In a mid-year update to the Forest Grove School Board, Superintendent Suzanne West said the district faced layoffs and that federal immigration enforcement is believed to be driving a spike in student withdrawals from the district.
Since school began for the year in September, 207 students have withdrawn from a school. Forty of those withdrawals were in-district, meaning a student left for a different school in the Forest Grove School District, West said during her presentation. She said just under 300 students withdrew from the district last year, and believes the district is on track to surpass that number this year.
Some transfers are expected every year; students leave the district because they have moved, graduate early, drop out, opt to homeschool or attend a private school, for example.
One hundred thirty-nine of the 207 student withdrawals are Latino, according to a slide West displayed to the board. According to Oregon Department of Education data from the 2024-25 school year, the most recent data available, 59% of students in the district were Hispanic or Latino.
"Immigration enforcement has significantly impacted us," West said. "We've had a lot of students leave."
She added that attendance rates have also dropped due to fears over immigration enforcement.
"We're several percentage points higher in our absence rates than we were for the same period of time last year," she said. "Even more than that, the fear and the stress and the anxiety that this is causing in our community, it does have an impact on students and staff in our schools," she said.
West described a ripple effect of fear and uncertainty that went beyond enrollment and attendance, describing negative impacts to staff well-being and student learning.
"As a community, I suspect we will be feeling it for a generation. I don't think this is going to end soon. I think we're in it for the long haul, and the long term effects of what staff and students are feeling, we won't know the full effect of that for many years."
West said student absences were appearing in district data and that she expects the district to fall short of targeted Longitudinal Performance Growth Targets (LPGTs).
LPGTs are targets set by districts in conjunction with the Oregon Department of Education; they track metrics like on-time graduation rates, math and reading proficiency, and attendance.
"Those metrics that the state expects of us, I've already psychologically prepared myself that we're not going to hit all of them, as hard as everyone's working," West said.
Staff reduction 'seems inevitable'
When the district adopts a budget in June, it's likely that some teachers and staff will lose their jobs, West said.
West said staff reductions were likely due to a combination of reductions forecast by the Oregon Legislature, uncertainty about federal funding, lost revenue from lower student enrollment and costs rising faster than money coming into the district.
"We likely are going to have to make some staff reductions. We will do everything we can to not impact people, but at this point, given the projections, I don't know how we will get away with not reducing positions," West said. She promised further updates as the budget process advanced.
"But it seems inevitable at this point," she added.
Teaching quality, professional learning inconsistent
Earlier in her presentation, West praised district staff and families.
"I am blown away by the commitment by our educators, our administrators, our support staff, our families and their commitment to their kids' education, it's remarkable."
West said teachers and leaders in the Forest Grove School District need to learn how to do their jobs better.
She described the need for instruction to improve as urgent.
"One thing that has become abundantly clear to me is that we need a real deep dive on professional learning in this district. We need to dig deep into instruction and reset some instructional practices," she said.
West said some of that work has begun.
"Everybody is working hard, and doing what they absolutely believe is right for kids but that effort has not been supported with the kind of professional learning that allows us to accelerate change through the system," West said. She said change would be coming over the next couple of years to address this.
"As I have observed in classrooms, I've noticed inconsistency in instructional quality, inconsistency in alignment and inconsistency in the use of data," she said.
"That's on us. That's a leadership problem. That is not a teacher problem, so that is something that we need to be fixed," she said.
West said the district is seeing "pockets of growth," but that it would take a while for those results to take root.
"Change takes time, new habits take time, practices take time," she said.
