Do neighborhood families choose Laurelhurst?
Yes. Laurelhurst keeps 85% of the PPS students who live in its attendance area, making it 14th of the 74 PPS schools with published capture rates. Across the district, PPS schools keep only 70% of their neighborhood students.
And while attendance drops noticeably in PPS middle schools, it holds steady for Laurelhurst’s middle graders.
Of the 719 PPS students living in Laurelhurst’s area, 610 (85%) attend Laurelhurst. Only 71 (10%) are drawn to PPS’s alternative and lottery programs, compared with 15% across all PPS elementary and K-8 neighborhoods.
- Capture rate is PPS’s measure: the share of PPS students living in a school’s attendance area who attend that school. Pre-K students are not counted.
- Where the rest go: of the 719 PPS students in Laurelhurst’s area, 610 attend Laurelhurst, 71 attend PPS alternative programs (the report’s “PPS Alternative” column), 14 attend another neighborhood school, 12 attend a PPS charter, and 12 are in special services programs.
- Capture rate only counts PPS students. It shows how many PPS families choose their neighborhood school over other PPS options, like focus, immersion or lottery programs. Families who leave PPS for private school aren’t in it at all. The All neighborhood kids tab counts them too.
- This is the most recent capture-rate report PPS has published. Grades are each school’s 2024-25 configuration.
- Richmond, Winterhaven, Odyssey, da Vinci, MLC, and ACCESS have no attendance area, so they have no capture rate. Jefferson High School (16%) is left out of the chart. Most of its attendance area is shared with Grant, McDaniel, and Roosevelt, so families there can choose either school, which pulls its capture rate far below any other school’s.
For the neighborhood as a whole, families choose Laurelhurst K-8 over other PPS options and private schools for about 69% of K–8 kids. That’s about 7 points more than a neighborhood with its income would be expected to keep.
- Why two numbers: PPS’s capture rate leaves out families who choose private school. The second number divides the same neighborhood-school students by every K–8 student living in the area, public or private. In Laurelhurst’s neighborhood, about 1 in 5 kids in grades K–8 attends a private school, a little below most neighborhoods with similar family incomes.
- Treat differences of a few points as ties. The private-school figures come from Census survey estimates with wide margins of error: about ±5 points for Laurelhurst’s area, and up to ±25 for some others.
- In some higher-income west-side neighborhoods, 26% to 47% of K–8 kids attend private school, so a high PPS capture rate there covers a much smaller share of the neighborhood.
In one of PPS’s most affluent neighborhoods, where private school is within reach for many families, Laurelhurst still enrolls more of its neighborhood’s kids than most of its peers. A strong neighborhood K-8 is how PPS keeps them.
Laurelhurst students come to school more regularly than students across PPS’s elementary, K-8, and middle schools, by 7 to 10 points in every large student group, including students in poverty and students with disabilities.
- All students 644 at Laurelhurst
- Grades 6–8 242 at Laurelhurst
- Multiracial students 83 at Laurelhurst
- Students with disabilities 108 at Laurelhurst
- Hispanic/Latino students 42 at Laurelhurst
- Students experiencing poverty 73 at Laurelhurst
- Why compare with PPS K-8 schools, not all of PPS: attendance drops sharply in high school (PPS 12th graders: 38%), so the district-wide rate of 67.5% would make any K-8 look good. My comparison adds up all 70 PPS-run schools serving kindergarten through 8th grade (26,056 students), leaving out charter schools.
- PPS middle schools are the 15 PPS schools serving only grades 6–8 (7,065 students). They serve older students than a K-8 does, so they aren’t a like-for-like comparison for Laurelhurst as a whole; they show how attendance changes once students reach middle school. Across PPS, 74.6% of K–5 students are regular attenders, compared with 69.1% at middle schools. At Laurelhurst it’s 80.8% in K–5 and 80.2% in grades 6–8.
- By grade at Laurelhurst: 84.0% in 6th grade, 83.0% in 7th, and 73.4% in 8th, vs. 74.3%, 69.5%, and 65.5% across all PPS-run schools. Laurelhurst’s 8th grade dips but stays well above PPS.
- Laurelhurst’s overall rate partly reflects its low poverty rate (11% of students). The group comparisons above compare similar students with similar students, which is the fairer test.
- Two smaller groups are below the chart’s size cutoff: Black students attend at 52.9% at Laurelhurst (17 students) vs. 52.0% at PPS K-8 schools, and English learners at 30.0% (10 students) vs. 58.5%. With groups this small, one or two students change the rate a lot.
PPS stands to lose at least $11,127 in state funding for every student who leaves. Neighborhood families here have options, and many already use them. A neighborhood K-8 is one of PPS’s best tools for keeping them in the system.
- Kindergarten
- Grades 1–4
- Grades 5–8
- Grades 9–12
Middle school is where families are leaving
- PSU’s enrollment forecast finds that the share of Portland students in grades 5–8 attending private school rose from 14.9% to 22.6% between 2019 and 2024. No other grade group changed as much. Kindergarten’s share was high but steady, at about 32%, and high school’s held at about 16.5%.2
- Laurelhurst’s neighborhood held steady. Census survey data for 2015–19 and 2020–24 suggest that its private-school share for grades 5–8 held steady or dipped slightly, from 16.6% to 15.4% (±11 points).3
Laurelhurst keeps its families at 6th grade
- Over the last three years, 234 Laurelhurst 5th graders became 238 6th graders. Across PPS, about 4 of every 100 students were gone between 5th and 6th grade, roughly 150 students a year.4
- Converting Laurelhurst would create a transition point at 6th grade, moving kids out of the neighborhood at the exact moment when PSU finds Portland families leave for private school the fastest.
Laurelhurst’s families have options
- About 1 in 5 of the K–8 kids in Laurelhurst’s neighborhood already attend private school (see the All neighborhood kids tab).
- Oregon funds school districts per enrolled student, so every family that leaves takes that funding with it.5
-
$11,127
State school funding PPS receives per student each year, at minimum Oregon State School Fund, Portland SD 1J, 2025-26 ↗
-
×
~11
Laurelhurst middle graders who would leave PPS if the neighborhood went to private school at its expected rate, about 22% instead of 18%6 226 students in grades 6–8 (PSU forecast, 2026-27)
-
=
~$122,000
Funding PPS would lose each year if those families left public school $11,127 × 11 students
-
×
~17
Laurelhurst K–5 students who would leave if their families left at the same expected rate7 348 students in grades K–5 (PSU forecast, 2026-27), at $11,127 each
-
=
~$189,000
Funding PPS would lose each year if younger brothers and sisters left too $11,127 × 17 students
If Laurelhurst families left PPS at the expected rate:
$122,000–$311,000 a year Funding PPS could lose, depending on whether younger brothers and sisters leave too 11 middle graders, or 28 students including grades K–5, at $11,127 eachThey wouldn’t have to go far. All Saints, a private Catholic preschool–8th grade school with about 450 students, is inside the Laurelhurst neighborhood at 601 NE César Chávez Blvd. Families who want one school through 8th grade would still have a K-8 nearby. It just wouldn’t be a PPS school.9
1 PSU Population Research Center, PPS Enrollment Forecast 2026-27 to 2035-36, Table 3.2 (p. 18), from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Margins of error: kindergarten ±11 to ±13 points; grades 1–4 ±5 to ±6; grades 5–8 ±4.5 (2019) and ±7.7 (2024); grades 9–12 ±3 to ±5. ↑
2 These are census survey estimates with wide margins of error, about ±5 to ±8 points for grades 5–8. The direction is consistent, but the exact size of the shift is uncertain. ↑
3 Census Bureau, American Community Survey five-year estimates, 2015–2019 and 2020–2024, table B14002 (school enrollment by grade and public or private school), for the census tracts in Laurelhurst’s attendance area, divided by land area. Five-year estimates pool five years of surveys, so they don’t match PSU’s one-year figures above. Measured the same way, the private-school share for grades 5–8 across all PPS neighborhoods rose from 15.0% to 17.9% (±2.8 points). ±11 points is the margin of error on Laurelhurst’s change. ↑
4 Laurelhurst: Oregon Department of Education fall enrollment by grade, 5th grade in 2022-23 to 2024-25 and 6th grade the following year (79 to 83, 77 to 80, 78 to 75). PPS: PSU forecast, Table 3.1, grades 5 and 6, 2022 to 2025 (10,229 5th graders became 9,780 6th graders). These are net counts: students who leave and students who move in cancel out. ↑
5 State school funding follows enrolled students under ORS 327.013. ↑
6 This is a “what if,” not a prediction. About 18% (±5 points) of K–8 kids in Laurelhurst’s neighborhood attend private school. A neighborhood with its share of high-income families would be expected to send about 22% (see the All neighborhood kids tab and Sources and method). If Laurelhurst’s 226 middle graders came from a neighborhood at that rate, about 11 fewer would be enrolled in PPS: 226 × (1 − 78 ÷ 82). Funding per student is PPS’s 2025-26 State School Fund grant per weighted student, $11,127 (Oregon Department of Education). Students with extra needs carry extra weight, so this is a floor: with PPS’s mix of students, the average student brings in about $13,500. Oregon funds districts on the higher of the current or prior year’s weighted enrollment, so the loss shows up in funding a year after students leave. ↑
7 Families often have more than one child at Laurelhurst, and a family that leaves PPS for middle school may move younger children at the same time. Same method as note 6, applied to Laurelhurst’s 348 K–5 students: 348 × (1 − 78 ÷ 82), about 17 students. Also a “what if,” not a prediction. ↑
8 PPS’s figure: converting Laurelhurst saves 2.2 teaching positions at about $160,000 each (TLE Committee, “Middle Grades,” Oct. 13, 2026). Busing costs are from the Busing costs page. Funding at risk is the range above, a “what if” rather than a prediction, and Oregon’s funding formula delays the loss by a year. ↑
9 All Saints School enrollment: National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Survey, 2021–22 (via ProPublica). ↑
Sources and method
- PPS, School Profiles: October 2024 capture rate. Neighborhood student counts and capture rates by school. PPS has not published a 2025-26 version; its enrollment-planning page, where one would likely be posted, is password-protected.
- District average (70%): PPS’s report totals 29,317 of 41,776 students attending their neighborhood school across elementary, middle, and high schools (71%, 70%, and 69%). The report’s grand total prints 68% because it also counts 1,599 students with no assigned neighborhood, who by definition can’t attend one; I leave those out.
- Oregon Department of Education, Regular Attenders report, 2024-25. A regular attender attended more than 90% of the days they were enrolled, counted through the first school day in May. Students enrolled fewer than 75 days are not counted. The PPS K-8 comparison adds the regular-attender counts for every PPS-run elementary, K-8, and middle school and divides by their total students in each group; “Grades 6–8” uses the grade 6, 7, and 8 rows.
- All neighborhood kids: private-school counts come from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2020–2024 five-year estimates, table B14002 (school enrollment by level and type), for kindergarten through 8th grade in every Multnomah County census tract. Each tract’s students are divided among PPS attendance areas by land area. The share of all neighborhood kids is PPS’s capture rate multiplied by the area’s public-school share. Charter students count as public; homeschooled students aren’t counted. The census years (2020–24) differ from the capture-rate year (fall 2024).
- Family income: the 13 neighborhoods in the All neighborhood kids chart are the PPS elementary and K-8 attendance areas where more than half of families with children under 18 had incomes of $200,000 or more. Source: Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2020–2024 five-year estimates, table B19131 (family income for families with and without children under 18), for every Multnomah County census tract. Each tract’s families are divided among attendance areas by land area, the same way as the private-school counts. The Census’s top income bracket is “$200,000 or more,” so these 13 areas can’t be ranked against each other by income. These are survey estimates with margins of error: about 56% (±13 points) of families with children in Laurelhurst’s area are in the top bracket. The figures cover families living in each area, including those whose children attend private school. hollywoodHUB, a new affordable apartment building inside Laurelhurst’s area, opens in spring 2027, after these surveys. Its 126 family-size apartments are for households earning 60% of the area median income or less. If most of them house families with children, the share of Laurelhurst-area families with children earning $200,000 or more would drop noticeably, from about 56% to about 50%. Its effect on the private-school share would be small, about one point lower.
- The “expected” figure: Laurelhurst enrolls 69% of all K–8 kids living in its neighborhood, public or private. A straight-line fit across all 53 PPS elementary and K-8 neighborhoods, comparing that share with each neighborhood’s share of high-income families (above), predicts about 62% for Laurelhurst’s neighborhood. Income explains only part of the differences between neighborhoods, so treat the 7-point gap as a rough benchmark.
- Private school by grade: PSU forecast, Table 3.2, from the American Community Survey (2019 and 2024 one-year estimates).
- All Saints School: enrollment from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Private School Survey, 2021–22 (448 students, preschool through 8th grade), the most recent federal count.
- Colors split the 74 schools into thirds (25, 25, and 24 schools) by capture rate. PPS has not published a capture-rate goal, so the thirds show where each school ranks rather than whether it meets a target.