blame for their schools being in disrepair. Using the First Amendment, Occupy Portland speaks out against this economic injustice that affects every public school’s students, employees, and families.

Learning the importance of the First Amendment—why the forefathers chose to make that the very first Right—is crucial to teaching good citizenship. Occupy Portland demonstrates the importance of the First Amendment every day. If US citizens are not allowed to speak up when they see that something very wrong is happening in America, then they have lost that Right and they have lost their Freedom.

Educating children about their rights is an important part of teaching good citizenship. The non-partisan message of the Occupy Movement does not represent lobbying activity or endorse candidates. Occupy seeks social and economic justice to address these well documented inequalities.

As Occupy Portland seeks to share this knowledge with students around Portland, the Portland Public School District seeks to silence us against their very interests. The trillions of dollars in bailouts that Wall Street has received does nothing to invest in our future. Educating young Portlanders to be engaged, thoughtful citizens is one of the safest investments that can be made.

To contact the Board to voice your complaint that the Portland Public School District is suppressing good-citizenship education, contact:
Caren Huson, Board Office, 503-916-3741 
Email: chusonqu@pps.net or schoolboard@pps.net

On an attached note, children’s march for Kids With Food Insecurity is being planned for before Christmas. If you’d like to help organize the march, please contact Raya: RayaIreneRoseATgmail.com

The failure of the City of Portland to provide shelter space for all the unhoused people who need it has led to the development of small groups of unhoused people supporting each other in building shelters as they can, where they can. When the city evicted Occupy Portland from the parks where we had lived together as a diverse group of activists for five weeks, many unhoused individuals and families were forced to re-seek shelter under Portland’s bridges and subjected to harassment by police officers. Right2Survive’s Blog on Occupy Portland’s eviction day outlined the disheartening shelter situation that the unhoused face:

“Housing Commissioner Nick Fish has stated that the city is opening some winter beds early to provide for some people who will be displaced by this eviction.  As of Saturday afternoon, there are no beds available for unhoused women in Portland, according to 211.  The Salvation Army was scheduled to open a winter warming center this week, but that has not happened.  City Team Ministries, which charges $5 for a bed, and Portland Rescue Mission, which uses a lottery system to fill beds, are regularly full and must turn people away.


 According to the most recent homeless count, there are currently 1700 people sleeping outside in Portland.   Mike O’Callahan of Right 2 Survive surveyed people in city parks and under bridges for two weeks shortly after the homeless count.  Of the 75 unhoused people he spoke to, only 15 said they had been surveyed by outreach workers performing the count.  Right 2 Survive feels there has been an extensive undercount of people actually sleeping outdoors, but even accepting the city’s numbers, there are still more than 750 people without a safe place to sleep.”

http://right2survive.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/support-of-occupy-portland/

Occupy Gateway was an independent, autonomous occupation by people who worked together at Occupy Portland. They adopted the principles of the spokes council model to democratically organize themselves as a community of unhoused people.Occupy Portland applauds any autonomous group of unhoused people who choose to create a peaceful community for themselves, and while this was not a GA-approved activity, we hope the spokes council model will prove useful for this community in all future camps.


Until City Hall begins to seriously address economic inequality, unhoused people and their allies will continue to find shelter wherever they can which includes erecting camps in public spaces.If you believe that Mayor Adams should create a space for the unhoused to set up an organized community within the city, please call the Mayor’s office directly: 503-823-4120 or
email: mayorsam@portlandoregon.gov

****This is a statement from the public relations committee.****