So many people we know wept when election results were finally made public on Tuesday night, announcing that a conservative slate of candidates, including three incumbents, lost their bid for the Newberg School Board.
Some were crying tears of joy, for sure, but for many of us the relief of winning was complicated by grief: grief for what our community’s children have endured the last two years. Grief for jobs lost here because of a toxic environment created by the school board. Grief for parents who worried about their children’s well-being, about their safety and security. Grief because, as one former employee said, the board treated people’s lives and livelihoods as a political game.
Turns out, when you intend to cause havoc in a school district—something to which Board Chair Dave Brown admitted on Wednesday—real people are going to be hurt, and badly.
During an interview with KGW TV, Brown had this to say about his two-year stint as board chairman: “I feel like the Lord’s got a plan. But somebody had to…you know, throw the brick through the window and kinda get this conversation going.”
The violent rhetoric, polished with a veneer of self-righteous piety, suggests that the board cared little for the people whose lives they wreaked: not the children, who became pawns in a cultural war; nor the parents, many of whom were silenced by a board rallying for “parents’ rights”; not for educators, whose longtime commitment to this community was rewarded with specious claims about indoctrination; not for LGBTQIA people and people of color in our community, who were specifically and repeatedly targeted by the board’s decisions and its rhetoric.
If Brown was throwing a brick, it was through the classroom windows of every school in our district, and the shrapnel caused irreparable damage to children and educators alike. Now, Brown and his cronies can wipe their hands of the dirt and walk away, and everyone else will need to spend years cleaning up the damage.
So there were tears on Tuesday night into Wednesday: of joy, and anger, and pain. Acting as though the last two years never happened will be difficult—impossible, really—and the damage wrought by the board’s bricks will linger. For some, the last two years’ trauma might be life-long.
We need to acknowledge this reality, and mourn with those who mourn, providing the empathy and support they need to heal from this trauma.
Still, this election gives us so many reasons to have hope:
- We saw our community rally around its children, working hard to assure they are nurtured and loved into adulthood.
- We saw grit and determination in our educators, who continued to show up for children, in our district and elsewhere.
- We saw some community and business leaders step up to provide resources that allowed candidates to focus on campaigning.
- We saw the fierce courage of women like Brandy Penner, Rebecca Piros, and Ines Peña, who slowed the board’s damage and stood up to its bullying.
- We saw our young people igniting their passion, voting in large numbers for a better future.
- We saw countless community members give up spare time to canvass, phone bank, write letters to the editor, and lean on neighbors to vote.
Friends, there is so much yet to do. Having a strong school district will require that we continue the good work we’ve started; the damage that’s been done will not be repaired overnight, nor will our wounds be easily healed.
But the only way forward and to begin healing is together. Despite the pain and trauma the last few years have caused us, we have found each other, and know that our community can be stronger, and can achieve far more, when we work together.
Thank you for coming alongside us the last few months, and for helping to tell the stories about what was happening in our district. We’re looking forward to seeing what the next part of our shared journey will look like, using care and compassion as our guide.
Newberg Neighbors for a Better Community 