Healthy schools make a thriving community. This May 16, 2023 School Board Election is about competence, not conservative or progressive. We need change.
This is a one-stop post with a whole bunch of material to show that the actions of the current school board do not live up to their words. I’ll keep adding to this up to Election Day, as a way for us to “show our work” that despite the rhetoric of the current Board, things are not going well.
I worked in the District Office for five years. I saw this Board up close and behind the scenes. I resigned when my duties were taken away because “the board didn’t trust me” and I could no longer work for an unethical Board.
Please vote by May 16 for non-partisan, qualified, and caring candidates: Deb Bridges, Jeremy Hayden, Nancy Woodward, James Wolfer, and Sol Allen. Former educators and the current teacher’s association endorse these candidates; in the Voter’s Pamphlet, only politicians endorse the current board.
Brief History:
The Board majority switched in the May 2021 election by the slimmest of margins, a couple hundred votes all together for three positions. Chaos began at the first meeting of the new Board in July of 2021. They tried to ban Pride and BLM flags, and then had to step back and write a revised “no politics” policy…but even this was ruled unconstitutional, and quietly removed by the Board. They illegally hired an attorney, and fired a Superintendent without cause in November 2021. All of this was done without a plan for implementing their “back to the basics” education talk. You can see all the details, with links to videos of the actual board meetings, here.
These actions had immediate negative consequences. We were national news for all the wrong reasons. An exodus of staff began, which has grown to 197 employees (more than ⅓ of all staff!) The average years of experience for our teachers plummeted from 14.53 in 2020-2021 (scroll down to near the bottom, Yamhill County: Newberg School District) down to 13.4 this year (as stated at the Budget Committee Meeting on April 11, 2023.) This has devastating effects on students, sets collaboration between grades on educational standards back years…and it has a financial impact. The state gives additional dollars to districts with higher average experience for teachers.
An in-process collaborative curriculum process broke because of staff leaving. No Superintendent Search firm would enter a contract with the Board, so they had to find a consultant and run the process themselves (Old Business IX.a.) They hired someone who any reputable Superintendent Search firm would have screened out before an interview, on account of his previous firing from one job and being on administrative leave from his current job.
Legal fees have cost the district hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. The legal budget increased 1000%. To fill all the teacher holes, more than two dozen teachers were hired on an emergency credential, some who have not even completed their bachelors degree yet. In Special Education, some positions could not be filled, so outside contractors have been hired to do assessments of our students by video conference. While enrollment in surrounding districts has rebounded after COVID, Newberg lost another 130 students this year, which has a direct negative financial impact on our students. The Board is making big decisions, like changing start times, with very little notice or parent input.
And staff member, after volunteer/parent, after staff member, after former staff member, after former staff member, are sharing their stories of struggle.
The graduation rate has plummeted after years of gains. While the district had more than $9,000,000 in the bank in July of 2021, the district still has not released a completed audit for July of 2022. Already working on the budget for next year without this financial accountability, they are hinting that things are financially tight. What did they do with the hard-won financial stability cushion?
This is why we need change.
Who is really the Parents’ Choice?
The signs for the current Newberg School Board candidates have a slogan: “The Parent’s Choice.” What bothers me far more than the misplaced apostrophe is how they have mislead the public for almost two years, with their claim that the base of their support is from parents of the district.
During my five years as the Board Secretary, Bond Manager, and Communications Coordinator for the district, I received every email that went to the Board. During 2021, as they were manipulating who would be allowed to give public comment, I knew they were mis-representing the input to make it look like opinion for and against their flags and politics policy and masking for COVID was about equal.
I decided to go back and count all the emails to the Board in July and August of 2021 to see how many were for and against, how many identified as parents of current students, and how many identified as living within the district.
All of these emails are public record. Full disclosure: I did the analysis looking through my old emails. You can check my work by doing a public records request for all emails to boardmembers@newberg.k12.or.us in July and August of 2021.
First, the raw numbers: 344 emails were received in support of the Board, and 370 were received against the Board’s actions. But it is also easy to see a big difference between the two. Those raising concerns about the Board’s actions are longer, with personal stories and detailed reasoning. Those supporting the Board are short, without stories, and often copied and pasted.
On July 12, 2021, an email account from a group called Newberg-Dundee Strong made the mistake of “replying all” to one of the Board support emails. It made it clear they are the group which wrote out statements for Board supporters to copy and paste.
So if copy and pasted messages just count as one message, how many unique messages came in? 207 unique messages supported the Board, while 351 unique messages brought concerns. Almost twice as many questioned the Board. It was not split down the middle at all.
Board supporters repeatedly assumed in emails that they were local and critics weren’t, and asked Board members not be swayed by people who don’t live here.
But the opposite is true. 211 emails stated they lived within the district and supported the Board. But 315 emails stated they lived in the district and were against decisions by the Board—1.5 times more.
What about students? 15 chimed in against Board actions and only 2 supported.
Petitions? There were two turned in. The one supporting the Board had 104 signatures. The one raising severe concerns about the Board’s actions had 4,911 signatures, along with many personal notes shared with the Board in a google doc.
So finally, let’s address that parent choice thing. How many pro-Board emails identified themselves as parents of current students? 57. How many anti-Board emails identified themselves as parents of current students? 147. That is 2.6 times, almost triple the number of parents who supported the Board.
The current Board is NOT the parents’ choice.
(Other interesting notes: From August of 2017 through June of 2021, before the current Board took over, there were 976 total emails sent to this address. That’s an average of 21 per month. But when the new Board came in and started creating chaos, you see the response: 571 emails in July 2021, 960 in August 2021. As they stopped replying or paying attention to public comment, the emails dropped off, but still averaged 293 per month for the rest of 2021. This Board did not come into a school system in disarray and fix things. Whether intentionally or not, they created chaos and uproar that continues to distract from education to this day.)
Decisions with unintended consequences
On Feb 21, the policy committee of the current board discussed possible changes to policy JFCF on harassment. They wanted to remove “gender identity” as a protected class when it came to harassment, because they didn’t believe in it. They didn’t want to mention the words in the meeting, calling it “the part highlighted in gray”—you can see it on page 2 of their packet.
The HR director said, you can try it, you can push it; and Director Powell said if authorities object, “you can say we would like some scientific fact” to support gender identity. “They wouldn’t be able to do it,” she said, “cause there isn’t any.” At the March 14 board meeting, the whole board unanimously approved removing protection from harassment due to gender identity.
Besides the cruelty, there is a big unintended consequence of this kind of reasoning. Gender identity is a Federal right, a Federally protected class. You know what else is in the same category of federal protected class? Religion.
Would you want a future board of atheists to remove protection for religion until religion was proved true as a “scientific fact”? I wouldn’t. This is why we have rights and laws about things people disagree over. We need Board members who know and respect the law and who know how to make decisions that don’t have surprising unintended consequences.
Join me in voting for ones who will respect the law and not “push things” for political stunts: Deb Bridges, Jeremy Hayden, Nancy Woodward, James Wolfer, and Sol Allen.
Videos
Please watch and share. Hear the unintended consequences of a recent decision by the current board.
If you are a conservative Christian supporting the current board, this gives evidence for how their lack of respect for the law could turn around and hurt those who are religious.