Portland Public Schools' interim superintendent ordered Benson High School under a lockout, a scene with police officers stationed outside, to keep a protest led by hundreds of Lincoln High students Wednesday from spreading.

A picture of school resource officers at Benson made the rounds on Facebook, soon after Lincoln kids took the streets to protest the school board's decision to postpone a $750 million construction bond until May. Some Lincoln students had walked to Benson after protesting in Pioneer Courthouse Square and Portland City Hall.

Parents, students and board members quickly began asking why students at an affluent school appeared free to protest while a school serving less-privileged students seemed to be holding students hostage.

School board member Paul Anthony, who has three children at Benson, said his kids didn't know whether police were outside because of the protest or nearby criminal activity.

"To me it looked bad," said Anthony, who voted to put the bond on the November ballot. "It gives every appearance that the district was allowing the students at our wealthiest and whitest school to stage a walkout and a cross-city protest -- which was a great thing and I'm happy they did that -- but when it comes to one of our poorest and most diverse schools, the response is a lockout and a police line."



The district Friday insisted the lockout, called by superintendent Bob McKean, wasn't meant to keep Benson students from leaving. Spokeswoman Courtney Westling said students were free to join peers from Benson.



"I just think it's easy to misperceive a situation. Basically what we were trying to do was protect the kids in Benson High School," McKean said. "We just couldn't allow 800 kids to go through the school. We had no intent to not allow the students not to join."



McKean said the lockout wasn't meant to keep Benson students from leaving and he wasn't sure how the police presence came about, but that it wasn't meant to be threatening.



Instead, the lockout was meant to keep Lincoln students and others out. Some of the police officers came from Lincoln, Westling said, following students to Benson.

But students and parents say it was far from clear Benson students could walk out without risking arrest from one of the officers lining the entrance to their school. Activists say the controversy lays bare one of their biggest complaints with district officials: poor communication with the public.

"Benson students are passionate about this issue and did want to join the protest," Michael Ioffe, the protest's lead organizer, wrote in an email exchange with district officials and school board members.

"The fact that Benson students weren't accurately and comprehensively informed about this issue," he wrote, "speaks more to the board's lack of communication and transparency with students."

Ioffe, in an interview Friday, also criticized McKean's call for the lockout, saying it "directly blocks students' free speech."

"Lincoln students go to Benson for sporting events," Ioffe said. "They enter the building and it's fine. This was a non-violent protest. If there are eight police officers standing in front of the door -- you're not going to open the door and exit."



McKean said, because the situation unfolded quickly, there wasn't enough time to relay a clear message to the teens that they were free to join the protest.



He shared a letter signed by the Benson principal and the student body treasurer saying Benson administrators would have supported the students with more notice. They also urged "better communication between participating schools."



Anthony said he understood the urge to protect students and not have hundreds of extra kids streaming into Benson, but remained critical of the communication and still questioned the presence of police.



"It really eroded trust between the students and the administration," Anthony said. "I really don't buy it that there wasn't time to consider, to think it through."

The protest came after Lincoln students forced school board members to take up the bond measure at their regular meeting Tuesday night. The students wanted members to publicly explain why they suddenly decided in late July to push a $750 million construction bond off the fall ballot.

Money from the bond would remake Lincoln, Benson and Madison high schools and refresh and make safe Kellogg Middle School so it can reopen as needed. But in May, a districtwide lead crisis revealed a slew of other safety hazards that the district has yet to finish tallying.

Parents, student, principals and even board members pleaded with the board majority to reconsider almost until Thursday's deadline to place measures on the November ballot. In a letter last week, many said the measure would fare better with the anticipated high turnout of a presidential election.

But the board refused until Lincoln students on Tuesday threatened a sit-in.

The forced debate at Tuesday's meeting led to the board voting 4-3 to keep the bond aimed for May. The board also rejected requests to hold another meeting to allow for more community discussion before Thursday's deadline.

"We are very disappointed, as the voices of thousands of students and community members have been completely disregarded," wrote Ioffe in a press release Thursday night. "Although we encourage everyone to support a May bond, we also encourage everyone to have a serious discussion about the efficacy of their board members and the efficacy of their school district. This issue -- and the way it has been handled at the board-level -- represents a new low."

Although Lincoln students felt ignored by the board, they said plenty of anonymous Internet commenters took the time to engage -- seizing on Lincoln's relative affluence among Portland's high schools.

"One of the hard parts about being all over the news and everything is watching people comment about how entitled we are, and how we only care about ourselves and how we should just go back to class," said Lincoln student Julia Espinosa, 16. "It's not just about the 1,700 kids at Lincoln. It's the whole district."

Espinosa said some students marched to Benson because they know that protesting often requires privilege and said they wanted to bring resources to their peers.

Lincoln is 72.5 percent white, with just 6.6 percent of students listed as economically disadvantaged, according to 2015-16 enrollment data. Benson is 32.3 percent white, with 34.5 percent of students listed as economically disadvantaged.

Maia Abbruzzese, 17, said she doesn't put stock in the argument that Lincoln students are entitled for wanting asbestos tiles to stop falling from the ceiling.

Abbruzzese and Espinosa said they were both at Benson and didn't understand why the district appeared to be treating Lincoln differently than the poorer school that has more students of color.

"Nobody was really hearing us. We were there and we were speaking, but we had no impact basically," Espinosa said. "It felt like a pebble in an ocean."

UPDATE 5:50 PM: This story has been edited to clarify that interim Superintendent Bob McKean ordered the lockout outside Benson, where several police officers had stationed themselves Wednesday.

-- Bethany Barnes