The Portland school board voted Tuesday night to pay millions to an outside company to oversee four major construction projects: rebuilds of three high schools and the creation of the Center for Black Student Excellence.

But the discussion and the vote itself were contentious.

Portland Public Schools is feeling pressure. It’s been five years since Portland voters approved a 2020 bond, but the district has yet to break ground on construction at Jefferson High School, one of the tenets of that bond program.

That’s where the Texas-based company Procedeo comes in. The district aims to contract with Procedeo to speed up work on Jefferson, to launch the new Center for Black Student Excellence, as well as manage the district’s Office of School Modernization. The cost of the PPS’ five year contract with the company is listed as $61.5 million, though district officials say the final cost may be lower.

The school board’s discussion raised questions and concerns about the board’s role, district management, and the commitment of school leaders to students, families, Portland’s Black community, and taxpayers.

Board members weighed the urgency of these long-awaited projects against the high price tag and the proposed relationship between Procedeo and the district’s Office of School Modernization.

PPS Supt. Kimberlee Armstrong said the district is bringing in Procedeo to do what the district hasn’t been able to do so far.

“Procedeo will be held accountable for schedule, cost, scope, and quality,” Armstrong said.

“Tonight is not about blame, it’s about responsibility. It’s about restoring trust and it’s about delivering results.”

Under the contract, Procedeo will work with current district staff on these projects. According to district officials, the cost of PPS staff who work on these projects will be “deducted” from the final cost of the Procedeo contract.

“Decisions haven’t been made about staffing,” said district chief legal officer Sharon Toncray.

As board members debated with each other and Supt. Armstrong about the contract, board member Virginia La Forte offered motions — at first to postpone, and then to amend the Procedeo contract. A board majority rejected both.

Armstrong framed the Procedeo contract as a chance to try something different. La Forte said she felt pressured to approve the contract or else the district’s Office of School Modernization, or OSM, would “fall apart”.

“OSM has already fallen apart,” Armstrong said.

Three Procedeo representatives presented to the board, including Director of Operations and Program Executive Sarah Norman, who is simultaneously serving as the district’s interim senior director of OSM.

“Change is hard, the last couple of weeks have been hard,” Norman said, introducing four Procedeo staff members who will be “working alongside” the Office of School Modernization.

As of August, the company has an office in Portland.

At one point, La Forte and board member Stephanie Engelsman said the people present at the board meeting didn’t represent the “public” they have heard concerns from. That drew a strong, negative reaction from the audience.

Board chair Eddie Wang eventually ended board discussion on the vote shortly after saying that questioning the contract may be out of scope for what a school board usually does.

“When we start using approval of contracts to start managing the district in an outside type of way, it really takes away… if the superintendent wants to make staffing changes, that’s her right, and if she wants to structure her department the way she feels is the best way to structure, that’s her job,” Wang said.

“For us to start getting into that, we are working outside of our wheelhouse.”

Oregon school board members have three main roles: approving the budget, setting goals for the district, and hiring and firing the superintendent. But school boards often step out of those lanes, especially on controversial topics, such as closing schools or regulating cellphones.

Tuesday’s meeting showed the vague boundaries of a school board’s job. And with a number of new members on the Portland school board this fall, the Tuesday debate showed that productive working relationships can take time and trust.

Only one of the current members of the PPS school board was on the board when voters approved the 2020 bond to fund modernizations for Jefferson and the Center for Black Student Excellence.

That board member, Michelle DePass, voted with a five-member majority to approve the Procedeo contract. Two new board members — La Forte and Engelsman — voted against it, along with the board’s student representative.

Armstrong is relatively new in her role, too, in just her second year running Oregon’s largest school district.

She cited her own informal analysis of how districts with 2022 bond projects have progressed, saying David Douglas, Beaverton and Bend La-Pine have all started construction on their projects. She asked board members to hold her accountable for how she performs in the job — but said she needs time to do that job first.

“I should be held to a high degree by the amount of incompetence I allow over time,” Armstrong said.

After approving the Procedeo contract, the board took another concrete step in trying to move forward on its construction agenda, by approving the purchase of One North, a property slated to become the district’s Center for Black Student Excellence.

The center, part of the bond Portland voters passed in 2020, is set to provide academic resources and a supportive environment for the district’s 3,554 Black students.

Earlier this year, organizations across the state banded together to ask PPS to take immediate action on the project, which was allotted $60 million in the 2020 bond.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/12/03/portland-school-board-approves-contract-bond-projects/