An inaccurate May 1 story by News Center Maine (WCSH6) about the meeting that night of the district's Attendance Boundaries Advisory Committee has generated confusion regarding Lincoln Middle School. At the district's request, WCSH6 has retracted the news report. Please view the following communication from the Portland Public Schools that addresses the inaccuracies and clarifies the role of the Advisory Committee:

Dear PPS community:

Some people may have seen or heard about a news story that was aired last night on WCSH6 and briefly posted on their website. This story falsely claimed that the district made an announcement last night at a Board of Public Education meeting that we were "considering repurposing Lincoln Middle School." Because of the inaccurate and misleading nature of this story, we immediately asked WSCH6 to take down the story and they did.

The meeting that took place last night was not a Board meeting but instead was a meeting of a Board-appointed advisory committee. The Board established the Attendance Boundaries Advisory Committee in June 2024 to explore if the district should redraw the enrollment boundaries for some or all of its elementary and middle schools to achieve more equitable enrollment and demographic balance and, if so, how that might happen. The committee also was charged with considering if changes should be made to the district’s current middle school model to better reflect current and future enrollment and better promote equity and achievement.

The committee has been meeting monthly since the fall of 2024, in which time there have been wide-ranging discussions of a variety of ideas and scenarios. The charge of the committee is to explore a variety of options from all angles and to wrestle with difficult conversations around how best to weigh the district's numerous priorities and resource constraints. At last night's meeting, there was an initial discussion of a map that showed what it would look like if the district went from three middle schools down to two – in this conceptual scenario those remaining schools were King and Moore. The committee did not come to any conclusions with regard to that concept and, in general, has not yet reached any conclusions about what recommendations it might make to the Board.

This work will continue into the fall of 2025 and the committee will continue to explore a variety of concepts for potentially addressing enrollment boundaries. If the committee makes any recommendations to the Board for changes, the Board would only consider those recommendations after extensive public engagement and deliberation.

All committee meetings are virtual and accessible to the public and recordings of all meetings are posted online. Meeting dates, times, and agendas can be found on the PPS website under BoardDocs. A recording of the committee's May 1 meeting can be viewed on the district’s YouTube page at this link: https://youtu.be/6GxE794TV-U

Initial public engagement sessions with the advisory committee and PPS staff will begin in late May and continue in the fall. Those dates will be posted on the Board calendar on the PPS website.