On this day, April 19, 2010, Jorge Ortiz-Oliva, the kingpin of one of the biggest drug organizations in Oregon history, was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Celebrated on the anniversary of June 19, 1865, when in the wake of the American Civil War, Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas.
Editor’s note: This is the tenth and final in a multi-part series on the impact of your vote for School Board Candidates, an OAA Voter Education Project
One of the top challenges for Oregon school boards is to improve graduation rates and reduce drop-outs. Oregon is ranked 44 for public school quality and safety.
School boards are making important decisions about strategies to mitigate the learning decline during the last two years. The magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 lockdown resulted in test-score drops and increase absentees. Studies have been done on strategies to help students catch up.
The Brookings Institute Research Study says these students are not a “lost generation,†and student’s have a capacity for resiliency. What they discovered, which shouldn’t be a surprise, is the type of intervention is specific to grade and subject. For instance, tutoring was found to have larger effects in elementary math than in reading. Other studies showed summer learning programs in math were effective, reductions in class size had no effect, and extending the school day was beneficial but only to maximize teaching.
The need to restore the last two years is directly related to graduation rates. The Oregon Statewide Report Card 2021-22 clearly shows the last two years had a much greater impact on high school students than lower levels. That is translating into lower graduation rates. Despite what legislators would have you believe, the pandemic devastated all races and ethnicities alike. Matter of fact, English Learners maintained the highest levels throughout the pandemic. And white students ranked seventh out of 12 categories – not a “privileged†group as taught.
Looking for a way to improve on Oregon's graduation rate and make college affordable, former Senator Mark Hass pushed for the creation of Oregon Promise, which makes Oregon’s 17 community colleges tuition-free to high school graduates. Eight years later, the program may be dismantled.
The State’s Higher Education Coordinating Committee says Oregon Promise "has not led to lasting increases in enrollment, momentum, completion, or equity.†Only an additional one percent of students have found it made college more affordable. Meanwhile, taxpayers are picking up the tab.
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The Joint Task Force on Student Success for Underrepresented Students in Higher Education requested SB 262 suggesting limiting eligibility for Oregon Promise program to students and families with adjusted gross income at or below $100,000, and permit the Higher Education Coordinating Commission to use Oregon Promise funding to award grants for degree completion. Their report suggests that graduation rates are affected by the increasing costs at public universities and community colleges. It makes combined state and federal grant aid for a student at the lowest income level insufficient to meet the full cost of attendance at many public institutions of higher education in Oregon. Therefore, the Oregon Promise is needed to motivate underrepresented students. They also suggested pre-college mentorship to help more underrepresented students attend college. The bill currently sits in the Ways and Means Committee.
A June 2022 poll commissioned by the Oregon Moms Union found that 55% of Oregonians think our state’s education system is on the wrong track. They said they knew something was seriously wrong with the way politicians were imposing their own will on students.
More than anything else, this series has pointed out how comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) has been integrated into the curriculum and affecting all aspects of education. It is the most contentious issue for parents. Stop World Control has obtained documents from the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) instructing teachers in kindergartens and elementary schools to teach toddlers to masturbate. UN documents instructs all education authorities and policy makers to make sure that little children will have sexual relationships,
and international judicial organization’s statement suggests that sex between little children and adults should be legalized, calling for the acceptance of pedophilia as a normal sexual orientation. Parents want answers from the State Board of Education.
School boards are not just faced with restoring students and graduation rates, but the Statewide Report Card 2021-22 shows the Economically Disadvantaged student group is larger in 2021-22 than in prior years and anticipated to increase. Despite the state's push towards equity, CSE, CRT, social-emotional learning, and gender identity, school boards are challenged with deciphering state guidelines so they can be administered in an equal manner to advance all students.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the nineth of a multi-part series on the impact of your vote for School Board Candidates, an OAA Voter Education Project
The Oregon Education Association (OEA) is a union that represents about 41,000 educators working in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 public schools and community colleges. OEA’s membership includes licensed teachers and specialists, classified/education support professionals, community college faculty, retired educators, and student members. OEA members also belong to the 3.2 million members of the National Education Association (NEA).
OEA members are affiliated with Local Associations, which bargain their work contracts with support from OEA staff. Local Associations also collaborate with local school districts, community colleges, school boards, and community leaders to provide the basic right to a good public education to every student.
The mission of OEA is to unite the public education profession and advocate for those professionals to ensure quality public education for students in Oregon. But this is where OEA gets off track. They say, “We’re on a journey to address equity and racial justice in our union and our schools. This work begins by looking deeply at our own experiences and preconceived notions around race and equity—how white supremacy and privilege shape our perspectives, attitudes and actions.â€
How OEA is addressing equity and racial justice is creating issues for school boards. They recent announced financial sponsorship of the “Tides of Pride Grooming Event†complete with drag queen history, and building a gender and sexuality association to talk “really explicitly and seriously about sexuality and gender†to children. This event, held in North Bend on May 5, helps the Gender & Sexuality Association (GSA) actively organize clubs throughout the state with a tool kit for growing clubs.
In the GSA tool kit is a list of groups with systemic power of privilege that they sterol-type. The tool kit is prejudice in the same way they present their information identifying the privileged. Privileged are labeled as straight people, cisgender people, men, white people, and nationalist-citizens that are the cause of oppression.
Is this how OEA supports a “safe, welcoming, and inclusive school environments� OEA says their members work to engage in professional learning, policy advocacy, and organizing that have a positive impact on schools, themselves and their colleagues, and most importantly, students. But membership funds are being spent to belittle and attack the normal adjusted students.
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OEA members are also members of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Behind the information AFT distributes to teachers is NewsGuard, a private, self-declared fact checker that receives money from the government and partners with large institutions like AFT, Microsoft, big pharma and the World Economic Forum. They put pressure on media companies to not report on certain things. Marissa Streit, PragerU, reported that their documentaries make for students on the founding of America and pro-American content, NewsGuard labeled as a misinformation and rated them as a misinformation company.
NewsGuard is rating conservative news outlets like The Federalist, Epoch, Fox, Daily Wire and PragerU with very low scores less than 50% while New York Times and CNN received 100%. Any company receiving less than 60 is labeled with a warning against doing business with them to curb the news away from their direction.
NewsGuard offers their service free to libraries and schools. Schools use the ratings that NewsGuard gives as due diligence, best practices and truth in science. AFT is censoring out information for teachers that NewsGuard gives a low rating to creating a shield censoring out topics they don’t want brought out in schools. Streit says, “this isn’t just a Praeger U fight it is all of America, they are going to come after every podcast they can’t control…America needs to be awake that they are operating in our schools and media…and we are being robbed of our freedom of speech.â€
Don’t forget, it was mostly at the say of OEA why Oregon schools were the last to open after the COVID threat was over. Even after teachers were vaccinated, unions played politics with getting students back to school. Teachers need to evaluate the worth of being an OEA member. Now school boards are faced with how to accelerate learning from credible sources without the interference from OEA.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the eighth in a multi-part series on How Your School Board Vote Affects Oregon Schools an OAA Voter Education Project
When the New York Times published the 1619 Project, it fueled heated debates on the role of critical race theory (CRT) in classrooms. The study of how racism shapes laws, policies, society and American history only accelerated the conversation of slavery and racial injustice.
The media narrative has defined racism by their victimized class. So much so that if you are of a victimized class - minority, then you can’t be a racist or commit a hate crime, even if you are guilty of doing so. The by-line is that society has driven them to crime by not giving them equal status regardless of having equal opportunity. This is being played out in the Nashville School shooting. The shooter is being portrayed as the victim because of her victimized class.
School boards, superintendents and teachers, even experts, all have their own theory and disagreements on how CRT is defined. The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. The major argument is its focus on group identity over universal, shared traits that divides people into "oppressed" and "oppressor" groups and urges intolerance. What started as a culturally relevant teaching has morphed into a theory that advocates discrimination against the privileged, mainly white people, in order to achieve equity. This is evident in the Oregon legislature and organizations allowed into schools that refer to "white supremacy."
In 2021, Senator Sara Gelser Blouin (D-Corvallis, Albany) attempted to put the 1619 Project and CRT as a required part of instruction when she sponsored SB 683. That bill may not have passed, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been implemented. CRT is at the core of social and economic justice that takes into consideration race as a nexus of equality.
As the Civil Rights Movement used the First Amendment that spurred protest marches and media reporting on racial discrimination, so is CRT using the First Amendment with the same racial concerns with a broader economic context. It elevates the equality principles of the Fourteenth Amendment above the liberty principles of the First Amendment. CRT was pushed by lawyers and activists that saw the civil rights era had diminished and they sought an alternative legal framework for combating racial inequality. CRT was one of the approaches tried along with critical legal studies, critical theory, feminist theory, postmodernism, and cultural studies.
Today CRT has expanded into the fields of education, political science, American studies, and ethnic studies. It also has produced several offshoots, including critical white studies, Latino critical race studies, Asian American critical race studies, American Indian critical race studies, and critical queer studies.
The rub that CRT scholars proport is instead of helping to achieve healthy and robust debate, the First Amendment is used to preserve the inequities of the status quo. They claim “there can be no such thing as an objective or content neutral interpretation in law in general or of the First Amendment in particular… there is no 'equality' in 'freedom' of speech.â€
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CRT used the First Amendment to wage their battlefield for hate speech regulations. There is no legal definition for hate speech, but Oregon has passed extensive laws trying to define it with penalties even when a Supreme Court’s ruling, R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992), seemingly closed the door on “hate speech†regulation. "The First Amendment does not permit a state to use content discrimination to achieve a compelling interest if it is not necessary to achieve that interest."
However, CRT, as presented in SB 683, is the history of slavery and the disproportionate harm towards Blacks and other inequities in the judicial system compared to whites. It has been adopted into curriculums by piecemeal into social studies standards. That was enabled in 2021 by passing SB 702, replacing social studies disciplines and best practices for curriculum with consultation of any group that supports a theory being pushed making it easier to incorporate CRT, SEL and any other theory.
In 2022 Oregon Department of Education (ODE) adopted standards to integrate ethnic studies in social studies for K-12 adding new "perspectives and histories" to allow students to "feel welcome and recognized in the classroom and a part of our collective narrative, our shared history," an ODE spokesman told Fox News Digital. The new standards address white supremacy by having kindergartners "engage in respectful dialogue with classmates to define diversity by comparing and contrasting visible and invisible similarities and differences."
CRT flows over into other areas. It was the impetus to defunding school resource officers and police. After a number of school shootings, parents are again starting to ask for resource officers to be returned to the schools. However, the majority party in the legislature has blocked attempts to fund resource officers, so it is left to school boards on how to provide a safe environment. School boards are also faced with where to draw the line between First Amendment rights and equality. Critical race studies has become a battlefield for rights, and school boards have become the mediator to make sure one person's rights doesn't turn into "hate speech" for another.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the seventh in a multi-part series on How Your School Board Vote Affects Oregon Schools an OAA Voter Education Project
Social-emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing the self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills known as “soft skills†traditionally associated with conflict resolution and character education. It has evolved from being considered “wishy-washy†to being an integral part of educating the whole child.
The roots of SEL are as old as ancient Greece. Plato wrote about education in The Republic, proposing a holistic curriculum that requires a balance of training in physical education, the arts, math, science, character, and moral judgment. In 1988 an article in Scientific American featured a pilot program called the Comer School Development Program centered on James Comer’s speculation that the contrast between a child’s experiences at home and those in school deeply affects the child’s psychosocial development and that shapes their academic achievement. When the pilot showed promise in two poor, low-achieving, predominately African American elementary schools in New Haven, Connecticut, the movement took off with the pilot as the hub of SEL.
Social emotional learning and emotional skills was the subject of several studies and the focus of organizations such as CASEL (Collaborative to Advance Social and Emotional Learning). Then under new leadership the group's influence grew all the way to supporters of SEL in congress in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, through H.R. 2437, the Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Act of 2011.
Preparing children to be responsible, productive, and caring citizens is a timeless pursuit that are goals of education. How best to do this in our school system is a relatively recent and still evolving area of study and practice, and it's the main question the SEL movement seeks to answer.
Oregon’s initiation goes back to 2015 when parents first got a look at the Common Core curriculum asking grades K-3 their feelings about their mother when asked to do a chore, and third-graders were asked to write opinion pieces. From that point, SEL has been viewed as suspect. Described as the process through which we learn to recognize and manage emotions, care about others, make good decisions, behave ethically and responsibly, develop positive relationships, and avoid negative behaviors, it has never materialized as such.
That same year the Comprehensive Sexual Education Act was passed requiring recognition of a child’s sexuality of choice as affirmation of their identity. Schools were weaving social and emotional development into various parts of the school day intermixing it with identity, which became gender identity in 2021.
Where SEL appeared to be an important step in a child’s development, suddenly turned and became a nightmare after almost two years of lockouts to structured schooling. By the time students returned to classrooms, the legislature had defunded resource officers, and adopted equity practices that allowed destructive organizations under the name of “inclusion†to infiltrate schools. The ugly head of “comprehensive sexuality education†emerged in the form of Rape Culture that empowered girls to show up to school half naked.
The true benefits of SEL were buried when in 2016, the State Board of Education approved the Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) creating standards by combining the Human Sexuality Education Law (2009), the Healthy Teen Relationship Act (2012), the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Law (2015), and taking advantage of other laws. It replaced the model of abstinence-only education, and didn’t recognize a belief system forcing an opt-out method as the only option for parents. However, in order to graduate, the student is still expected to know sexual education. The Board claims “the standards do not promote sexuality or impose a set of values, but they do admit they empower students to recognize, communicate, and advocate for their own health and boundaries.â€
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John Oakley Beahrs, retired psychiatry professor stated in testimony that HB 2023 (2019) mandated coercive indoctrination into identity politics under the false guise of liberal education. It “replaces actual history with indoctrination that grossly alters it, and coercively mandates instructing in but one viewpoint – one that’s favored in today’s Oregon, but neither universal nor necessarily in the public interest. In other words, LGBTQ figures are featured because of their sexual preference and gender identity, not their relation to the subject being taught. Because the subject matter is part of every subject, the law implies parents cannot opt their children out.â€
Some say parents piggybacked on the inflammatory debate over critical race theory making SEL the next controversial concept. Conservatives are saying it is just another effort to indoctrinate kids with liberal ideology. What they see is an attack against children from all sides. Diversity has confused young students to the extent that SEL has lost its way. The controversy has centered on social-emotional “screeners†being used to guide school-wide programs sponsoring Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs, using schools to promote a LGBTQIA+ agenda while identifying students who are ripe for transitioning.
Every school district wades through a deluge of social-emotional curricula to find one that works. The activation of parents across the state is going to be demanding on school boards to dig into what they are adopting and not depend on the state or district administrators for the end-all answers.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the sixth in a multi-part series on the impact of your vote for School Board Candidates, an OAA Voter Education Project
Times have changed since the days of having a school nurse in a small room near the school office. She would typically provide band aids when needed and call parents if a child was feeling ill. She was probably also responsible for eye checks and so on. These days many schools have doctors and counseling offices at the school. According to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) School Based Health Centers (SBHC) have existed in Oregon since 1986 and there are currently 81 operating centers. Centers are located on school property to provide easy student access. Appointments are encouraged, but not required.
OHA suggests the purpose of SBHCs is to provide a wide range of primary medical care and mental health services for all students regardless of insurance status. Convenience is also listed as a benefit. Parents miss less work and students miss less school when they don’t have to take the time to drive across town for an appointment.
Having a health center on school grounds may save money and be convenient, but Oregon consent laws are creating concerns for many parents. Their children can go to the health center for various services without their knowledge.
Roseburg High School has a student health center through Aviva Health. On their consent form they cite the current Oregon age of consent law: “Privacy and authorization to give consent for
treatment: According to Oregon Law (ORS 109.610, ORS 109.640, ORS 109.675), a student age 15 may give consent for any medical or surgical treatment; age 14 may give consent for mental health treatment; and a student of any age may give consent for treatment of sexually
transmitted disease and birth control. The Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) may restrict a parent/guardian’s access to a student’s medical records without permission by the student."
Having SBHC’s so easily accessible, a 15-year-old student can walk down the school hall and be seen by a doctor, diagnosed, and treated and then return to class without parents knowing anything about it. A 14-year-old might see a counselor during lunch hour and get advice that
parents might not agree with.
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If parents are concerned now, consent laws are likely to become even more extreme very soon. There is currently a bill (HB 2002) in the legislature that is on the fast track to being passed. If this bill is signed into law, it will enable minors of any age to receive reproductive services (i.e.,
emergency contraception and medication abortion) without the consent or knowledge of their parents. When the legal counsel was questioned regarding this bill, she confirmed that it also makes provision for students of any age to receive gender-affirming care. Parents will only be notified and involved in their child’s care if the minor authorizes the disclosure in writing.
Representative Jami Cate (R-Lebanon) states “HB 2002 allows a child to bypass parental consent for "gender affirming care" at any age, and above 15 years for sex-altering surgeries. Keep in mind, a child needs parental authorization in Oregon to get their ears pierced or a tattoo under the age of 18.â€Â
Representative Ed Diehl (R-Turner) said, "I received confirmation this week from Legislative Legal Council that House Bill 2002 specifically exludes detransition treatments from insurance coverage. With this bill, Medicaid and private insurance are mandated to cover treatments when your “gender identity†and sex don’t align. But, if you believe you have made a mistake and want a procedure to align with your sex, coverage will not be mandated. The wording in the bill is intentional." Fox News reported on Oregon's extreme bill.
Getting cold medicine at a school health center probably has little consequence, but getting an abortion or starting gender-affirming care are very serious matters. The consequences of which will stay with them for the rest of their life. Children are not mature
enough to reason and make life-altering decisions on their own, so they naturally turn to adults for guidance. SBHCs make it easy for youth to turn to people that may not have their best interests at heart.
To codify the issues in HB 2002 and services provided at SBHCs, the legislature wants voters to amend the Oregon Constitution to provide protections for abortion, gender affirming care, as well as same-sex marriage. SJR 33 guarantees equality of rights that cannot be denied or abridged of equal rights by any law, policy or action that discriminates, in
intent or effect, based on health decisions for pregnancy outcomes, gender identity, sexual orientation, or gender, giving the legislature the power to enforce.
Parents have the responsibility and right to make decisions that they feel are best for their children and across the state they are demanding involvement and are looking to school boards to listen to their concerns and represent them.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the fifth of a multi-part series on the impact of your vote for School Board Candidates, an OAA Voter Education Project
The Parents’ Rights in Education (PRE) is opposed to the teaching and promotion of Gender Identity beginning in kindergarten. Unfortunately, the Nashville, Tennessee school shooting this week is an outgrowth of the activism now present in most public schools across the country.
The Tennessee shooter, a confused young adult female, was in counseling. According to Nashville’s chief of police, John Drake, investigators believed the shooting stemmed from “some resentment†the suspect harbored “for having to go to that school†as a younger person. We want to know what advice she was getting.
School counselors and psychologists today, encourage parents to begin social transitioning in kindergarten. Parents are bombarded with the message their children should be encouraged to explore their “real identity.†I recently received a call from a concerned father whose five-year-old son was seen by the Philomath, Oregon grade school psychologist, who recommended Dad consider “social transitioning.†Although Dad and son discussed biological reality, his son was influenced by female siblings to wear long hair and feminine clothing. Dad needed to be reminded he is the father and has the right to mentor his son. What if he had not contacted PRE?
What seemed like an effort to protect individuals struggling with “gender dysphoria,†has rapidly developed into a highly volatile political issue, and minor children are the target. Parents’ rights to direct the education of their minor children, and manage their healthcare decisions, have been stolen and sacrificed on the altar of Gender Identity Rights. These are pseudo “rights†fabricated out of a false premise. Humans cannot medically change their sex.
The average voter is unaware of the purposeful solicitation and recruitment of minors by public school staff and volunteers to change their sex. Students are inundated with messages about their “gender identity†rights daily. National Education Association member teachers wear badges encouraging students to seek them out for one-on-one counseling about sexuality and gender identity. In addition, LGBTQIA++ activist teachers adorn their classrooms with Gay Pride, Transgender, and Black Lives Matter political flags and posters.
Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) Clubs, a project of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, are now in K-12 schools. GSA Network is a political organization using local public school districts as distribution centers for their trans political agenda to “leverage the collective power of thousands of trans and queer young people in the United States who connect with us through our network. â€Parents are not informed of their child’s membership in these clubs. Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage, confirms the influence of these clubs in decisions students are making to explore gender transition.
PRE featured a parent speaker whose daughter was influenced to change her sex at age 14 because of her GSA Club’s friend’s decision to do the same. As independent journalists Colin Wright and Christina Buttons have documented, many teachers who serve as adult ‘advisors’ to these clubs are intentionally concealing the sexual and political nature of their activities from parents, deliberately misleading families with vague language about ‘acceptance, tolerance, diversity, and identity.’†If parents do not support their child’s “transition†at school, they will likely be reported to Child Protective Services.
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The GSA Network has re-defined freedom, motivating “vulnerable trans and queer youth to advocate for racial and gender justice.†According to their new mission launched in March, Devising Freedom’s national strategy “will intentionally work to combat the harmful effects of anti-trans legislation and executive orders that have emerged in at least 22 states across the country, and continue to target young people in their schools, their homes, and their communities.†Their plan to “cultivate a strong, youth-led movement†and “cultivate a practice of visionary leadership,†should raise concern from anyone understanding the real meaning of freedom.
Families are shocked to learn they no longer have the right to be present when their children are counseled at school. The Oregon Department of Education recently announced the publication of a new and expanded document celebrating gender expansive students. Oregon, by passing HB 2002, plans to set up gender affirming clinics providing mental and physical treatments, including surgeries, throughout the state, serving anyone (even out of state visitors) questioning their biological sex, all on demand at taxpayer expense, and without parent consent.
School Administrators say the role of a school is “to guarantee each and every student (person) a feeling of acceptance, recognition, respect, affirmation, friendship, joy belonging, and safety.†Most students do not feel that way, and if possible, are leaving public schools because of the biased and discriminatory education policies obsessed with sexuality. Trans recruitment and indoctrination in K-12 schools stops here.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a multi-part series on the impact of your vote for School Board Candidates, an OAA Voter Education Project
Candidate Jeff Myers’ is speaking out about how school boards are led into questionable and perhaps unlawful practices. School district have been steadily declining for years, and not just academics. One of the most important roles of a school board is to approve the core curriculum taught throughout the district. This doesn't mean the board members will review every book, every lesson, or every classroom activity. However, they do have the responsibility and authority to ensure the school district adheres to the standards, rules, and laws of our state. School boards have repeatedly failed to perform this vital function.
Jeff Myers, Beaverton school board candidate, researched Oregon law (ORS 337.120) and Oregon Administrative Rule (581-022-2350) when the school board voted to adopt the recommendations put forward by the school district administrators for their Elementary Social Science curriculum (grades K-5). He verified his findings with district staff, including Heather Cordie (Deputy Superintendent – Teaching & Learning), Kayla Bell (Administrator for Elementary Curriculum), and Aujalee Moore at the Oregon Department of Education.
Many school boards have made changes to the rules regarding public comments since the beginning of the pandemic in an attempt to muzzle parents. Testimony is being limited to two minutes per person. During Myers' two minutes, he outlined the violations of Oregon law and Oregon Administrative Rule that the district and school board committed to when they adopted their new Social Science curriculum for grades K-5. The curriculum didn’t exist yet, but the district had a plan to use an outside consultant to build it. The board had no authority within the law to vote to adopt a curriculum that didn’t exist, let alone one that hadn’t been reviewed by parents and the public.
Beaverton’s experience isn’t an isolated case when it comes to taking shortcuts that cuts out parents and the public. In Beaverton’s case, the school district began their work on a new curriculum in 2020, but when they presented their very lengthy report to the school board on May 23, 2022, it was lacking most of the components of a curriculum for grades K-5. Presented was an optional 2021 Social Science standards and a created student-friendly learning targets with a draft book list by grade level.
The intent was to have an outside consultant, Dr. Katy Swalwell, author of Social Studies for a Better World: An Anti-Oppressive Approach for Elementary Educators, which expresses her desire to transform children to take on a particular viewpoint for a “better worldâ€. She is outspoken about her disgust for things like the constitution, Christianity, the Founding Fathers, White people, capitalism, the police, and her book is part of the recommended professional development readings for teachers.
Myers said, "that’s all they had done when they presented their final report and recommendations to the school board. And on the June 21, 2022 meeting the school board voted unanimously to approve and adopt the “curriculum†that didn’t really exist."
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Myers reports, “The school board received no units, lessons, activities, assessments, scope or sequence, student-facing material, or teacher guides… they had nothing but learning targets and draft book lists. Worse yet, parents and citizens were not given the opportunity to review the curriculum required by law. Beaverton School District may try to argue that they had parents and community members as part of their project team and that the team did get the chance to vote to finalize their work. Even if that is adequate parent involvement, what were they basing their votes on when the elementary curriculum didn’t yet exist?â€
“According to the Oregon law and rule, the school district should have created the curriculum first, then solicited parents and citizens for feedback, and then taken the final step to request board approval. The district completely failed to follow the laws & rules governing this process as did the school board.â€
“The unit content rolled out to kindergarten classrooms so far, is not at all developmentally appropriate for that age/grade. That’s not just coming from me,†Myers said, “but from teachers inside and outside of the district who have reviewed the material. For some reason, they have incorporated lessons for the health standards into this Social Science unit. I am specifically referring to lessons/activities regarding “consent†and “gender identity,†which are not in the Social Science standards, let alone for 5-year-olds! This is especially troubling since the district is required by law to notify parents ahead of teaching the health curriculum so they can review the curriculum and opt their children out if they so choose.â€
School districts are using the pandemic as an excuse to never implement the 2018 standards and instead wait just long enough for these optional 2021 standards to arrive. And even with all the warnings provided by ODE on using these standards and the complete lack of support provided for them, ODE still created curriculum options, which is encouraging school districts to use them.
In the Beaverton's case, Myers wants to stop the use of all the new Social Science units and materials in grades K-5 and return to last year’s content to allow a small project team to select and recommend to the school board a Social Science curriculum from the State Board of Education’s approved list for the 2018 standards.
School boards must be attentive to violating laws when adding diversity and identity lessons into unrelated subjects - they may be violating additional laws and rules and potentially opening the door to lawsuits.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the third of a multi-part series on the impact of your vote for School Board Candidates, an OAA Voter Education Project
Who really makes decisions? The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) provides directives and developed ORIS (Oregon Integrated System) as a framework for the Continuous Improvement Process, which integrates equity in every area of the process. A process where school boards are pressured to adopt what ODE recommends. The ORIS centralizes many decisions that rightfully should be made from the ground up, but are actually made top down. Furthermore, decisions made at the school board level are farmed out to the district administration or unelected committees.
What most voters don’t realize is the roll of the school district with the school board. ORS 332.075 allows the school board to authorize the school district office to enter into contracts with board approval. The process deteriorates when the school board, and parents, become the last in line to hear about such contracts that have been negotiated and only aware of them when they are taken to the board for their stamp of approval. By that time deals have been made, the public’s only recourse is a mass display of protest. This type of feedback from parents made the news in Beaverton when the district tried pushing a contract and parents were locked out of the school board meeting. As a result, the National Association of School Boards proposed making parents that demonstrate domestic terrorists.
Parents are increasingly making public records requests to get to the bottom of issues. The Coalition of Oregon School Administrators (COSA) say it is an immoral violation on their personal privacy, even though all government workers are subject to public records requests.
The school superintendent is hired by the district school board to carry out what the school board approves: school budgets, approved curriculum, and policies in schools. If a superintendent is not going to be supportive of the board and the district, then they are hindering what the school board, with parents’ input, deems important in their schools.
The issue of superintendent hiring and firing is now critically important. In Newberg, Albany, and other school districts, school boards dismissed superintendents who did not comport with community values, undermined school board policies and continually placed progressive ideology above academic instruction. This was an essential last-ditch mechanism for school boards to dismiss non-responsive superintendents and preserve academic and community values.
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However, upset with the firing of the Newberg superintendent for not following the board’s policy that only American and Oregon State flags can fly in classrooms, legislative progressives rushed to pass SB 1521 in 2022. The bill made it impossible to fire a superintendent for cause without 12 month notice – despite what the hiring contract may say. The law now limits the ability of the district school board from terminating the superintendent if they are acting in compliance with state and federal law and refuse to follow a board’s policy. It sets state and federal laws or guidelines, including executive orders, orders of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, declarations, directives or other state or federal authorization, policy, statement, guidance, rule or regulation over local school boards. In other words, local control and parents’ voices are not considered.
COSA and ODE pushed SB 1521 to override parents that are flooding board meetings demanding the termination of instruction on gender identity and sexual options, shared bathrooms/showers, and receive abortion drugs without parent consent. Currently, HB 2002 is working its way through the legislature that allows students of any age to start transitioning without parents’ knowledge.
Many suggest this is what tyranny looks like using students as experiments, thwarting the voice of parents, and neutering school boards to keep progressive superintendents and the Department of Education ideological agendas moving forward using public schools as the vehicle.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the second of a multi-part series on the impact of your vote for School Board Candidates, an OAA Voter Education Project
A national phenomenon hasn’t missed Oregon. Education is more expensive for fewer students. Throwing huge amounts of money at the public school system hasn't improved test scores or any measure of school quality, but it has corresponded with a stampede of kids out of the school system.
The 2022 year was a building year, but despite “free†federal money that was not part of the yearly school budget, Oregon lost 30,000 students. Education is changing and parents are abandoning progressive, union controlled monolithic public-school systems in favor of schooling where they have a choice, a voice and control over their children’s education. The poorest families—mostly minorities—who can’t afford private alternatives are the victims of a failing public system.
Congress passed three COVID relief bills worth $5.3 trillion earmarked broadly for concerns to improve safety and security, upgrade HVAC systems and equipment, and make site improvements. Oregon school districts alone received $1.65 billion from the American Rescue Plan and 3 allotments from Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds. Allotments from 3 Governors Emergency Education Relief funds brought in another $60 million. There was $30 million for distance learning, $28 million for charter and private schools, $27 million for migrant students and $7 million for teaching English. There is more to be allocated through 2025. Taxpayers should be asking, “Where is all that money going?â€
The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) 2023-25 Agency Request Budget states the Student Success Act has increased Oregon’s investment in K-12 education to a level close to what is called for in the Quality Education Model. Might that be due to the loss of 30,000 that no longer have a share in public school funds? The budget also increases system oversight and district support, increasing the potential to increase student success and close longstanding equity gaps.
ODE’s 2023-25 budget total funding request is $17.7 billion, which is nearly $1 billion more than current service levels, compared to the co-chairs requested increase of $1.2 billion over available revenue. That's an increase of more than $2,000 per student. Budgeted for local school districts and education service districts is $9.3 billion from the State School Fund, of which about 61 percent, $7.9 billion, comes from the General Fund.
It seems like the corporate kicker and the Corporate Access Tax funds haven't benefited taxpayers nor school funding. However, local school boards can take advantage of various enhanced funds including about nine percent of all General Fund resources supporting multiple state grant and investment programs. Investment programs include educator effectiveness efforts, CTE/STEM, Chronic Absenteeism, the High School Graduation and College and Career Readiness Act of 2016, and Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education, Electronic grants, as well as Youth Development Division grant programs. In addition, General Fund supports grants-in-aid funding for K-12 programs totaling $554.9 million.
School boards are also dealing with reversals and defunding that have impacted K-12 education programs over the years. The 2013 establishment of the Oregon Education Investment Board led to a suite of strategic programs, including programs in early reading and connecting to work. But by 2017, most of those strategic investments were repealed. ODE also experienced limits in oversight of state standards. The systemic lack of governance and funding instability contributed to the abandonment of the state’s prior major K-12 improvement efforts leaving school boards to pick up the pieces.
ODE’s budget request states, “Oregon does not have a detailed road map of programs to improve K-12 education, which could help foster a longer-term focus on improving programs and managing investments already in place.†Out of all the legislative educational bills this session, not one will audit or help improve the efficiencies of school funding.
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ODE is also requesting an increase in per-student funding for the Regional Inclusive Services Program in the 2023-25 biennium for students experiencing disabilities. Based on a model that assumes increased funding per student, the budget applies a 3.02% growth to restore the program to the level of funding per student in the 2009-11 biennium, the funding required for the 2023-25 year is $87,317,035. Funding for disabled student has dropped continuously for 10 years as student count increased. The 2021-23 budget starts a trend upward back to the 2017-19 level of $2,866 per student. The increase only pays for caseload increases and standard inflation. If SB 575 passes, permitting every disabled student a full day of classroom teaching by qualified teachers, the school board will be faced with a shortage of funds, extra teaching staff, and classrooms.
A one-time $500,000 General Fund appropriation was approved last session for a study of the impact of State School Fund spending, and to determine if this spending pattern results in disparities between students who are black, indigenous or people of color (BIPOC) and those who are not BIPOC students. However, the Statewide Report Card 2021-22 does not support special treatment or spending for any race or ethnic group over another. Most all the groups’ achievement rates were affected equally by the pandemic, and only the economically disadvantaged showed an increase displaying their resilience. When only one group (Asians) perform above 50 percent, it is clear education is in a broad statewide crisis and separating funding for specific groups makes it more difficult for school board to dispense education equally.
Unions also impact the school budget mandating salary levels, and by supporting legislation that mandates infrastructure improvements, such as earthquake proof buildings, water purification, air quality systems, and smaller class sizes requiring more classrooms. These expenses along with building maintenance may come partially from grant money that comes from the Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching Program (OSCIM). This money for districts actually increases each year if not used. It is dangled like bait to incentivize local school districts to raise taxes on property owners. Voters should also be wary of being on the hook for 20-30 years for upkeep and maintenance of abandoned, empty school buildings. Progressive school administrators continually suggest such taxes are an “investment†in the communities. Informed citizens know investments return money to investors, and it is something school boards must be savvy about.
If parents succeed in passing school choice, money will follow students not government facilities. Budgets may have further limitations on school districts that will affect the success of all students. Every time the state mandates expensive and time-consuming tasks on schools that are already trying to function with limited resources, it affects the success of all students. School boards play a vital role in managing obligations for success of the school district.
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a multi-part series on the impact of your vote for School Board Candidates, an OAA Voter Education Project
Ask any voter or parent and you’ll find they are confident that they elect school boards to represent them, they are allowed to give input, and influence decisions on what is taught in public schools. In odd number years, the third Tuesday in May, May 16, 2023, voters mark their ballots to elect roughly half of Oregon’s school boards.
Months prior, organizations and groups search for candidates that are willing to fulfill the responsibilities and commitments expected of school board members, including policies, rules and curriculum, teacher standards, and collective bargaining.
Parents have basis for assuming their school board will function as parents wish and in the best interest of their children. ORS 332.072 tells them “the legal status of school districts as corporate bodies, and the district school board is authorized to transact all business coming within the jurisdiction of the district and to sue and be sued. Pursuant to law, district school boards have control of the district schools and are responsible for educating children residing in the district.â€
Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Project is once again sponsoring candidate surveys that touch on the nitty-gritty of what school boards face. Mostly based on current and past legislation, it exposes the trending in the legislature on issues that have become contentious in school board meetings. One such bill was SB 1521 passed in 2022, which prohibits a school board from dismissing a superintendent for following any federal, state or local requirement even if it is at the option and against the school board policy.
As is noted in ORS 332.072, parents can sue school board members for violation of laws. Such laws as:
ORS 329.025 requires listing characteristics of the school system that emphasizes involvement of parents and the community in the total education of students.
ORS 329.125 school districts are to provide opportunities for parents or guardians to be involved in establishing and implementing educational goals and to participate in decision-making at the school site.
ORS 336.082 assures development of a nondiscriminatory curriculum.
ORS 336.067 gives special emphasis on respect for all humans, regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, age, sex or disability.
ORS 336.465 the right of parents, guardians and residents to examine instructional material to be used in any class, course, assembly or school-sponsored activity.
One thing the “pandemic†has told parents is how much in the dark they have been. Are there really “public†schools when they are not open to the public and are not accountable to the public? Schools are run by government, they are regulated by government, they are funded by government, they are compelled by government, they are government schools. Perhaps what is missing was best stated in the Journal of Counseling and Development.
“Research indicates that when a collective group of school, family, and community stakeholders work together, achievement gaps decrease.†(p. 408, Bryan & Henry, 2012)
As the 2023 legislature progresses, attention is drawn away from school board elections. As legislators discuss bills such as SB 292, school board members are reminded of the requirement to file a statement of economic interest by April 15, 2023. SB 292 proposes to give board members in districts less than 1,650 students extended time to file. If passed, HB 2002 will be the most serious issues facing school boards affecting parents relationship with their student, and parents will be looking to school boards for support.
Parents cannot ignore that their rights are in peril. In this series we will highlight issues that school boards face and what voters need to know to reform school policies.
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In 2016, Oregon adopted new health education standards. Beginning in kindergarten, students are taught about media influence on health and ways to prevent diseases. This was three years before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S.
Students are also taught the many ways to express gender - and how to communicate with preferred pronouns with people of all sexual orientations.
At meetings and public hearings early on, as the curriculum was being developed, there was very little concern from parents. Perhaps the biggest blessing coming out of the pandemic is that parents learned what their children are being taught and how overly sexual the curriculum is that is being implemented. It opened their eyes to the whole realm of education and how much it had changed in a short time.
School board elections are crucial for education reform. Oregon Abigail Adams Voter Education Project lists the candidates and those responding to the survey on their website.
and international judicial organization’s statement suggests that sex between little children and adults should be legalized, calling for the acceptance of pedophilia as a normal sexual orientation. Parents want answers from the State Board of Education.
