Roseway Heights honored its one-hundred-year anniversary earlier this school year. From new mascots, renovations and growth, it’s changed quite a bit from being an elementary school to a middle school.
The construction of Roseway Heights–formally Gregory Heights–began when Portland Public Schools purchased the lot on Siskiyou Street in 1911.The construction after the acquisition of the land started officially in 1923, when concrete was plastered onto bricks, and it never stopped expanding. Portables, or classrooms designed to be transported, helped lay down a basic outline for the start of the establishment. A gym and additional classrooms were added in 1929, but the biggest incorporation was most likely the name change from Gregory Heights to Roseway Heights in 2007.
In 2018, Roseway became a middle school after being a K-8 for many years. This was quite the adjustment for the community.
Former student of Roseway, sophomore Eloise Sorenson, expressed that she misses when the school was a K-8. According to Sorenson, in her experience, teacher-to-classroom relationships never seemed that connected after the switch.
“Roseway before it became a middle school was good. The community over there has never been great but before the merge it was a nice school to attend,” Sorenson said.
Sophomore Lenore Halstead, previous Roseway student, states that the community was really strong.
“Even after school hours at different events like the Halloween carnival or school dances, most everyone showed up, kind of representing that they cared for their school and their school friends,” Halstead said.
Going to Roseway both when it was a junior high and K-8 felt like a pretty big bonus for some students because they were familiar with the layout and other students, according to Halstead.
“One of my favorite things about Roseway was how everyone had basically grown up together since kindergarten, and even though not everyone had a tight bond with each other, it still felt like we could talk to our peers, avoiding any awkwardness,” Halstead said.
However, feeder school students that came to Roseway for the first time experienced something a little different.
Sophomore Leo Chooken, former Roseway student, didn’t go there for primary school and therefore didn’t feel as connected at first.
“The difference between kids who had previously gone there and kids from other elementary schools like Scott, Vestle, etcetera, was definitely noticeable, but I didn’t really mind it,” Chooken said. “For the first few weeks I felt out of the loop, I felt like they all had known each other since birth and already knew everything there was to know about Roseway.”
The sixth grade students to attend Roseway next year will be the last group of kids to have been there when it was a K-8.
The community has expanded a lot as the years have gone by.
Phu Dao, the newest principal as of 2022, explained that one of the most important elements of a good school is diversity.
“The unique thing is that our school here has two distinctive immersion programs: Vietnamese and Spanish. We’re the only school in the district that has that,” Dao said.
Sophomore Lucia Ceballos, a former Roseway student, agrees that a great part of Roseway was the immersion program.
“The Spanish immersion program is always really good at Roseway because they kept all of us Scott students together and I felt comfortable being in those classes,” Ceballos shared.
Dao has some very high hopes for the future of Roseway. He is a constant presence in the community at school and in the neighborhood.
