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Cleveland Students! We are excited to welcome back any existing and new clubs into the 2024-2025 school year! Filling out this form thoroughly means that you, as a club leader, are going to abide by the responsibilities and commitment that every club is expected of. All clubs will only be approved through the Cleveland Club Application Process.

Please join us for Back to School Night is Wednesday, September 18th at 6:30pm. 

Cleveland Families,

We will be using Remind to communicate with students and families throughout the school year. 

Please check out the Parent Guide to decide how you want to be notified of important school announcements. 

Congratulations Cleveland Wind Ensemble!

Dear Cleveland Families,

I hope to see you all at Back to School Night this week. I will be available for a principal Q & A at 5:30 PM in the library. We will have 30 minutes together before the Talented and Gifted (TAG) meeting at 6:00 PM. I will be there to greet you all in the auditorium at 6:30 PM. Then, you will get to visit the classrooms of your student’s teachers. You will have the opportunity to learn about the class curriculum, expectations and grading policies. I know you will be excited to see all the great classes we have and learn more about how our teachers support students in their learning.

With the implementation of our cell phone policy, we are already seeing students focused on what is happening in class rather than on their phones. We are also seeing fewer students in the hallways during class time. Attendance is so important for students to fully access the curriculum and the support from their peers and their teachers. While the students are staying in class, I am noticing an uptick in students coming late to school in the morning and returning back from lunch. Classes start at 8:26 AM which is 4 minutes earlier than last year. Our lunch period is 33 minutes long. There is a 5 minute passing period to get to the class period after lunch. You are able to check your student’s attendance in ParentVUE.

Finally, I would like to invite you to get involved with the school in any way that works for your schedule and interests. Parent volunteers help us in so many ways from being greeters at the front door to helping in our College and Career Center. Additionally, we have many parent groups that meet: PTA, Parent Equity Group, Booster Club and individual parent groups that support various student groups such as the band, choir, theater, speech and debate, Constitution team and all of our sports teams. We also have a school wide committee called the site council that is composed of teachers, parents, students, community members and administration that reviews and advises on school improvement goals. We are in need of parent members for the site council. Ideally, we would have 3-5 parents who are elected by the PTA. If you are interested in learning more about being a member of the site council or have questions please contact me at jwadkins@pps.net.

I look forward to meeting many of you and welcoming you to school on Wednesday at Back to School Night.

Dear Cleveland Families,

As we start our first full week of school, let me share how proud I am of our students and staff as they have engaged with each other to build a strong learning community. We just finished our first week of implementing our new cell phone policy. As per our policy, parents and/or guardians will be asked to come retrieve their student’s phone if it is taken. The phones are kept locked in the office until they are retrieved. I would recommend that you discuss a communication plan with your student. You can email or Google Chat to get a message to your student. For urgent needs you can always call the school office to leave a message for your student. Next week is Back to School Night on September 18, and I will host another Q and A before the event starts. We will send specifics of that session in a separate Remind message.

Our fall sports season is having a successful start with victories for both our Boys and Girls soccer teams and Varsity football. Volleyball is off to a strong start and is playing tonight at Benson. Our Cross country team competed in the PIL preview last Wednesday. Go to the  for schedules and latest scores of all our teams. Remember that across the PIL stadiums and gyms, there are no backpacks or large bags allowed in the facilities and no outside food or drink. Safety at our events is a priority and fans will be asked to leave if they are engaging in unsafe behavior. We want you to come cheer for our team and coaches and have a great time. We love to see big crowds to our home games.

Go Warriors!

When Beckham Weatherby picks up his tuba, the rest of the world falls away. 

“I don’t get that nervous and I don’t get stage fright at all,” he said. “I guess I got lucky with how my body reacts to performing in front of crowds.”

Which is something the McDaniel High School junior has done quite a bit of lately. Not only is he a member of the prestigious Portland Youth Philharmonic (PYP) and the PYP conservatory orchestra, but he recently earned first prize in the tuba solo performance category at the Oregon State Solo Music Championships.

The first things you notice when you walk into Ellie Jensen’s classroom at Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary School are peace and warmth. Then you hear the laughter of children. Then you just might see two posters hanging on the walls that tell you a great deal about the kind of teacher she has been for the past 50 years. The posters simply say, “Leave a little sparkle wherever you go” and “Be a friend.”

Jensen, known as “Miss Ellie” to the hundreds of students she has taught in her half a century as a Portland Public Schools educator, can’t help but light up a room. And she is a friend to all children. 

We dare you to drive by the Mainspring Food Pantry on the corner of 82nd Avenue and Fremont and not do a double take. Or a triple take. 

Students from McDaniel High School’s art-focused Career Technical Education (CTE) class have spent the last four weeks turning the exterior walls of the pantry into one, huge, joyful mural as part of the course’s exploration of climate justice and community engagement.

A little over 30 years ago, a Madison High School student named Joseph Janson had a simple wish. He wanted to go to a dance. But nothing was simple for Joseph, who was born with Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy and was confined to a wheelchair. 

He confided his wish to Tony Nitz, who at that time was an educational assistant at Madison (now Leodis V. McDaniel High School). Tony had been working one-on-one with Joseph for months and he immediately went about making the young man’s dream come true.

“The truth is, I would have done anything for Joseph,” Nitz said. “He was a unique person, and we had a very special bond.”