Every student deserves a safe, welcoming, and well-resourced place to learn, period. That means it is the responsibility of the School Board and our community to make that possible through our coordination and implementation, but also through our actions and sentiment. We want school to be a welcoming place for all our families, but for many children it may be much more than that: It may be a warm place in the wintertime, or a place where they can count on a solid meal at lunchtime.

Student safety means an adequately secure, adequately staffed, healthy environment... but it also needs to mean a place where students feel safe. Too many already-marginalized students come to school with the fear that their safety, their families, or their existence will be up for debate. In 2023, the CDC indicated that suicide was the second leading cause of death for teens and young adults, and that high school students from racially underserved communities or the LGBT+ community were most at risk. Our school district should be continuously vigilant about reinforcing the message that all students are valid.

In 2016, I was privileged to lead the signature-gathering efforts to place Measure 98 on the ballot, which established the High School Graduation and College and Career Readiness Fund (also called the "High School Success" program). The fund provides targeted resources to address Oregon’s low high school graduation rate and expand career and technical programs and college-level course offerings. Since then, statewide graduation rates have improved as we've begun reinvesting in career-technical education programs, dual-credit college-ready courses, and dropout prevention strategies.

But there's still plenty of ground to cover! The Oregonian recently reported that our state's K-12 testing scores on reading and math were among the worst in the nation, which are grim indicators of future economic success for our students. An education expert recently told the Legislature: "More money did not produce any kind of bumper increase in student outcomes." But there's more to the story: Despite the nominal increase in budgets, when accounting for student growth as well as inflation, last biennium's K-12 budget was a cuts budget, not an increase. And when adjusted for cost of living, Oregon's per-student expenditures continue to lag the national avegage. Our schools and our students are hurting for additional resources, but we also need to ensure that those resources are applied wisely.

While testing scores have been found to be a reasonable predictor of economic success and we should strive to improve those scores, we need to also remember that our real objective is not to teach to tests, but rather to set our students up for success after graduation. That's why studies have shown that after a foundational introduction, increased STEM scores correlate more with more available electives than with additional STEM courses. When students are able to see a link between what they do in school and what they want to do vocationally, results go up across the board.

I want to build on the success of the High School Success program in West Linn-Wilsonville by strengthening STEAM options (STEM + Arts) and establishing school-to-workforce-pipelines that provide training and career opportunities for students whether college-bound or not. And by partnering with outside groups such as local economic development commissions, trade organizations, or employer groups, we can help prop up students wether their goal is a secure well-paying job or something more entrepreneurial. Although graduation rates and test scores are a good metric in many regards, we also need to remember that our true measure of success is whether we've prepared our graduates to be successful and productive in a post-K-12 career.

The School Board can't make good decisions without good information. Likewise, our community can't evaluate those decisions without the same information. For example: After the botched attempted sale of he Oppenlander property in West Linn, the District wrote that it "does not have any Asset Management Plans or Prospectus for its real property acquisitions." This makes it impossible to evaluate the performance of the district staff in how that scenario was handled.

As a School Board member, I will insist on having written performance metrics (like an Asset Management Plan) agianst which we can evaluate progress on things like land value, budgeting, student performance... and know whether we're making the kind of progress we are aiming for. Without that, the School Board is merely receiving information without context. In addition, for those and for the performance metrics that exist already, I will work with the district to establish a webpage with districtwide performance metrics and data clearly laid out in a digestible format so that constituents and voters can not only keep up to date but also look at data independently.

Let's be honest: the coming years will be tough for K-12 budgets regardless of any decision the School Board might make. With stalling revenues, inflation concerns, and PERS rate increases on the horizon, the fact is that the 2023 State School Fund appropriation of $10.2 billion was actually a cut in terms of buying power for our school districts. But this underscores the need for our School Board to make careful, prudent, and data-driven decisions that set us up for success not only in the near term, but also to ensure that we don't make snap decisions that will set us back for years to come.

As a public body, our first duty is to be transparent and forthright with constituents about what our financial picture is. We have an adept District staff that is able to write budgets, but neither the District's Budget Committee nor the Board should be a rubber stamp on that proposal. As a Board member, I will place all options on the table and invite constituents, Board members, staff, and other stakeholders to weigh our options. Whether an option is in the form of an additional operations levy, private foundational support, pension obligation borrowing, or any other financial mechanism, there are advantages and disadvantages. In order to make good decisions we need to have a common understanding of what our goals are (see "Accountability and Transparency") and what we're collectively willing to give up to achieve them.

It does look like additional K-12 revenue is off the table in Salem this Legislative Session, and while I would easily support a reformulation of special education funding that advantaged our District, without new revenue in Salem that will place us in competition with other districts and would be unlikely to happen in the near term. There are things that could be done statewide: For example, raising the Common School Fund distribution to 5% (which has previously been the case in budget-llimited years) would easily raise a half million dollars for the District, but the bulk of our needs will have to be met with local solutions.

Over the next couple of years we'll all be hearing many complaints about the PERS (Public Employees Retirement) system, and the fact that a growing unfunded actuarial liability has led to an increase in the rates at which the District need to pay into the system. Let me be clear in saying that these payments are the result of old Tier I agreements (for employees that started working in 1995 or before) and I do not support cutting the benefits of current staff, for a few reasons:

• First, it's unfair. Slicing benefits across the board disproportionately harms newer, younger workers who are least responsible for unfunded pension liability, not to mention the fact that backing out of a prior agreement is not an example we should be setting for our employees or our students.

• Second, it's not as effective as other solutions. The "unfunded actuarial liability" (UAL) is, at its core, merely an assumption given a number of possible future factors. Oregon has traditionally calculated this liability in a very conservative manner which is all well and good. But that means that there is significant elbow room to address a portion of that UAL through adjustments to our amortization schedule and still stay safely in prudent assumption territory, which will actually save more money than cutting benefits directly. Alternatively, continuing to reorganize our State investment infrastructure to focus more on in-house oversight (as Washington and Wisconsin do) could save billions off of the UAL as well as help better protect our investments.

• Third, it makes it more difficult to attract and retain quality teachers and staff. We want to provide the best teachers and staff for our students, and we can't do that while broadcasting a message that their benefits will be on the chopping block as soon as times get tough.

As far as pension systems go, Oregon PERS remains one of the better-run in the nation. And of course, wages benefits paid to teachers — including PERS — is definitively money in the classroom. It's part of the compensation we've committed to teachers and staff to serve our district and our students. I'm willing to make tough choices about staffing levels, but I'm not willing to take back what we've already committed for someone who's already earning it.

Many students need extra help that the District is just not able to provide. The state should remove the ban on hiring family members as care workers for children with extensive support needs. These children must meet stringent criteria for institutional care. Through rigorous annual assessments, the state determines the level of care needed beyond that of a typically developing child of the same age. Once approved, the state guarantees that these children qualify for care hours — but without enough qualified workers, it becomes an empty promise. By disqualifying parents as paid caregivers to minor children, the state is effectively forcing families to either choose outside care homes for their child or to provide intensive care without pay.

"Tensy's Law" (Senate Bill 538) is making its way through the State Capitol right now, and it will increase access to Oregon's Children’s Extraordinary Needs (CEN) waiver. Hundreds of families reported in surveys that their child was happier, healthier and made meaningful gains during the two-year paid parent allowance. The continuity of care and relief of stress was a huge driver for change for our most vulnerable residents. This is exactly what these services ought to do! If you would like to weigh in on Tensy's Law, this link will help you write to your State Lawmakers.