Portland Public Schools is seeking feedback from students, families, staff and the community this week on how to reorganize its middle school programming.

The district planned a virtual engagement session from 6-8 p.m. on Monday evening and an in-person session from 6-8 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2, at Ocean Avenue Elementary School.

The meetings come roughly two months after the school board passed a resolution that directed the superintendent to “develop and present a comprehensive set of recommendations to reorganize the District’s middle schools,” in response to declining enrollment, financial pressures and facilities issues in the state’s largest school district.

Portland is home to three middle schools, King Middle in Parkside, Lyman Moore Middle in the North Deering neighborhood, and Lincoln Middle in Deering Center.

An older version of the resolution explicitly called on the district to reduce from three to two middle schools, and a presentation delivered in tandem with that proposal showed that all three have been declining in enrollment, with Lincoln dropping the most, by 23% in five years. That school also uses the lowest building capacity, 56%. But the board scaled back the requirement to work toward a school closure in its final resolution.

At the same time, Lincoln Middle is facing a cost of between $3.4 million and $10.3 million to replace its failing heating system. At a meeting last week, district leaders recommended presenting plans for those repairs in conjunction with the middle school design proposal.

The superintendent has until October to deliver a design recommendation, “at which time the Board will deliberate and decide what course of action to take.”

Since the resolution passed, the district has collected early public feedback through a survey, which closed on May 17, and put together several themed work groups, made up of staff, families, students, community members and alumni, to help shape recommendations. Those work groups will meet regularly through October.

Learn more about how to give public input on the Portland middle school designs here.