In the final days of the legislative session, a handful of education initiatives in Oregon are facing budget cuts. And with precious little time left for advocacy, time is running out for an eleventh hour save. Proponents of the programs slated to be trimmed or ended learned that news only in the last two weeks, with the passage of the administrative budget for the Oregon Department of Education. The cuts are largely due to a projected $195.3 million drop in revenue from the state’s business tax on most sales above $1 million, which is set aside for education. Among the impacted programs: A $12 million cut to Outdoor School ’s current $60 million budget. Outdoor School is a weeklong nature education immersion program for fifth and sixth graders, typically led by science educators, that is a first sleepaway camping and hiking experience for many students. The cut doesn’t mean that Outdoor School will no longer exist, but trips could be shorter in duration or offered at fewer sites . In a letter to lawmakers pleading for the funds to be restored, Portland school board members called Outdoor School “a beloved and longstanding tradition,” but so far, to no avail. Zeroed-out funding for the state’s “Grow Your Own” teacher and administrator initiative, which is aimed at recruiting and keeping teachers and administrators in hard-to-fill positions across the state, including in rural and remote schools, in special education and in bilingual or multilingual positions. The change means that programs like Eastern Oregon University’s Rural Teacher Corps will have to slash financial aid for potential teachers and seek even more private donations, said Dave Dallas, who directs the Teach Rural Oregon program there. No new candidates can enroll, though $14 million in carryover funds will support those who are midway through their programs. The cut comes on top of a shift in who can receive grants made by the separate Oregon Teacher Scholars Program, which has dropped racial preferences in the face of legal threats. A $22 million cut to the current $42 million in grant funding aimed at historically underserved groups of students , including Black, Native, Pacific Islander and Alaskan Native, LGBTQIA+, immigrant/refugee and Latino students. State budget analysis said the move came in part to “streamline grant-making and reduce reporting redundancies” for those who receive the grants. Money from the current round of Oregon Department of Education-administered grants typically goes to school districts and community-based organizations that try to provide those groups of students with extra help to read at grade level, regularly attend school and graduate on time. Results of the initiatives have been mixed over the past few years, but providers — particularly community based organizations — had urged lawmakers to stay the course and give them time to embed their work with school districts. In a letter to lawmakers, a number of Black-led organizations, including the Black United Fund of Oregon and Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center, called the cuts “a disinvestment in Oregon’s most underserved students [that] comes without meaningful engagement or communication with advisory leaders or frontline organizations who are deeply involved in implementing this work.”

Meanwhile, at the federal level, the U.S. Department of Education has implied that public schools throughout Oregon could be in danger of losing federal funding if any diversity, equity and inclusion educational efforts — potentially including grants like these aimed at underserved student groups — were found to “advantage one race over another.” Zeroed-out $9 million in funding for summer school grants made by the Oregon Department of Education that were paid for by corporate activity tax dollars. That is a separate pot of money from the $35 million that lawmakers approved for summer programming tied to literacy for this year and next. The change left several large school districts, including Portland Public Schools, scrambling and concerned that they would have to cancel or curtail summer programming that is set to begin next week. In an emergency meeting on Monday, officials at the Oregon Department of Education said they were seeking one-time funds to help cover the gaps in Portland and other impacted districts. Advocates for all of these programs had high hopes that their priorities would make it into the so-called “Christmas tree bill,” a traditional financial hallmark of the end of the legislative session. That bill typically ear marks funds for a wide range of programs and projects favored by key lawmakers. But none of the education priorities made it to that bill, with funds instead going to wildfire fighting and prevention, immigration legal services, the long-term care workforce and a host of other choices. Lawmakers did approve a $11.4 billion general fund budget for schools, which is slightly more than an 11% increase over current spending levels. Percentage wise, that is a larger increase than most other other public service budgets, though still not enough to stave off cuts in some districts due to a combination of labor agreements, enrollment drops and the sun setting of pandemic aid. Legislators also modestly increased funding for the state’s broad investments in early literacy . — Julia Silverman covers K-12 education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her via email at [email protected]