The candidates’ forum on Saturday might have been Newberg’s hottest weekend ticket, as a standing-room only crowd listened to all ten candidates for the Newberg School Board share their vision for the district. Kudos go to the Chehalem Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Newberg City Club, and the George Fox University Civility Project for hosting the event. Although some folks are now asserting that the forum was partisan and unfair, it’s important to note that every candidate had the same time to talk, and every candidate had the same questions, prepared by a nonpolitical committee made up of Newberg citizens.
The moderator established clear ground rules that kept the forum from becoming a free-for-all circus. This included the prohibition of clapping and other verbal displays of approbation or disapproval, making the event far more civil than even recent school board meetings. Though one attendee took to Facebook to call the event “left-wing virtue signaling,” the candidates’ forum gave citizens an opportunity to make informed voting decisions, important if we want democracy to survive.
The incumbents, plus two other candidates running on the parent’s choice docket, had clear talking points, and all five offered some version of the following:
The new superintendent is super!
Superintendent Steve Phillips received high praise for turning around what the incumbents asserted was a district in disarray. According to one incumbent, Phillips was able to “hand-pick his district office,” which is rarely the case, and because of him and his staff, the schools are finally, finally on the right course.
Never mind that at least 197 educators left the district because of the hostile work environment created by this board, nor that Phillips got to handpick his staff because almost all district office employees left for other schools. Judging by the candidates’ forum, Phillips was literally God’s gift to Newberg.
By almost every metric, this assertion is untrue.
Parents should be involved!
We’ve covered the parents’ rights movement elsewhere, and it’s clear that Chair Dave Brown and his board believe that parents have inalienable rights, above anyone else, including teachers and children. At the candidates’ forum, Brown was most insistent that parents can dictate every part of their kids’ education, and the board should be writing new policies to codify the parents’ power.
Never mind that the Newberg school district already has at least two dozen pages of policy regarding parental involvement, something Zone 4 Candidate Nancy Woodward pointed out in her comments. Never mind that the Newberg School Board has made two significant decisions in the last month without involving many (or any?) parents, moving secondary school schedules to trimesters, and changing start times to earlier for all ages.
By almost every metric, the assertion that the board currently supports all parents’ rights is untrue.
Politics Don’t Belong in The Classroom!
Once again, Chair Brown insisted that politics don’t belong in schools, and that the policy in 2021, banning Pride and Black Lives Matter flags in the classroom, was about wanting to get back to educational basics. It had nothing to do with politics, really, and wasn’t even about Pride or BLM symbols at all.
Never mind that Chair Brown can be seen on video from the July 13, 2021, board meeting saying that the ban was specifically about Pride flags, and about Black Lives Matter flags. That particular meeting began a cascading series of failures for the board: Firing a superintendent who told them their ban was illegal, and he would not support it. Digging in, even though the board knew the ban was illegal. Facing lawsuits because of its illegality, costing the district funds that could have supported student learning.
By almost every metric, Chair Brown’s claim of being a-political in his decision making is untrue.
This Election is About Integrity, Transparency, and Competence
At the forum, the five other candidates (Woodward, Jeremy Hayden, Deb Bridges, James Wolfer, and Sol Allen) offered steady and studied responses that centered children first and then educators, while empathizing with parents’ concerns.
The forum was also a reminder that three of the five candidates have children who attend Newberg public schools (or will), a distinct contrast to incumbents who have little stake in the district, because their children are homeschooled or attend private schools. In the words of incumbent Raquel Peregrino de Brito, who has a child attending a Christian private school, her stake in public schools is simply because her kid will have to interact with children who attend public schools.
We imagine that most people who attended the forum already had their minds made up about who to vote for on May 16. And still, the event clearly showed what’s at stake in this election.
Changing the trajectory of this board will require extraordinary effort in getting all our neighbors to vote, because Newberg’s children deserve a better school board, one focused on integrity and transparency, rather than misleading and misdirection.
Newberg Neighbors for a Better Community 