A new take on high school

With 46,000 students, Portland Public Schools (PPS) is the Northwest's largest school district. It’s known for high quality teachers, widespread community support, and a robust base of parent advocates—all dedicated to putting every Portland student on a path to success.

But just over two-thirds of Portland students graduate—and the achievement gap between African-American, Hispanic and Native students and Caucasian and Asian/Pacific-Islander students worsens in high school. The district needed to address how high schools streamline and strengthen courses and programs so every student has access to the same set of opportunities, regardless of where they live.

Pyramid was hired to design and implement a community engagement strategy for a major redesign of Portland's high schools. Our intent in crafting a strategy was to support PPS’ goals of inspiring and challenging every student every day, closing achievement gaps and ensuring all students graduate. As part of our engagement initiative, we reached out to communities of color, parent activists and elected officials through a series of community town hall meetings and intensive engagements with targeted communities across the city to introduce and discuss three “Big Ideas for Better High Schools.”

Using print materials and animated video, Pyramid distilled each “Big Idea” into an accessible story that helped audiences quickly dive into passionate debate about the pros and cons. Pyramid’s strategy created the space for schools, community leaders and the public to explore the three "Big Ideas" and shape a final model for the superintendent and school board's adoption.