Portland Public Schools and the union supporting its teachers came to an agreement over the weekend to prevent layoffs in a midyear budget crisis: four furlough days.

For students, that means three fewer days of school and a quicker end to the school year than previously expected. The fourth furlough day is Memorial Day, which will go from being a paid holiday for staff to an unpaid one. This is in addition to PPS central administration taking five furlough days, and the superintendent taking six.

The PPS school board will vote on the furlough days for teachers at a board meeting Tuesday.

If the board approves the plan, PPS will join at least three other Oregon school districts that have approved furlough days for staff this school year.

West Linn-Wilsonville teachers are taking two furlough days this year. Reynolds teachers and classified staff are taking six. Teachers and classified employees in the St. Helen’s School District have 10. All three districts have spread these days throughout the school year.

Furlough days means no pay for staff and a missed day of learning for students in a state with an already short school year. Other school districts, including Lake Oswego and Beaverton, have several days in their school calendar this year as non-paid, non-work days for teachers.

Jackie Olsen is the executive director of the Oregon Association of School Business Officials, a statewide group for district financial employees. Before her current role, she was the chief financial officer at an education service district in Oregon.

“I think things are getting tighter than they have ever been before,” Olsen said.

Back around 2009, Oregon education funding had just experienced big cuts, Olsen said. But after that, money started flowing again. Since 2013, state funding going to schools has increased by almost $1 billion each biennium. Add to that $1 billion every year to education from the corporate activities tax and federal relief dollars to help schools deal with the effects of the pandemic. Now, Oregon’s revenue is slowing down, while costs to pay out staff contracts, benefits and retirements are increasing.

“Now we’re getting to a choice where districts can’t do everything, and they’re having to start making decisions … on what are the things that we need to prioritize, and trying to reduce the impacts to students,” Olsen said. “And how you do that? It’s really hard, and I can tell you that every community is different.”

Olsen said furlough days are viewed as a last resort for districts in the middle of a school year.

“This is a way to give districts the ability to maintain classrooms and, while it’s a reduction of time in the classroom, it isn’t as interruptive as, I would say, cutting their teacher and having them move classrooms in the middle of the year,” Olsen said.

Though the Oregon Department of Education does not participate in district budget decisions, spokesperson Liz Merah said maintaining “high-quality learning experience that support academic growth and long-term success” is critical.

“Both the quantity and quality of instructional time must be protected to the greatest extent possible and should remain a critical guardrail for consistent student learning,” Merah told OPB.

In Portland, accepting furlough days meant preventing mid-year staff layoffs. In a statement, Portland Association of Teachers leadership said layoffs would be detrimental to already understaffed classrooms.

“Our membership voted to accept nearly a week without pay only because it was the only option possible to prevent 200 teachers from being laid off mid-year from PPS,” PAT shared.

PAT referenced the mid-year budget crisis in Springfield, where the school board voted in January to layoff 27 employees. In addition to alleging financial mismanagement in PPS, the union also asked the Oregon Legislature and Gov. Tina Kotek to tap into the state’s Education Stability Fund to help both districts and community colleges.

“Our districts are experiencing increased costs due to inflation, years of deferred maintenance finally coming due, and an exodus of skilled educators as districts and colleges balance the budget on our backs,” PAT shared.

“The cycles of constant fiscal crisis never stop in our district or many others across the state, and it is creating disruption and lasting trauma for educators, students, and parents in every part of Oregon.”

In the Reynolds School District in east Multnomah County, the president of the union representing teachers there submitted a public comment recently to the Oregon State Board of Education. In his comment, Jeffrey Fuller said the district’s six furlough days will put Reynolds below the instructional time requirement for the current school year.

State policy requires districts meet a minimum number of instructional minutes each school year. If a district reports being “out of compliance” for that requirement for consecutive years, the state could withhold funding. It’s a policy intended to encourage districts to take corrective action, but for a district like Reynolds, Fuller said there could be “unintended consequences.”

“The focus on quantity of minutes over quality is mandating cuts to staffing that will hurt student outcomes as it will become even more difficult to meet their needs,” Fuller wrote in the message sent March 17.

For the 2024-2025 school year, four Oregon districts reported being “out of compliance” for instructional time requirements. It’s unclear if those same four districts will be out of compliance again for this school year, but state education officials said they have not withheld funds from any Oregon districts in the last five years for continued noncompliance.

School districts are just now starting to share their proposed budgets for next school year with families, staff, and school board members. Ideally, a district will finish this process by the end of June. It’s not clear whether any Oregon school districts will consider furlough days again next year.

But at least one of the districts with furlough days this year, West Linn-Wilsonville, said it has “no plans” to take the days again next year.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/30/portland-public-schools-furlough-days/