Five years later, my daughter is still being harassed--and I've learned that simply calling someone 'racist' doesn't repair the damage or foster real understanding. I fully support Cleveland High's commitment to equity, but I believe our community deserves genuine learning, not symbolic gestures. What happened: The culinary teacher asked a volunteer to "give Alfonso a face," handing a white student a mold created during a prior unit on ethnic heritage. That student piped on icing, then classmates--including my daughter--posed for a photo with the finished cake, unaware it evoked blackface. Meanwhile, Black students and their families saw a painful reminder of a history of dehumanization. How it blew up: The teacher encouraged everyone to post their work online, and the image--three white students holding a blackface cake--sparked immediate outrage. Administrators lumped it in with noose and swastika graffiti, never noting it was a classroom assignment. Local and national media quickly labeled three "racist white girls" trying to sell their creation. The principal held a rally condemning hate, but when students asked why there had been no suspensions or other consequences for the girls, she replied the incident was still "under investigation"--the results were never made public. The restorative circle: Five days after the incident, the principal finally convened a circle with the Black Student Union--without the culinary teacher present or any disclosure that the blackface cake had been a classroom assignment. Rather than using that space to examine how the curriculum, the teacher's directives, and the school's broader white-supremacist culture enabled this harm, administrators chose the easiest narrative: framing it solely as an intentional hate act. By lumping it in with noose and swastika graffiti and placing full blame on three students, they sidestepped any meaningful discussion of systemic failings and missed the chance to acknowledge their own institutional responsibility to families of color. That circle proved the most instructive experience of my daughter's two years at Cleveland--she emerged with profound new insights--but it also violated restorative justice's fundamental principle that all parties share their stories. What followed: Despite appealing to the PPS school board for answers, they declined to comment, citing teacher protections and "student privacy." At the same time, our daughter was already receiving death threats--and under the "impact matters, not intent" framework, any public explanation risked making things worse for her. Fearing for her safety, we chose not to speak to the media. My daughter left the PPS system after 10th grade. The incident profoundly changed her perspective on institutional racism--but most of her classmates never gained that insight What this says about Cleveland High: This episode could have been a teachable moment for all students about how white supremacy continues to shape school culture--from blackface molds to one‐off "culture fairs" unmoored from curriculum. Instead, students were shamed without real instruction. Bottom line: Cleveland High's response was incomplete. I share this so that, if another school faces something similar, it chooses education and transparency over mere symbolism. Honest conversations are the only way forward. read more

Cleveland High School - Cleveland Culinary's Instagram featured a ceramic "Alfonso and his tribe" cast from the same mold used for the blackface chocolate. - Middle Schools & High Schools Near Me - Portland, Oregon

this school is pissing me off this school cant make rules im gonna switch my kids outta of this school i told my friends to switch theres kids beacuse this school is horrible the new rule of being late to class IS BAD IDEA and slow my daughter was like 1 mins late to class and they shut there door right at her face and made her go back to the office to get a yellow pass for her to enter the class the made her 10 times more late this school read more

Some of the teachers are fantastic, and some are not. All of the math teachers I had were pretty awful. I appreciated how bullying seemed to be pretty uncommon and all of the counselors are wonderful and very supportive. The school itself is old, really old. We had ceiling tiles fall all of the time and almost hit students because the building is falling apart, it also just constantly smelled like piss unfortunately. the clubs and school activities were very limited compared to what they used to be which is also a little annoying. The amount of electives were also quite slim unless you were in a music program. Overall, I loved my science teachers and the all of my English teachers were kind...but I learned nothing. The math teachers here are truly awful and I saw so many students drop math classes because their test scores are so bad. I've seen students work as hard as they can and ask questions yet still fail due to teachers rushing through lessons or being unclear in their instructions. If I could do it over again I would try to get into higher level math courses because the teachers are more competent. read more

Ok soo ive Ben in did scool fer like 2 hole monthss methinks I'm a expert noww...... ok so like the school is like the worst like scool ive evverr seen in m life it got like NO FOOD (at least none that GOOD IM IN WYEASTACADEMY (sorry caps look was on LOLOP and like the teaccers are the worst thing ive ever seeen there the most boringest things in my . Ok but like reallty I dont like this scool at all it not a good Eveb tho im just a fresh man I'm probs the freshest man in that s***hole THATS RITE I SAID IT GET REKT im sure someone things that dat scool is okayy but its not okay to put on a 9 11 doccumentarry and have kidz lyke me watcch it without NO warning Have u evr gon 2 a scol thet waz soooooo bad Cuz u probs went 2 dis 1 dont lick this scool read more

They have an amazing dance team! Parents and the teammates work really hard for competition and fundraising pay for it all! Go Cleveland dance team! read more

My daughter is a freshman and four months into the school year. She's loving CHS and thinks the teachers are great - for the most part - and is super happy at the school. I'm surprisingly impressed with how structured and organized the school runs. We'll see how the rest of this year and subsequent years play out, but I'm cheerily optimistic. My daughters been in private schools up to 9th grade and CHS runs more smoothly than the private schools. read more

I have been at this school for too long. The teachers fall asleep in class, there is no clean running water, and it is riddled with arson. There is no "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" - Aretha Franklin. Help us. read more

I haven't been to very many good schools. out of all the schools i've been to this ones pretty good, i guess. oh, except for all of the racism. the students here suck and think they're better than everyone else. if you're new and have a hard time connecting with people you're gonna have a terrible time finding friends at this place. the only class i found friends in were my theatre class. oh, speaking of theatre, they give zero shits to the theatre department. they have one class with one teacher they can't manage to keep. its crazily underfunded. this school doesn't care about the arts at all it seems. you really REALLY have to push to get anything done. my art class in cleveland was one of, if not the WORST classes i've ever been too. their paints are old and many are dried. there's like one actual janitor so the entire school is horribly messy. under the stairs on the second floor in the east wing has so much dust it looks like it hasn't been cleaned in YEARS. and i personally felt like none of the teachers i had were very good at actually teaching. they weren't engaging at all. (except for you Madam Ried you were amazing). it really felt like none of them cared about my education and didn't give me the motivation i needed to learn. and the administration don't get me STARTED. our old principal took almost ZERO action it seemed when it came to serious issues. it took her three months to address the things that had happened in october. everyone had no respect for her. AND THEY DONT HAVE ANY SCHOOL BUSSES. i get it, the school is on a block and it'd be really hard to navigate in a city and we already have city busses but UGH. i'm always late for school because it takes me over an hour to get there. and at the end of the school day all of the busses are packed and it takes me almost two hours to get back home. it's just such a huge waste of my time. i have many more complaints but let's just take a look at some good things, shall we? though the teachers aren't so engaging they're all very nice and understanding when it comes to mental health. the school has its own medical center where they do check ups and such just like a regular doctors office, but they also have therapy! the food is okay. it's kinda hard to get food when all of the lines are so long. by the time i get to my food everything is almost gone. but it's still pretty good food for being cafeteria food. lots of good fresh fruits and vegetables. that's all i have to say. step up your game cleveland, the only reason i like you is my friends. read more

A majority of the teachers here are great individuals. The ESL teacher is overly friendly and a little rude at times. If you get the right school counselor, they can be very helpful. She tends to be negative. Her class's main purpose is homework help. When I was a mentor for her class, we started with 5 or 6 mentors. We ended the year with 2 mentors. The other one didn't even show up half the time for personal reasons. The ESL teacher means well, but she just doesn't seem like a great person despite her overly friendly kind personality. She doesn't seem to always have a handle on things -more than the average teacher-. Some of the school counselors aren't proactive or frankly very helpful. A lot of the students buy drugs plus it's located in Portland, OR so what do you expect? You can frequently smell weed if you're around the "right" people, so to speak. Like other high schools you can make close friends here and form good bonds with your teachers. It just depends who you choose to hangout with. The school however is outdated in some ways. One way into their school cafeteria has two different doors. They're different colors, have different kinds of windows (shape and size), and a couple other things that scream: "Portland Public Schools doesn't have adequate funding!" They have a little over 1,000 students. They've literally run out of lockers even though there's lockers all over the building. A lot of students don't even use their locker. They just store textbooks, old assignments and things they don't always need to take home. Some students have never even opened their locker. I've never personally eaten cafetière food, but it's a public high school cafeteria. They're not gonna serve you gourmet food, and public schools' food tends to taste like cardboard. I attended Cleveland for a couple years, and I also attended a elementary school and middle school -in addition to Cleveland HS-. I know Portland Public Schools pretty well to say the very least. I've actually seen an Instagram account that's dedicated to fights (physical fights between students) within the Portland Public School district. Obviously that account want made by a district official/staff member. I'm only giving two stars because the building, students, school counselors and general upkeep of the school isn't great. There are a few stellar teachers, but it's the luck of the draw. I left Cleveland for various personal and private reasons at the beginning of my junior year. I switched to a couple different alternative high schools and ended up graduating a year early. During my sophomore year there was some major issues around African American students -in general-. A few girls "unintentionally" made a black face cake. The Nazi swastika symbol were written all over Jewish student union posters that were posted in the hallways. Bathroom stalls had stick figure drawings of lynching. This resulted in the principal resigning. Although the staff were already filing a document that stated they thought she was unfit for the job she had before all of these racist things happened. History/social studies teachers taught a half hour lesson about the significance of black face and lynching, but I doubt it really affected the student body as a whole. The culinary teacher who let the black face cake be made still had their job as of September 2019 since no one wanted the job after the black face cake. read more

just send yr kids to franklin... good if you don't want to learn and just need to graduate, bad if you actually want to learn. stop sending special ed kids here, it's better than trillium and such but not better than any other public school for us. understaffed, will hire bad:in experienced staff, no variety in lunch food, poor pay for student lunch staff. only had woodshop, no metal or auto, weird limits on freshman classes, and the old PE teacher made me run until it hurt. someone's phone lit on fire and we evacuated because of ANOTHER issue. building is from 1928, as pretty as it is, i can't get behind the amount of gas and water leeks over the years. the ~historic~ boiler room is underneath the chem lab which i question the safety of... even after they disabled most of the fountains the newer ones in PE were there and we drank from them, then they removed them. thanks for the lead poisoning. read more

Hm where to start... I would say this school needs some oomph it's pretty good though. It smells odd and overwhelming of BO and the hallways are filthy with trash. other than that it's great. read more

absolutely garbage transferred after two years the ceiling leaks and the way the rooms are numbered is batshit crazy

I'm not going to lie, I've been to better schools. And by that I mean every other school I've ever been to. The desks were too close together, and it took over an hour for us to be seated. I got there at 7:00 AM because their website said they opened at 7:15, but the doors weren't even opened until 8:00. Those bastards left me sitting out in the cold for over an hour. When we were finally seated, we were shocked to see that there was only one waiter in our dinning room! There were about 35 people, but only one server! This was absolutely ridiculous, and it took almost half an hour for them to take our order. When the food finally came, it was watery and cold. All in all, worst school experience of all time. DO NOT GO HERE!!! read more

One of the best Public schools in Portland. I've spent the last 4 years here and I don't regret one thing about it. Not only does it excels academically, their Jazz band are currently top in States. read more