February 9, 2022 3:10 a.m.

On Tuesday, officials said that Oregon’s K-12 public schools will receive $64.2 million from the Common School Fund this year.

The announcement was made during a meeting of the State Land Board.

A release from the Department of State Lands said every one of Oregon’s 197 public school districts receive money from the fund every year. How much each district receives depends on the number of students served. In 2022, Portland Public Schools, the state’s largest district, will receive $5.7 million. The Roseburg School District will be given just over $626,000. The distributions for all school districts are linked: https://www.oregon.gov/dsl/About/Documents/2022CommonSchoolFund_District_Distributions.pdf

The ODSL release said the Common School Fund has supported Oregon schools since statehood, when the federal government granted the state nearly 3.4 million acres of land “for the use of schools”. The State Land Board was established to oversee these school lands, which generate revenue for the fund.

Now valued at $2.2 billion, the fund is invested by the State Treasurer and the Oregon Investment Council. The fund earned an average 13.43 percent rate of return over the three-year period ending in 2021.

Annually 3.5 percent of the fund is distributed to schools. This year’s distribution is $4.1 million more than the $60.1 million given out in 2021.

More information is at: https://www.oregon.gov/dsl/pages/index.aspx