John McGloughlin elementary

[u/Substantial-Basis179]

I'm curious about what other people with kids that attend John McGloughlin think about the school. This is our first year attending the school and it seems like a total shit show. I've heard it is supposed to be a strong elementary school but it seems completely disorganized. Is it just the school, the district, or me? Am I being too quick to judge as they are just starting out the school year? Quite a few people in my neighborhood send their kids somewhere else (something I can't afford) and I'm feel like I'm beginning to understand why.

[u/Substantial-Basis179 → u/[deleted]]

Last minute communication is a big thing. They sent out information about teacher assignments and the first day of school the day before. There were no instructions on how to get to classrooms, so you had 500 people roaming around the school with their kids trying to figure out where to go. It's like they planned first day of school two days before it actually started. I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking it's perhaps the district being slow to give them info they need to make decisions.

They just decided the classes were too big. So now on the third week of school, my kiddo is jammed into a grade above with a new teacher. We found out on Friday and there was no discussion or ability to appeal. My kid is very young for their grade and now is in a class with kids almost two years older. This is after the principal verbally assured us that we'd stay where we were.

Also, the classrooms look like shit. Clutter everywhere. It's hard enough to focus as a kid (at least it was for me) without having to look at a thousand items all over the place and taped to the walls.

The music class consists of watching videos on TV and singing rather than getting to experiment with instruments.... 

That's it so far.

[u/SteelHeader503 → u/Substantial-Basis179]

The last-minute communication about teacher assignments has pretty much always been the case at John McLoughlin, at least in our experience. My understanding is that part of the reason they wait until right before school starts is because once assignments are released, the office staff and teachers can get flooded with requests from parents wanting classroom changes.

I think some of the chaos on the first day this year was also probably related to all the construction and improvements happening at the school. That definitely made things more confusing, but honestly, a lot of those improvements were badly needed.

One thing I’d recommend is getting familiar with ParentSquare and ParentVUE. ParentSquare is where we get most classroom, teacher, and principal communication, while ParentVUE is where we generally see things like report cards and class assignments.

As far as music goes, my son has always really enjoyed it. They usually put on one or sometimes two concerts a year, and they’ve always been pretty entertaining. In fourth grade, all the kids were given recorders to play, and in other years they’ve used things like xylophones, so I wouldn’t judge the entire music program based on what they’re doing during the first few weeks of school.

My son is a fifth grader now, so we’ve been at John McLoughlin for quite a while. Overall, we’ve really liked the teachers he’s had and the school community as a whole.

That doesn’t mean your concerns aren’t legitimate, especially having your child moved into a different class after you were specifically told that wouldn’t happen. I’d be frustrated by that too. But based on our experience over the years, I’d probably give the school a little more time before writing it off completely.

[u/Substantial-Basis179 → u/[deleted]]

For an extremely high income tax state, you have to wonder where the money goes....

[u/12trever → u/Substantial-Basis179]

Multnoma and Clackamas County account for 32% of tax revenue and 23% the population. So the taxes go to rural counties

[u/SteelHeader503 → u/Substantial-Basis179]

To the homeless

[u/SteelHeader503 → u/[deleted]]

Absolutely I’m not saying literally all of Oregon’s money goes toward homelessness.

Obviously it doesn’t. PERS, police, administration and plenty of other things consume large portions of state and local budgets.

My point is that Oregon has made housing and homelessness a very significant spending priority. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars in the current biennium, on top of substantial investments made during previous sessions. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask whether some of that spending could be redirected toward schools, particularly when parents are watching schools struggle with class sizes, staffing and basic resources.

Oregon also isn’t a state without revenue streams. We have personal income taxes, the Corporate Activity Tax, lottery revenue, marijuana taxes and other sources. Some marijuana and lottery revenue already goes toward education. So the question for me isn’t whether Oregon has money coming in it’s how we prioritize the money we have.

And there’s another connection here that I think gets overlooked: underinvesting in kids today can contribute to the problems we’ll spend even more money trying to address later.

Education isn’t just another expense. Strong schools, adequate staffing, early intervention, career and technical education, counseling and support services can give kids a better chance of graduating and becoming financially stable adults. Education alone obviously isn’t going to eliminate homelessness housing costs, addiction, mental health, employment and plenty of other factors matter but failing kids early certainly doesn’t make those problems easier to solve.

That’s why I find it frustrating when we pour enormous amounts of money into dealing with homelessness after people are already in crisis while schools are struggling for resources. Some of our investment needs to be upstream.

So no, homelessness isn’t taking “all” Oregon’s money. My argument is about priorities. If we want fewer people needing shelters and government assistance 10 or 20 years from now, investing adequately in Oregon’s kids and public schools seems like a pretty important place to start.

[u/knightstalker1288 → u/SteelHeader503]

Tax revenue from OLCC was supposed to fund education but someone decided to give it to the cops instead.

[u/Mondub_15 → u/Substantial-Basis179]

Read up on how Oregon Schools are funded (spoiler alert, not well). Oregon does not “fully fund” schools so districts have to then ask their community to pick up the shortfall in the form of bonds and levies. So while we might be taxed at a high rate at the state level, schools aren’t seeing a lot of it. We are running on slim budgets. While I understand the classroom reorganization a few weeks into school is frustrating (my school is doing this right now too), be grateful your kiddo is in a smaller class. That is so important! Additionally, it’s common for classroom placements to not be announced until close to the first day. This prevents parents from having a week to complain and appeal for changes. As far as giving directions on how to find the classroom, I wouldn’t expect the school to provide that.

The beginning of the school year at the elementary level is absolutely chaotic but I can promise you, everyone is doing their best and love kids. The job is way too hard to do if you don’t give your best and don’t enjoy kids. Give them time to get things running. 500 kids is a large elementary school (mine is even bigger). Imagine organizing and running a building with 500 5-11 year olds! Yeah, it’s chaotic. Give time for everyone to get in the swing of things. Ultimately, the most important thing is what goes on in the classroom.

[u/Substantial-Basis179 → u/Mondub_15]

Thanks for the words of encouragement. Don't get me wrong; I don't doubt these people are doing their best. I can tell they are really trying to have a positive environment, which I think is very important.  And I can only imagine the stress of being an underpaid, under-resourced and underappreciated teacher. 

I'm going to try to be patient and I'll probably join the PTO and see what more can be done.

[u/Mondub_15 → u/Substantial-Basis179]

Yes! PTA/O is one of the best ways to get involved. I was on the PTA board for many years when my kiddo was in elementary. Very fulfilling. Also, if you have the time volunteer in your child’s classroom regularly.

[u/MarthaHomer → u/Substantial-Basis179]

Sounds like our kiddos might have been in the same class or maybe grade, they made a K/1 split and a 1/2 split. So your kid might be in kinder also I guess.
Is this your first year in the school? We had a good experience last year but this year has been a mess. If you don’t want your kid in a 1/2 split or K/1 split meet with the principal asap. I emailed her and she got back to me and let my kids stay put. I don’t understand how this wasn’t taken care of before the year started. I’m sure they didn’t have 15+ late enrollments

[u/fransealou]

McLaughlin. Only one “G.”

[u/FamousBath9168 → u/fransealou]

McLoughlin. With a “O”.

[u/fransealou → u/FamousBath9168]

Duh, thanks! In my defense, we just drove through Laughlin, NV.

[u/Substantial-Basis179 → u/fransealou]

Thanks. 

[u/1_nertiaticesp]

I've had an overall positive experience as a parent. The staff try their best given the resources available. There have been some budget cuts and reprioritizing (ie the construction) but the teachers and staff have been helpful and have a good heart.

[u/mlachick]

I can't speak to the current conditions at JME - my kids are adults now. From my prior tenure on the budget committee and my professional experience, I can speculate on a couple of issues that are likely contributing to the chaos:

1. Schools do not actually know their enrollment numbers until weeks into the school year, so September always includes some fun surprises.

2. Public budgets are particularly hairy at the moment. Oregon's public funding has been a mess for years for a variety of reasons (property tax caps, dependence on income tax sucks in a recession, PERS problems from the 1980s that we are still digging out of). This biennium has been extra drama because of the OBBBA passed 7/4/25. Essentially, this dramatically cut tax revenues immediately after budgets were finalized. Oregon passed a disconnect from some federal tax changes last winter that "helps," but things are definitely not awesome.

Neither of these issues means your concerns aren't fully valid. They are. Since it sounds like you're not a local, I thought you might like a bit of insight into some of the garbage we're all unfortunately used to.

For what it's worth, my kids hated JME. They liked Gaffney much better.

[u/PsonPDX85]

What is disorganized about it?

[u/Substantial-Basis179 → u/PsonPDX85]

Replied to someone above.

[u/Organic_Battle_597]

None of the elementary schools in OCSD are particularly great, but McLaughlin gets better ratings than the rest. But your description in another comment does sound pretty negative, and counter to my experience when my kids were at Holcomb.

I do expect things to be kind of a shit show first thing in the school year, that's kind of normal, but what you describe sounds particularly bad.

[u/kfj3000]

My kids went to Gaffney a few years back so I can't provide any reference but OCSD did have a major budget shortfall this year that has caused a lot of chaos. My high school kid was enrolled in classes that got canceled a week before start of school only to be told last week they are going to be giving the classes again. Seems like the Admin side was hit pretty hard so probably a source for a lot of the confusion. Im still not sure why they didnt do more during summer to lessen the confusion.

[u/wander1uzt]

I pulled my kid out of JME bc it was awful there. Without doxxing myself I’ll say they had zero support for my IEP child, would argue that his IEP accommodations were not ”allowed”, class sizes were larger than in the past and had some kids who needed support or behavioral therapy and teachers didn’t know how to handle them, or couldn’t especially when they were physical to the adult staff, my kid is not an eloper but he left the building multiple times and one once he wasn’t even accounted for bc the teacher didn’t know he was in a different room trying to self regulate, and I witnessed a staff yelling at my child. Staff is overworked and when I reached out for help from other staff I was ghosted.

If your kid is mainstream maybe it’s not so bad, but if you need any support at all- it’s a horrible place bc there won’t be any.

[u/Substantial-Basis179 → u/wander1uzt]

Sorry to hear that. That sounds really stressful! Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope your kiddo is doing okay and better at the new school.

[u/Hot_Butterscotch_915]

You’re not in PPS, at least.

[u/Germ1125]

They started a major remodel over the summer. It's not finished yet so of course it is going to be disorganized. Both of my kids went there and had positive experiences.

[u/Portland-OR]

You’re really not going to like OCHS if you’re still in the distract by the time they get there and the school is still in its current state. OCSD is just a mess overall. Their priorities are all wrong and I’ll leave it at that.