Tuesday, May 16, 2023, Salem held the election for three of the seven school board directors, along with many other counties in Oregon. Even though the election results aren’t certified yet, one thing is clear: Salem doesn’t know what they want.
Krissy Hudson, in her race against Larry Scruggs, is winning comfortably, with a lead of 4,390 votes, and the most votes for any of the candidates at 22,252.
Satya Chandragiri holds a slight lead over his opponent, Kelley Strawn, by 490 votes.
But, despite being on the slate together, campaigning together, and doing just about everything else together for the election, Casity Troutt is behind Cynthia Richardson by 1,176 votes.
Salem, this is why we can’t have nice things.
When you take into account that as many as 2,518 people voted for Hudson that didn’t then also vote for Chandragiri or Troutt, when their positions and stances on issues were largely identical, my mind breaks. We can’t even say it came down to what the particular zone wanted; it’s city-wide voting.
If you weren’t voting on the issues, what were you voting on? My simple guess? It came down to the people that endorsed Richardson and Strawn, but not Scruggs. But that still doesn’t explain how Hudson got more votes than the others on the slate with her.
But let’s talk about the real impact of the situation.
The Majority
Even if all three of the conservative candidates had won, it would still leave us with the four-progressive majority. It would have felt nice to have all of the work that a lot of people have been putting in vindicated by a win. It would have felt cathartic, but it would not have been authoritative.
They’re Only a Policy Governance Board
For years, and a number of board iterations ago, the school board abdicated its authority in the way we want it to matter. That decision left the actual work that many other school boards engage in, like deciding policy, making changes to programs, and actually affecting the lives and educations of children, to the Superintendent. So then what does our board actually do?
The majority of the meetings are taken up with listening to presentations that amount to corporate-speak, filled with obfuscated data that never leads to a substantive discussion to make things better. More times often than not, if one of the conservative board members asks a thought-provoking or insightful question, one or more of the progressives assumes the worst possible intent in the question (or fabricates it) and then can’t resist the temptation to make a snide remark, but in the next breath will extol the idea of “working together”.
In conditions like that, it’s no wonder they can’t get to solutions. The board has been trying to get to the root of the terrible safety data and low sense of belonging for various demographic groups literally for years, and are no closer to any real solutions.
As was noticed and mentioned in the public comment at the last school board meeting, the ever-present revolving wheel of resolutions never stops. But what have any of their resolutions done to impact any children in the district?
Don’t get me wrong, I know they’ve made decisions that impact parents, like banning concealed weapons holders from being able to exercise their Constitutional rights on school property, but the other hot-button issues weren’t their decisions:
Ending the SRO contract was decided unilaterally by Superintendent Perry, despite the commitment and engagement of the board in attempts to make a collaborative, community-minded decision, that didn’t reach its end-point.
Developing and implementing the LGBTQ policies has been at the hands of Superintendent Perry and her cabinet staff, namely the almost-presumptive next school board director of Zone 2, Cynthia Richardson, in her role as director of the Office of Student Equity, Access, and Advancement. The school board wasn’t even aware of the policies’ existence, let alone consulted on their development.
These resolutions they put together are created, modified, debated, commented on, voted on, passed, and then simply filed. And that all takes place over the course of multiple meetings that only happen once a month. The resolutions do nothing. They do not come with any change in policy, nor any instruction to the superintendent to do so. It is simply busy work.
What if…
Future wargaming this situation, let’s say the conservatives win a majority in 2025 when the four progs’ first terms are up, and that mythical majority takes back their power so that they can dictate all these new rules for the superintendent to implement. Either those activist organizations that are deeply in bed with the leadership of this district, or the Oregon Department of Education (or both) will bring down a legal hammer that says they’re not following state or federal law.
And just for the sake of argument, let’s say this new majority decides to buck the activists and the government and pass the policies anyways. They can only tell the Superintendent what to do. Not the rest of the district. And thanks to Oregon Senate Bill 1521, enacted in the 2022 short legislative session, a superintendent in Oregon can’t be fired, even with a “no cause” clause in their contract, without a 12-month notice. They also can’t be fired for something if they are following local, state, or federal laws in defying the board. So activist superintendents like Perry and the incoming Castaneda have no incentive to follow the board’s orders.
The game is rigged, and it’s been that way for a long time.
The Solution
Opt out in whatever way you can.
Get Your Kids Out
If you can, take your kids out of public schools. They’re already having to cut the budget because of an anticipated decline in attendance, which is what determines their funding. And the ways Perry is shifting dollars around to mitigate the impact shows they are pretty uncomfortable. She lowered the usually policy-driven contingency fund set at between 5-7% down to 2.9% — I’d say that means they’re already dipping into the emergency fund due to this attendance decline.
Help Get Other Kids Out
Someone needs to start a non-profit organization that specializes in providing financial scholarships to kids for private schools. Unless and until Oregon gets real School Choice, where the funding our tax dollars provide follows the child to whichever school they want, there need to be organizations willing to solicit charitable contributions for kids whose families can’t afford the tuition to a private school.
Don’t Willingly Partake
If leaving public school isn’t an option (and I would encourage you to look closely at what you perceive to be your barriers — but I’ll concede it isn’t an option for everyone), then opt your kids out of the content whenever possible. Save Oregon Schools has a good resource on opting kids out. I’ve heard anecdotally that the offices will say it isn’t enforceable, but you are allowed to opt your kids out of whatever topic you so choose. The laws are there for you to look up. Be diligent in knowing what your kids will be exposed to. If enough kids are being opted out of a course or a topic, maybe a sane administrator will take notice.
Be The Light
And, if nothing else, opt out of the mentality. They want you to join them, or be miserable fighting against them. That’s the false dilemma they’re putting in front of you. It’s a cult! You don’t have to fight their game just because they say so.
Spend your time and energy fortifying yourselves and your family. Be the positive, loving, encouraging person that frustrates them to no end. If you’re a Christian, Jesus calls us to be that.
Personally, I’ve already gotten my kids out. But I’m also choosing to opt out by being the light. It won’t be easy, and I’ll fail along the way, but instead of living in this space of frustration and strife, I’m going to choose to fortify myself and my family. They deserve every resource I can spare. Yours does too.
Just remember, “no” is a complete sentence.