elementary school teacher

para educator

teacher

nutrition services

educational assistant

Portland Public Schools

PPS treats paraprofessionals as cogs to be interchanged without thought. Each Special education environment is unique and skills useful in one environment are useless or a hindrance in others. One day you are working in SE Portland and the next at Jantzen Beach without consideration of where you live (transportation time and cost) or that you have been at one location four three years makes no difference. Even with a wage of 18.50 per hour after all the deductions are taken from your pay check your will make less than a full time minimum wage equivalency (consider multiple reductions in hours and day per year worked). All this while enduring numerous assaults from special education students, never know where you will be working next month, or even weather you will be able to bring a microwaveable lunch or have to bring a paper bag lunch (surprise your going on a field trip with a population you have never worked with at a building 30+ minutes away and no we won’t pay for your gas!), changing diapers of 200+lbs students (not part of my original contract) and just try to get medical help from the insurance.

The teachers do not know if paras work for them or the principal (changes almost every contract negotiation). They consider paras to have no valuable opinions (if they differ from theirs) and are treated with less respect and consideration than any other member of the work force or the special education students with sever cognitive impairments. Students with parents that are willing to sue the district get three or four times the resources of those who don’t. Students are allowed to terrorize class rooms with little or no consequence while the other students lose educational time. Student who show the ability for improvement take a back seat to those "high needs" or "in crisis" students so disabled students who could move to a place where they no longer require services are trapped. Higher power forbid if you hold a different political/educational theory/belief, you will become a pariah.

I will never work for Portland Public Schools again. PPS has soured me on the public educational process, and made it difficult for me see such institutions without bias.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I enjoyed working with some of the staff. Not all.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
There is a lot of red tape for trivial things, a ton of micromanagement on trivial things, and also unclear policies or steps for specific regular situations. You’ll find a lack of support from district office personnel as well as confusion about how to do things throughout your tenure. In the schools, students and parents pretty much dictate how things go. and if the families come from or have money, they are pushing for their children to pass when they should be failing, pushing for sports participation when they should be cut, and blame teachers and admin for everything. Children are enabled to behave poorly, be disrespectful, and challenge staff every chance they get. Parents will have an excuse ready for literally every bad thing their child does so no student can be held accountable for anything they do that makes the workplace difficult to stay in. Some are even graduating high school undeservingly just because teachers want to get rid of them and not have to deal with them or the parents anymore. This on top of minimal resources, financial mismanagement from the higher ups, and yet their salaries are very cushy and they have far less to deal with on a day to day basis than the lower paid staff. Cost of living and inflation has made the salary not something you can comfortably live off of, so you will find that teachers often coach or work at sporting events to earn some extra cash during the year. Some do tutoring. Some have evening jobs or work a second job in the summers. Having to have a second job when you work full time is asinine. Having to support your own children and find time for your own family is impossible. 

There are much better school districts to work for in the surrounding suburbs and even rural areas. Portland Public Schools should be a pit stop, if that. Staying long term in the city or in the district will not benefit anyone’s mental health. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Every man or woman for themselves.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Get a long with peers, but would have liked to have better direction for several things and more autonomy for actually leading students.

It is very difficult to maintain a work/life balance and be prepared for lessons every day.  Building stability relies on the workplace and social competency of each building administrator, which varies greatly. There is such high demand for principals that many without experience, or who have received negative recommendations from mentor principals, are placed into lead roles.  The same is being done with untrained, unlicensed, and under qualified special education teachers and support staff, who are often thrown into the more difficult positions in the schools without any formal training. They have also been misled into believing the district will pay for them to get the correct degree/endorsements needed to keep the job.

The hardest part of the job is the lack of organization and follow-through which leads to intense mistrust of all building staff towards the central office.  Many building staff (admin, teachers, paras, EAs, etc.) ignoring so-called "roll-outs" issued by the central office because no one expects them to be followed or to last long enough to be fully understood,  much less fully implemented. 

Underserved communities are significantly and visibly disadvantaged. Schools in wealthy neighborhoods raise money to hire additional teachers and staff, or to fund additional enrichment opportunities for students. Meanwhile, underserved school communities have buildings in disrepair with rats and mice, mold, inadequate heating, falling ceiling tiles and more. You don't see these issues in the "nice" neighborhoods.

And finally, violence from students has increased so significantly that students, staff, and educators or injured daily.  It is absolutely unacceptable for any student to be physically assaulted repeatedly every day without any way to prevent it.  Teachers' hands are tied. I can't even look parents in the eye. 

Teaching was a second career for me.  I spent many years in industry/manufacturing and saw first hand a need for technically trained personnel.  Most of my classes were 7-8th grade so my students received an initial exposure to technology to hopefully generate interest and motivation to enjoy technical subjects.  The Project Lead The Way curriculum was an excellent curriculum path for technically inclined young people.  Working with them was the most enjoyable part of teaching for me.
A typical day involved getting to the classroom on time to be prepared for classes.  Setting priorities is essential.  Usually the lesson plans needed tweaking and updating.  A typical class usually  involved a mini-lesson or presentation then a hands on or an on-line experience.  Middle School Tech. Ed. classes only lasted 10 weeks so classroom time was of the essence.  A mid-morning meeting with the "Unified Arts" teacher team was always enjoyable and enlightening.  One of six periods was a prep period which always flew by... like every day.  Day's end in the school was spent preparing for future classes or grading.
Leaving the school building did not end the day's teaching chores.  Usually 1-3 hours was spent at home finishing up on preparations and grading.  A good nights rest was necessary to keep up with the boundless energy of teens.

A typical day at work was very busy with students supporting them in their learning and in developing life skills with a focus to achieve success and excellence in all academic pursuits.
I believe I learned the concept of pedagogy adopted by teachers in shaping my actions, judgments, and teaching strategies by taking into consideration theories of learning, understandings of students and their needs, and the backgrounds. 
Classroom management was a difficult aspect while at the PPS.  I learned that assertiveness and empathy towards students played a major part in getting to know them  and  helped them develop self-confidence.  
The workplace culture was accepting - Team work was encouraging.
The hard part of the job was how to manage a situation when students get escalated due to some external triggers in and out of the school premises.
The most enjoyable part of the job was when students did well in post assessments after instructional time.


Worked there as a contractor doing IT. Job culture was the worst. Many employees were more concerned about leveraging their seniority to avoid doing unpleasant tasks than with actually getting the job done efficiently, to the point that they just ended up creating more work for everyone. In terms of non-work culture it was actually pretty good, being very friendly to minorities and reasonably chill.

Management was hit or miss overall with some very good people, but watching some of the promotions that happened and having my feedback on a process improvement discounted by my immediate supervisor only to be implemented shortly thereafter (presumably because someone with more status brought up the idea, which was a very obvious improvement) was very demoralizing. 

Staffing fluctuated between overstaffed and understaffed on the contractor side of things, never really finding the proper balance between overwhelmed and bored, and wasting lots of money on the over-staffed side.

This job as a custodian has a lot of job skills that you could learn in this field, but I would encourage you to look somewhere else. The job description that this company detailed isn't what they described on their posting. For example, there isn't enough staff to cover everyone shifts if you call in sick and you may have to extra clean your area when you come back or work a double. In the summer you may have to move heavy furniture by yourself down the stairs without an elevator in some locations. also, some staff won't be motivated to finish summer cleaning and that would put extra frustration on their colleagues. Another thing, that frustrates me is that you only could take vacation when school is out of session and also the amount of work to complete is unreasonable for some individuals. The pay needs to be reasonable for the amount of work they want you to complete and this is some of the issues of being a custodian at this school district.

The assistant role that I have is a dead end.  There is no advancement without an expensive master's degree. The assistant role is often disrespected by teachers, including teachers that you actively support. Sometimes you are forced to carry their entire classrooms for them while they do paperwork.  There is little recognition or praise, only negative feedback when something goes wrong. The environment at my school has a strong division between licensed staff and classified staff. Classified staff are not invited to attend meetings or participate in meaningful professional development. There is a lack of cohesion between the two groups.  Assistants have to adjust to many different teaching styles. Some teachers will micromanage the assistants, while others provide no guidance at all. At the end of the day this job often feels defeating and dead end.

Last year I had  "honor" to deal with PPS resulting with " pleasant " experience. I applied for a position. During the hiring process ( it took approximately 6 months ) were happening some episodes that raised questions. When I did not receive answers for my concerns, I decided to complain to PPS' ombudsman. To say that I was surprised when I discovered that there is no an ombudsman who deals with concerns regarding hiring is to say nothing. I am going to omit what " circus" was going trying to solve my claims. Of course, I was not successful . It is outrageous. PPS is not a private company therefore its operations are supposed to be transparent. Am I dreaming that I am back in my former country where an average person could not complain? I see PPS as a private club where your constitutional rights as a USA citizen are suspended. The authorities that oversee this " great " institution are supposed to pay attention what is going on there.

The students are always worth investing in, and PPS will take advantage of your caring spirit and drive to do what’s best for kids by denying you adequate support and resources, gaslighting, and disrespecting you as a professional and a person. The pay for teachers is good, but the working environment is abysmal due to horrendously bad leadership in many buildings and throughout the district office. If you have a great principal, you will be one of the few lucky ones, but even those generally either don’t stay or “turn” because of the horrible leadership above them. 


Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Elementary school teacher 69 salaries reported	$91,095 per year
Para educator 22 salaries reported	$25.04 per hour
Teacher 20 salaries reported	$81,420 per year
Nutrition services 26 salaries reported	$23.03 per hour
Educational assistant 34 salaries reported	$23.41 per hour

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