When Portland Public Schools rolled out its glossy modernization plan for Ida B. Wells High School, one detail landed like a spark in a welding booth: the metals shop was gone. Students, alumni and teachers at the Southwest Portland school are now pushing back, arguing that cutting the program shrinks hands-on career training just as the district prepares to demolish the current building and rebuild on the same site.
Community pushback and petitions
According to OregonLive, student organizer Alexander Lamont has collected roughly 100 signatures and emails urging the district to keep a metals shop in the new Ida B. Wells design. Alumni and tradespeople, including Owen Sundbom, now a steamfitter and member of United Association Local 290, told the outlet the old shop was where they first found both creative freedom and real job skills.
Steve Walmer, who teaches woods and metals at Wells and holds a dual endorsement, told the paper that without a metals shop in the new building, "students are getting less than what they had." For a campus that touts career and technical education, critics say, that feels less like modernization and more like a step backward.
Timeline and campus plan
On its modernization page, Portland Public Schools describes the new Ida B. Wells campus as a 295,000-square-foot, four-story building with specialized CTE spaces. The district says design work is nearly complete, with construction slated to begin in December 2026. Students are expected to move into the new building for instruction in fall 2029, while athletic field work is projected to wrap up in fall 2030.
District materials also note that students will stay on campus throughout the project. The new school is planned to rise to the west of the existing building, which will be demolished after the replacement is finished.
District rationale and budgets
District officials have told community members that running both woods and metals at the same time would require additional staffing and long-term resources, a constraint described in local reporting by OregonLive. In other words, the district says it is not just about space, it is about who can be hired and paid to teach in it.
The modernized Wells project carries an estimated price tag of roughly $450 million, and the broader slate of high school rebuilds is funded by a 2025 bond of about $1.83 billion, according to OPB and district documents. Reporting also notes that the district hired a project manager to oversee the RISE modernization work, and that decisions about programs and staffing helped determine which CTE spaces made the final cut.
What’s next
The Ida B. Wells Design Advisory Group is still meeting, and the district has posted design materials, meeting minutes and community workshop dates on its modernization website so residents can follow along, per Portland Public Schools. District documents emphasize that CTE spaces are chosen based on regional workforce priorities, available staffing and both construction and operating budgets, and that those same criteria were applied at Wells.
Students, alumni and union tradespeople say they plan to keep pressing for alternatives, including shared shop access with Benson Polytechnic, phased staffing and off-site partnerships, as the project heads toward permitting and construction. Whether those appeals are enough to weld a metals shop back into the blueprints may become a key test of how Portland Public Schools balances shiny new facilities with the vocational training that has sent Ida B. Wells graduates straight into union halls and local careers.
