Through a year-long process, the PPS community articulated a vision to reimagine PPS. It describes the Graduate Portrait for PPS students, Educator Essentials (skills and dispositions that will enable adults to support our students), and 11 System Shifts that will enable our organization to bring these to life. PPS is working to ensure that all district strategies and decisions are aligned toward achieving our vision.
PPS Educator Pathways Program aims to prepare and recruit a high-quality educator workforce that reflects the diversity of the broader community and inspires a culture of learning, growth, and development dedicated to equitable learning outcomes. Our systematic approach emphasizes continuous support and collaboration with Human Resources and our university partners.
We have introduced an Educator Pathways Framework to align with our District’s Mission, Goals, and Instructional Priorities. This framework underscores our dedication to Racial Equity and Social Justice, which is integral to preparing Teacher Candidates for the diverse needs of PPS classrooms.
Portland Public Schools is committed to providing high-quality educational experiences for our Teacher Candidates in carefully structured and supervised environments. To maintain these standards, we utilize a centralized placement and pairing process that ensures all teacher candidates are provided with qualified Cooperating Teacher Leaders in settings that are safe, secure, and compliant with district and state policies. This process is integral to our commitment to upholding the education integrity and legal requirements necessary for teacher preparation.
Portland Public Schools requires a formal student-teacher contract with all education preservice programs that we engage with. We cannot accept individual Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with building administrators as substitutes for the comprehensive agreements our district mandates.
To further uphold these standards, we have refined our collaboration scope by reducing the number of university programs we partner with for student teaching placements.
PPS partners with the following universities for Teacher Candidate Student Teaching Field Experiences