If you’re registered to vote in Yamhill County, your ballot should arrive on April 26; if you’re not registered to vote, you have until April 25 to do so (here’s the link to online registration!). This election year, every vote is crucial to electing a non-partisan, competent, and accountable school board that will right the floundering ship that is currently the Newberg School District.
While the voters’ pamphlet that accompanies your ballots should reliably provide guidance in helping you vote, make sure you read the very fine print tucked away on page two of the document:
“The candidate statements and measure arguments contained in this pamphlet are printed as submitted and have not been verified for accuracy by the county.”
This tidbit of information is crucial, because goodness: the candidate statements from Newberg school board incumbents are in dire need of some fact-checking. While we acknowledge that candidate position statements will always be aspirational, this spring’s claims by school board incumbents suggest they are living in an alternate reality, one in which Newberg schools are finally thriving, educators are finally supported, and students are finally experiencing academic success.
Judging by the candidate statements, Chair Dave Brown deserves a major award for unifying the community, saving Newberg from the dark ages and rescuing children everywhere from the educational “indoctrination centers” that were once Newberg schools. Brown’s statement asserts that “we can once again be proud of our schools,” even though our school board’s actions have helped put Newberg in the national news several times in the last two years–and not for good reasons.
Brown claims that “our district has experienced a remarkable turnaround.” The turn in our schools has been remarkable, but not in the way Brown wants us to believe. Here’s some of the ways Newberg schools have “turned around” since Brown became board chair in 2021:
The district has lost 139 educators, who left the toxic work environment in Newberg.
The current board will say this reflects “national trends,” but no other nearby district lost educators at this rate, and many former employees did not quit education altogether (which is a national trend). Instead, educators moved to positions elsewhere, taking their institutional memory and skills with them.
The district has moved from a stable financial position to one of financial uncertainty.
Between legal fees (which increased 1000 percent from over the course of one year, according to Oregon CARES PAC), the no cause firing of Dr. Joe Morelock, and lost revenue in the district, Newberg schools will face big cuts in programming next year. You can read more about this here.
The district is hemorrhaging students.
Chair Brown’s statement suggests Newberg has “increased student enrollment,” but the numbers don’t lie. In one academic year, the Newberg School District lost 130 students, more than any other nearby district. McMinnville gained 78 students, and Sheridan gained 58; other schools who lost students include Sherwood (who lost 2) and Yamhill-Carlton (who lost 9). The NSD loss reflects about $1.2 million in funding.
The school board has violated ethical standards set by the state of Oregon.
You can read more about the ethics violations in this post. In addition to violating public meeting laws, the board is also embroiled in several lawsuits that might cost the district–and thus the students–millions of taxpayer dollars. This betrayal of ethical principles does not reflect the idea of “accountability” upon which the incumbents seem to be running.
For a school board who claims to have created “overall staff, parent and student satisfaction,” according to another incumbent’s voter pamphlet statement, there certainly is evidence that plenty of people in Newberg are not satisfied, including the Newberg Educational Association, which has not endorsed any of the incumbents running for reelection, nor a significant number of parents, organizing to make sure their children get competent, safe, accountable representation on next year’s board.
The ballot box is our best opportunity to truly turn around a failing district. If you’re not registered to vote yet, please take the time to do so. And then, on May 16, let’s deliver the “turnaround” this community really deserves, rather than the one dreamed up out of whole cloth.
Newberg Neighbors for a Better Community 