The Portland Public Schools Board of Education is kickstarting an independent investigation into whether administrators from Oregon’s largest school district used an encrypted, unapproved texting app for official district business.

Earlier this month, Willamette Week reported that district leaders, including Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong, used the app Signal for nearly a year. Signal is an encrypted messaging platform with a disappearing-messages feature, which, according to the school board, is not district-approved for official communications.

According to WW’s reporting, some of the screenshots the outlet reviewed show some chats between Armstrong and other leaders with Signal’s “disappearing messages” feature enabled. That lets users set a time frame after which messages are deleted.

As a public institution, PPS is required to follow district policy and state law when it comes to communications and stewarding public records. As public officials, district employees’ communications are themselves a form of public record when discussing district business.

Board members met for a special, virtual hearing Friday afternoon. After debating the language of the text, the board passed an amended resolution, authorizing an independent fact-finding process.

The process is meant to determine if, how and why Signal or other unapproved platforms were used; by whom; if any public records were exchanged; and whether those records are still accessible.

“I want to reiterate that compliance with public records law is very important to the district,” Board Chair Eddie Wang said in his opening statements Friday.

Wang added that the board has retained an outside lawyer and identified two outside agents to assist in the fact-finding process — one specializing in IT and one specializing in legal matters within educational institutions.

The counselors are tasked with reporting back to the board by Dec. 11. If they have not completed their fact-finding by then, they will still need to present a preliminary report. The board has a regular meeting scheduled for the following Tuesday, Dec. 15, when they’re expected to vote on school closure recommendations.

Members on Friday stressed the importance of an independent process and that those who speak up during fact-finding can do so confidentially, as appropriate.

“We’re here to guarantee that the district ship is sailing smoothly and fulfill our oversight obligations,” said member Virginia La Forte. “It’s just really important that we have a process … that is demonstrably independent and not simply one that we’re being asked to trust that it’s independent.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/11/13/portland-public-schools-signal-reports-investigation/