New Principal Prepares Rieke Students to Lead the World
- Hillsdale News
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
[December 10, 2025]
Jennie Knapp has assumed the top post at Rieke Elementary. After several years leading the school, former principal Jon Jeans has moved to Stephenson Elementary.
Knapp joins Rieke with extensive experience as a school administrator, firmly grounded in classroom teaching. She began her career as a teacher and administrator in Beaverton before moving to Lake Oswego, where she served as assistant principal at Lake Ridge Middle School (formerly known as Waluga) for five years. When COVID hit, she became principal of Lake Grove Elementary.
When the opportunity at Rieke arose, she couldn’t pass it up. With a child at Ainsworth, she said, “It’s nice to be on the same schedule.” She was also excited to be at a smaller school—275 students at Rieke compared to Lake Grove’s 450—where she could “really get to know all the families and all the kiddos.”
Living nearby and being a Hillsdale Farmers’ Market supporter, Knapp was familiar with the community. The school has so many strengths, she said, among them that kids can walk not just to Rieke, but to Robert Gray and Ida B. Wells as well.
As a newcomer, she found Rieke to be kind and welcoming. “Staff, parents, and kids are glad to be here, and that makes a huge difference—we know that when people feel a sense of belonging, they learn more and perform better.”
Parent involvement is another strength. The high level of engagement allows teachers and parents to partner “to help future leaders develop into the kinds of humans we want to see taking control of the world.”
While parent involvement remains strong, fundraising by parents changed fundamentally in 2024. Before then, funds raised by parents were split: up to $10,000 could supplement staffing at a particular school, and one-third of of any amount above that went to the district foundation. In 2024, the model for the fundraising arm of Portland Public Schools (now called Fund for PPS) changed. Funds raised at an individual school can no longer supplement that school’s staffing budget. Instead, all staffing-related donations go into a central district fund, to be redistributed according to a board-approved formula.
This leaves PTA as the remaining fundraising organization. At Rieke, the PTA is currently raising money to revamp the school garden into an outdoor learning space, support staff appreciation, and fund future artist-in-residence programs. Fundraising efforts include a can and bottle return program called Return ‘Em for Rieke.
Knapp’s goals for this year include improving attendance, research-based reading instruction, and working with staff and students on self- and emotional regulation.
She would also like to see enrollment grow.
Knapp arrives at a time when Rieke’s enrollment sits at about 275 students, down from its pre-pandemic peak of 380, a trend she said mirrors city- and state-wide patterns. Despite the enrollment decline, Knapp is optimistic that Rieke will avoid being named on any closure lists as the Portland school district starts once again to discuss downsizing.
The school is fully staffed this year, with four days a week of art and PE, a full-time counselor, and a full-time learning center teacher who supports students with individual needs.
Knapp would like to have more bodies to help with lunch and recess, a need that could be filled by volunteers from the community. Reading Buddies, which pairs community members with students for 15-minute reading sessions, is another popular program for volunteers. She invites anyone interested in helping out to email the school or simply stop by.
When she’s not being a school principal, she likes to ski and hike with her family, taking full advantage of Portland’s outdoor life, even when it’s wet. Most importantly, she said, “I’m a mom when I'm not a school principal,” then adding, “I guess when I am, too.”
She’s also working on her doctorate in education, researching how schools can respond to changes in how kids’s brains work. Children’s brains and attention spans, she said, “are not the same as they were when school was invented, but school is pretty much the same.”
—Valeurie Friedman
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