The Benson Polytechnic High School Alumni Association (BPHSAA) is an organization of Benson Tech alumni dedicated to bettering Benson High School for current students, and staying active in their community. The association formed in 2008 when Portland Public Schools faced budgetary challenges, putting BPHS’s future up for debate. The district proposed turning Benson into a two-year skills academy, only serving seniors and juniors.
However, PPS was met with backlash from a passionate crowd of alumni, united under one goal. “If you turn this into a two-year skills academy, you will only get kids who think they want to go into [the trades]” says Rachel Kurynny, the vice chair of the BPHSAA, and a 1997 Benson graduate. “You miss out on kids who didn’t think they wanted to go into [the trades] and discover they did. So it becomes really segregated academically and oftentimes economically.”
The newly formed BPHSAA was “really effective at rallying people in the community to push back on the board,” Kurynny recounts, remembering the rallies held on the lawn of the high school. “Since 2008 we have been the only consistent voice advocating for Benson Students.”
Surrounding talks of the remodel in 2018, Kurynny describes the BPHSAA’s single goal at the time: “To make sure that Benson got the same money that the other neighborhoods that were getting modernized got.” In the end, they were successful. The remodel puts Benson as the most expensive high school remodel in Oregon, costing over $416 million, and benefiting current students and staff.
Currently, the BPHSAA is an active organization in our community through clubs, concessions, and the Alumni Scholarship. The concession stand at sporting events is a recent, yet highly beneficial, addition to the school. Jeff Strachan, a longtime member of the Tech Alumni Board of Directors, is the main driving force behind the concessions. “Sales from the concession stands sometimes racket, like, thousands of dollars, and those sales profit for different clubs and organizations in the school,” says Racheal. “It’s like the single most effective and quick fundraising we could have.” The Tech Alumni Association can also gather funds for the school through the Benson Tech Foundation, where “teachers can submit requests for funds if it has to do directly with career technical education, and you know, we kind of have the ability to gather money for that.”
With the future in mind, the BPHSAA plans to expand towards a larger and more diverse community of alumni. Currently, there are 15 members on the Alumni Association’s board of directors. “[There are] two women; one person of color.” Racheals admits, “We are trying to recruit more women and more people of color because we as an organization want to have an organization that better reflects the demographics of the school right now.” She explains that, “Support only works if the people who need it feel supported, and so that support has to be evolved.”
As vice chair, Kurynny is in charge of the student selections for the Alumni Scholarship. She picks six kids for an interview during their senior year. “The requirements are you have to go to either a two-year community college or a skills program,” she explains. “I just look for a strength in character. It’s more about a compelling story and a desire to continue to learn.”
The Benson Tech Alumni Association is constantly working behind the scenes at Benson High School. “We want to continue to support Benson in the best way we can, and what we know from the past is that it will be unpredictable, like what those needs are, and it will always be changing.”
