Oregon Public Broadcasting

The voters’ pamphlets arriving in Portland mailboxes have a fistful of money measures.

Jurisdictions all over the region seem to want bonds and levies. But one of them is a little different from the rest.

Rob Manning has this profile of the programs funded by Portland’s Children Investment Fund.

The Children’s Investment Fund is the one property tax on the ballot Portlanders pay already. So, if you want a tax break, you could vote ‘no,’ and save somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 or 10 bucks a month.

A 'yes' vote would continue classes like this one.

Class audio: “Tell me when you’re ready.”

"Ready"

“3-2-1 blastoff - Blastoff!”

“Whoo-hoo!”

That's a carbon dioxide canister launching a small balsa wood car down an empty hallway at the Humboldt School in North Portland.

Middle schooler Curtis Waters is  working on his own car.

Curtis Waters: “It’s supposed to look like a car, a racecar with a big tail on the back. Today, we’re going to do some more sanding, and stuff, to make it smoother, and then after we’ve finished sanding, he’s going to spray-paint them. And then we’re going to race with them.”

The “he” that Curtis is referring to is Tom Geise. He’s worked as a professional scientist, and now teaches the Cool Wheels after school class through the non-profit, Saturday Academy.

Tom Geise: “A lot of these kids don’t have the advantages that middle-class kids and middle-class folks really take for granted: the opportunity to sit with an adult, and work with tools. It’s very nice in that regard, and they wind up with an often good-looking thing that they’ve made with their hands, they can take home, and feel really good about. And we learn  some science at the same time.”

Geise argues that the “Cool Wheels” class is cost-effective, even if this week, only four kids showed up. Humboldt principal, Jamila Williams, agrees. She says it combats the boredom some kids feel in class.

Jamila Williams: “They can see why they have to learn what they’re learning, and they can take the knowledge they learn in Saturday Academy and apply it in the classroom, as well, because it’s still the science and math into making the things they’re doing. They can take that ‘oh, I remember we did that in Saturday Academy, I know how to do that in the classroom’.”

Williams says the enthusiasm that kids have can be infectious. 7th grader, Curtis Waters, too, says he looks forward to Tuesdays, when he stays late at school for the class.

Jamila Waters: “We get to do a lot of cool experiments, experiment with the CO2 is pretty fun, we get to do racecars. We get to do a lot of stuff, we carve, cut, sand. We have a lot of fun, we talk about stuff.” 

The Children’s Investment Fund was meant to fill gaps - like the inability of high-poverty schools like Humboldt to fund after-school programs.

But the fund also goes toward  what are considered social services: early childhood and foster care, as well as child abuse prevention programs.

For instance, the fund pays for a program to help children and parents adjust, after escaping domestic violence. Jennifer Talbot runs “Listen to Kids.” She gets $70,000 from the levy to reach up to 12 families at a time.

Jennifer Talbot: “We have up to two years to work with a family, so it’s a really solid amount of time to help them transition from that crisis place, to parenting in a way that’s not out of fear, and not out of crisis, but really conscious.”

Talbot says some families just learn a few skills, and move on. Others are in frequent contact.

The program cuts off home visits if abusers re-enter the picture. Talbot says it's tough but critical to focus on children, when the violence involves adults.

Jennifer Talbot: “I remember a little guy who was working out with one of our specialists, and they were using dinosaurs, and doing a story, and talking about the Daddy Dinosaur, and how we was hurting Mommy.  And then talking to the Baby Dinosaur, and ‘what does the Baby Dinosaur want to say?’. So, it seems really basic, but most of the time, kids really don’t get noticed in the process.” 

Anti-tax activists have questioned what Portlanders are getting for the $17 million annual budget. They wonder whether spending sometimes thousands of dollars on a single child is prudent.

There’s only one “no” argument in the voters’ guide, though, and no formal opposition. It passed initially in 2002, with 54 percent of the vote.

Still, if the levy doesn’t pass this time, Saturday Academy officials say they’ll likely have to cut classes at 11 schools.

Jennifer Talbot says there won’t be a program like hers for families escaping domestic violence, either.