Overview

Cleveland High School -- formally Grover Cleveland High School -- is a public high school in inner southeast Portland, part of Portland Public Schools. Its attendance boundary covers much of western Southeast Portland, drawing from Hosford, Lane, and Sellwood middle schools.

The school has an unusually layered naming history: it opened in 1916 as Commercial High School, became the High School of Commerce in 1917, moved in 1929 from what is now the Portland State University campus to its current site as Clinton Kelly High School of Commerce, and took the Cleveland name in 1948. The 1929 building was designed by architect George Howell Jones. Its colors are kelly green and yellow, its teams the Warriors, and its rival Franklin High School.

Three enrollment figures are in circulation. NCES's 2024-25 CCD record and SchoolDigger both give 1,421 students (19.78:1 ratio, 71.84 teachers FTE). Wikipedia and PublicSchoolReview give 1,472 for 2023-24 (19.29:1, 76.32 FTE). A third directory site reports 1,600 with 85.43 teachers -- an outlier we could not match to any stated year. Free-and-reduced-lunch figures conflict too: NCES records 596 of 1,421 students as free-lunch eligible (about 42%), while one directory reports 25.1% on free and reduced lunch and describes that as well below the state's 46.1%. Those cannot both be right, and the difference would materially change any reading of the school's economic profile.

Academics

This is one of the stronger academic records in this directory, and unusually, the proficiency figures are specific. PublicSchoolReview, citing NCES and Oregon Department of Education data, reports math proficiency of 40-44% against an Oregon state average of 31%, and reading/language arts proficiency of 70-74% against a state average of 44% -- above the state average on both measures, and substantially so in reading. U.S. News reports an IB participation rate of 58%, 31% minority enrollment, and 21% of students economically disadvantaged. GreatSchools notes AP courses, IB, and a Gifted & Talented programme.

The rankings, however, spread widely: U.S. News places the school 6th within Oregon and #765 nationally; SchoolDigger puts it in the top 7% of Oregon high schools and separately describes it as consistently among the top 25 in the state; PublicSchoolReview says top 20% of all Oregon schools for overall test scores. "Sixth in Oregon" and "top 20%" are very different claims about the same school -- they reflect different methodologies and different underlying school sets, and no single one should be quoted as the school's standing.

Neighborhood

The school is in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood of inner southeast Portland. CrimeGrade reports a median household income there of $107,927. Nextdoor's neighborhood page describes residents reporting vehicle-related crime including catalytic converter thefts and abandoned cars or RVs. A parent review posted on SchoolDigger describes the immediate surroundings in harsh terms, citing encampments and drug use in the park across the street and adult businesses within a block -- a single unverified user review, but it is the only first-hand account of the school's immediate setting we located, and it points the same direction as the harsher of the two statistical readings below.

Crime & safety

Two providers assess this exact neighborhood and reach opposite conclusions -- the widest single-neighborhood split anywhere in this directory.

CrimeGrade rates Hosford-Abernethy an F. It places the neighborhood in the 7th percentile for overall safety at 80.85 crimes per 1,000 residents, describing it as less safe than both the Oregon and national averages. Property crime draws a separate F at 140.7 incidents per 1,000. Violent crime earns a D (23rd percentile, 7.159 per 1,000) and murder a D (18th percentile, 0.1486 per 1,000).

DoorProfit rates it an A. Its index for Hosford-Abernethy is 95 -- below the national benchmark of 100 -- and it lists the neighborhood among nearby areas with "good safety ratings" that "offer lower crime rates, making them worth considering for residents who prioritize safety."

An F at the 7th percentile and an A below the national average are not a difference of degree. One provider is telling a family this is among the least safe neighborhoods it tracks; the other is recommending it to safety-conscious buyers. We have no basis to adjudicate between them, and averaging them would be meaningless.

Both providers also show internal problems. CrimeGrade uses opposite percentile conventions on its own pages for this neighborhood: the overall page reads "7th percentile for safety, meaning it is safer than 7% of neighborhoods," while the property-crime page reads "95th percentile of safety, meaning 95% of cities in Portland are safer" -- two different meanings for the same term, both indicating a poor result. Its property-crime page also states a rate of 140.7 per 1,000 (about 14% of residents annually) alongside victimization odds of "1 in 3" in the eastern part, figures that don't reconcile. And its SchoolGrade panel for the neighborhood displays "N/A, with N/A% actual proficiency versus 48% projected" -- a broken field presented in the same format as real data. DoorProfit, meanwhile, awards Portland Downtown a "B" while simultaneously reporting that it is 79% above the national average and safer than only 4% of Portland neighborhoods, which suggests its letter grades are not tightly coupled to its own indices.

Our calculated rating

We don't publish a single proprietary score. This profile is a case where two of three components have real data -- the academic figures here are genuine and above state average -- but the safety component ranges from A to F for the same neighborhood, and enrollment and economic-disadvantage figures are themselves unresolved. See our ratings methodology.

Sources

  1. NCES Common Core of Data, Cleveland High School (411004000958), 2024-25 school year (enrollment, staffing, ratio, locale, lunch eligibility, contact details).
  2. Wikipedia, "Cleveland High School (Portland, Oregon)" (naming history, 1929 building and architect, principal, colors, conference, rival, feeder schools, 2023-24 enrollment).
  3. U.S. News & World Report, Cleveland High School (state and national rank, IB participation, minority enrollment, economic disadvantage, district high school count).
  4. PublicSchoolReview, Cleveland High School profile (math and reading proficiency versus Oregon averages, state ranking band, neighborhood identification).
  5. SchoolDigger, Cleveland High School profile (2024-25 enrollment, demographic breakdown, state ranking, parent review).
  6. GreatSchools, Cleveland High School (programme offerings, district high school count).
  7. high-schools.com, Cleveland High School directory listing (alternate enrollment and lunch-assistance figures).
  8. CrimeGrade.org, Hosford-Abernethy overall, violent, murder, and property crime pages (grades, percentiles, rates, median income).
  9. DoorProfit, Portland neighborhood crime statistics pages (Hosford-Abernethy index and grade; Portland Downtown comparison).
  10. Nextdoor, Hosford-Abernethy crime and safety resource page (resident-reported incident types).