These days even local elections reverberate with echoes of national controversies. That certainly was the case with yesterday's special district election where three seats on the Salem-Keizer school board were up for grabs.
There are seven members of the school board, so 4-3 is a majority.
This year the three seats occupied by conservatives in 2021 were up for election, though only one was occupied by an incumbent, Satya Chandragiri, owing to some resignations. So while progressive control of the school board wasn't in doubt, the size of the progressive majority was.
As things stand the day after the May 16 election, there appears to be two winners and one too-close-to-call race.
Progressive Cynthia Richardson is leading conservative Casity Troutt by 1,051 votes. Conservative Krissy Hudson has a 4,205 vote lead over progressive Larry Scruggs. And conservative Satya Chandragiri is leading progressive Kelly Strawn by 446 votes.
So unless Troutt has an extremely unlikely comeback, soon the progressive majority on the school board will increase from 4-3 to 5-2. Sure, liberals like me would prefer it be 6-1 or 7-0. But picking up a seat formerly held by a conservative should make progressives smile.
Especially since Casity Troutt hoped to win that seat. Troutt was a far-right candidate who would have brought her extreme agenda to the school board, creating havoc wherever she could.
I urge you to read an excellent piece by Andrew Hickey on his Salem-Keizer Proletariat substack publication: "Progressives gain in Salem-Keizer School Board race." As I told Hickey in a comment on this post, whatever I was going to say about the election, you've said it better.
Hickey says this about Casity Troutt.
Bigotry and hate lost big. Casity Troutt is a vocal anti-transgender activist and has tried to get books on diversity banned from public schools. Her candidacy was borne from those efforts. And her supporters worked hard to smear and degrade the only black woman in the entire race. Her campaign (and ideology) was a gross expression of fear and hate that was soundly rejected by our community. That’s a great signal.
Troutt also led an unsuccessful effort to recall three progressive school board members, so her loss is especially sweet for me.
I hated the attack ad against Richardson backers of Troutt spewed forth on social media. So the way I see it from my progressive point of view, keeping Troutt off the school board was better than losing the Hudson-Scruggs race, plus the Chandragiri-Strawn race -- should that remain in conservative hands after all the votes are counted.
Three incumbents on the Newberg school board lost their seats in Tuesday’s election, the end of an era in a district that’s attracted national attention since 2021, when a majority of board members banned staff from putting Black Lives Matter and pro-LGBTQ+ rights signs up in classrooms or hallways.
The five candidates who won seats on the board this week — three of them against incumbents and two of them for open seats — were all supported by a political action committee called Oregon CARES that says its mission is to elect “responsible and equitable” community leaders. That PAC’s largest single donor is the statewide teachers’ union, the Oregon Education Association.
...Overall, candidates who had strongly supported increased parental oversight over curriculum, particularly in social studies and health and sexuality, and who emphasized a “back-to-basics” approach on everything from academics to student discipline – lost their races in the Portland suburbs and exurbs Tuesday night, bucking a national trend that has seen candidates with conservative ideologies make meaningful inroads onto nonpartisan school boards.
A few weeks before a local election where conservatives face off against progressive candidates, right-wing attack ads sprout like daffodils in the spring -- except the ads are a lot uglier.
The May 16 Special District Election is no different.
Last Friday I wrote a post, Sexual assault claim spices up school board candidates forum. After the forum, someone told me that they saw two of the conservative candidates talking with the man who claimed that progressive candidate Cynthia Richardson, a Salem-Keizer schools employee, didn't take seriously a sexual assault that he says happened to his eight-year-old daughter.
Predictably, it didn't take long before a right-wing PAC started to run a sleazy ad targeting Richardson. I learned about the ad from a friend who told me on Sunday that it was running on YouTube videos he was watching.
I wrote a Facebook post about this and published it on the three pages I manage: Strange Up Salem, Salem Political Snark, and Salem Can Do Better.
I figured that some people wouldn't like what I said on Facebook. But I didn't anticipate getting a "fake news" accusation. Here's part of the comment interchange I had with someone named Thomas on the Salem Can Do Better post.
Thomas: I just checked YouTube and did a search for "Cynthia Richardson" and the ONLY thing is a "Your Vote Counts" interview which also is done with all the other candidates. NOT ONE DEROGATORY ad on YouTube. This posting by Salem Can Do Better is false and disinformation.... AGAIN.
Me: I have a video of the attack ad. It’s very real.
Thomas: Not on YouTube. False and disinformation like always from the left.
Me: Here's a screenshot of the video my friend made of the You Tube ad. I'm not going to share the video because I don't want to spread right-wing hit jobs. I accept your apology for doubting that the video wasn't real. Us progressives believe in real news, not fake news.
Thomas: Does not exist. I did a search on "cynthia richardson" then a search on "Salem Keizer School board" I then did a sort to most recent and looked back for almost a year.... False or disinformation or "partial" truth. Either way false!!!
Me: Note that the screenshot says in the bottom right corner “video will play after ad.” This is a genuine ad that ran multiple times on YouTube yesterday.
So even when presented with evidence that the attack ad video exists, Thomas refused to believe his own eyes, choosing to follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump and assert that anything he doesn't like must be "fake news."
Thomas should have done some Googling, as I did, on the question of how to find ads running on You Tube. Short answer: it isn't easy, and may be impossible.
I'm not the only one complaining about right-wing attack ads against the progressive school board candidates. The Salem-Keizer Proletariat substack had this post today: Salem-Keizer School Board race takes a far-right turn. The right-0n subtitle: Disinformation campaigns fed by dark money reveals desperation of right-wing slate of school board candidates.
A few excerpts: (Note -- the Marion+Polk First PAC is listed as being behind the attack video against Richardson being shown on YouTube.)
With ballots in the mail and around two weeks until election day, the far-right slate of school board candidates in Salem-Keizer has pulled off the gloves to dole out fistfuls of disinformation & propaganda funded by wads of cash from…well, sometimes it’s hard to tell.
Right-wing PAC Marion+Polk First appears to be the driving force behind much of the digital disinformation & mailers that made absurd comparisons between the far-right candidates and the progressive slate of candidates. A slate, by the way, that represents nearly a century of combined experience in education. Guess how many years the Republican candidates have? Virtual high-five if you guessed zero.
...Campaign supporters for both Troutt and Chandragiri began spreading a shameless hit-piece targeting Cynthia Richardson. To be clear, sexual abuse should be thoroughly pursued and it’s terrible that this person and their child is going through this.
But taking the weight of that situation and setting it on the shoulders of a school board candidate completely anonymously on an extremist, right-wing website right as ballots go out to voters is…as the kids might say, a little sus.
Richardson is an accomplished professional retiring from a lifetime and lineage of service in public education running against a transphobe bigot whose reaction to ideas she doesn’t approve of is to ban books.
Walks like a hit-piece. Talks like a hit-piece. Shrug?
There are also apparently digital TV ads being run against Richardson. Again, I haven’t seen the ads and am unable to find them online. From Twitter in response to Alexander’s tweet shared above:
Once upon a time school board elections were a sleepy affair. Mostly the problem was finding candidates willing to serve in a position marked by long hours, boring meetings, and no pay.
That time has passed for the Salem-Keizer School District. Recent elections have been marked by competing slates of candidates: progressive and conservative. This makes what used to be a nonpartisan election highly political.
Politics definitely was on display at today's forum for school board candidates vying for three positions in the May 16 Special District Election. The forum was jointly sponsored by the Salem City Club, Salem Chamber of Commerce, and the Keizer Chamber of Commerce.
Five of the six candidates took part in the forum.
From left to right in the photo above, Larry Scruggs is running against Krissy Hudson; Kelly Strawn is running against Satya Chandragiri; and Casity Troutt is running against the missing Cynthia Richardson, who reportedly had a conflict and couldn't attend.
Well, even though Richardson wasn't at the forum, she featured in an exchange that definitely grabbed my attention -- since much of the discussion up to that point had been full of platitudes.
No big surprise: all of the candidates think they're well qualified to be on the school board, want schools to be safe, support parental involvement in their children's education, favor openness and transparency, want to improve student learning; and such.
The headline of the forum came when each of the candidates was able to ask a question of their opponent. Troutt was told by the moderator that she couldn't ask a question because her opponent, Richardson, was absent.
Troutt is part of the conservative slate, along with Chandragiri and Hudson. The progressive slate is Richardson, Strawn, and Scruggs.
This helps explain why, when it came time for Chandragiri to ask a question of Strawn, he acted as a surrogate for Troutt. Chandragiri's question was whether Strawn would call out Richardson for not protecting victims of sexual assault.
Wow! That was a shocker of a question. I had no idea what Chandragiri was talking about.
Strawn said that he wanted to keep students safe, adding that he hasn't talked with Richardson but that it's bad to turn a personal issue into something political by an entire slate. Meaning, the conservative slate of Troutt, Chandragiri, and Hudson.
When the forum was over and the City Club president was making some routine remarks, I fired up my iPhone to search for "Cynthia Richardson school board sexual assault." What popped up was an April 27 post in the Oregon Catalyst by Patrick Kirsch: My 8-year old was sexually assaulted. Cynthia Richardson refused to help.
It's short, so I'll copy in the entire post by Kirsch.
I’m a parent, veteran, and resident of Salem. I don’t like to be involved in politics, but I can’t stay silent about the May 16th election.
I was shocked last week when I opened my voter pamphlet and saw that Cynthia Richardson has the audacity to run for the Salem-Keizer School Board. I know Cynthia as the head of the Salem-Keizer Office of Student Equity, Access, and Advancement. In that role she refused to stand up for a student in her district at the time she was most needed.
Last fall, my 8 year-old daughter was sexually assaulted at a Salem-Keizer school. I went through all the steps I could with the district to try to keep her safe. I was frustrated that they refused to do more than move the other student—who had assaulted my daughter more than once in the same day—to another classroom. I was told I was “lucky” to get that much.
I asked for staff to do something—anything—to acknowledge to my 8-year-old that this was wrong and that they were sorry they couldn’t protect her. She got nothing.
I reached out to the one person who I thought would be able to get something done—Cynthia Richarson, who heads a significant department and is supposedly there to help students have a safe and supportive learning environment. I thought surely because my daughter is biracial that Cynthia would care. She did not.
Over two phone calls with Cynthia Richardson where I asked her to get involved in the next steps in caring for and protecting my daughter she did nothing. Instead, the first thing she asked was why my daughter didn’t scream. As if it was my 8-year-old’s fault that nothing was done to protect her!
What is incredible is I was told by a school psychologist that even in cases of rape of students the district policy is to not move the offender from the school.
Cynthia Richardson has had the responsibility of leading the Salem-Keizer School District for years. Yet under her leadership the district seems uninterested in standing up for victims of sexual assault and even less interested in listening to parents.
If Cynthia Richardson can’t keep students safe, we can’t trust her to serve us on the school board.
Here's my take on what Kirsch said. Naturally I detest the idea of sexual assault. But I'm a political junkie, and some things seem out of place about Kirsch's post.
First, the Oregon Catalyst is a well-known conservative blog. It's "About" page says:
Oregon Catalyst started in 2005 as [a] place for conservative Oregonians to gather and share news, commentary, and gossip. Today, it is the largest Conservative political blog in Oregon.
So I find it curious that Hirsch starts off by saying that he doesn't like to be involved in politics, yet chose to write a post about his daughter's sexual assault for the largest conservative political blog in Oregon.
I'll assume that he really did learn about Richardson's school board candidacy through the voter's pamphlet.
OK. Then what made him choose to tell his story via the Oregon Catalyst, a highly political blog? Why not contact a journalist at the Statesman Journal or Salem Reporter? This makes me wonder whether Hirsch isn't the non-political person he claims to be, given his decision to write a guest opinion for the Oregon Catalyst.
I also am skeptical that if a sexual assault truly did occur, school officials (including Richardson) were as uncaring as Hirsch claims. We're only getting one side of the story here. This afternoon I emailed Richardson's campaign asking if they had a response to the Oregon Catalyst post. Haven't heard from them yet.
Now, it might be that Hirsch was so disturbed by learning about Richardson's candidacy that he is now trying to harm her chances of being elected. However, the question remains: why did Hirsch choose a conservative political blog to tell his story?
I heard from someone who also attended today's forum that Hirsch was the person who tried to ask a question from the audience after the Q&A portion of the meeting was over, and was told that time was up by the moderator.
What's unclear at this point is whether Hirsch just is an upset parent who wants to hold Richardson accountable for what he views as a dereliction of duty, or if he's being used by the conservative slate of candidates to cast aspersions upon Richardson's candidacy -- knowing that she's likely bound by school confidentiality requirements to not say much, if anything, about the sexual assault allegation.
I suspect both things are true. Hirsch is an upset parent who is being used for political purposes.
In other forum news, you won't be surprised to learn that all of the conservative candidates are anti-abortion and are proud to be getting the support of Oregon Right to Life. Which is one reason, among many, why I continue to advise that you vote for the progressive slate of candidates. (By the way, Larry Scruggs is better looking and younger looking than his photo.)
Pleasingly, each of the four progressive candidates ended up winning -- an amazing accomplishment.
Amazing, because Oregon Right to Life and its associated PACs (political action committees) went all out this time around, as they have in previous school board elections, in support of a conservative slate of candidates.
...With the four Salem-Keizer school board victories (assuming Cottingham survives the recount), progressives will end the nightmare of the current conservative school board majority being at endless war with both students and the Superintendent.
Now the other three school board seats are up for grabs in the May 16 election. Once again, there are two contrasting candidates competing for each of the seats: a progressive and a conservative.
These are the highly qualified progressive candidates. I urge you to vote for them. Here's a brief bio for each and a link to their web sites that I got from the Progressive Salem candidate page.
Cynthia Richardson has served students in Salem-Keizer Schools for 25 years, including as Principal of North Salem and McKay High Schools. She holds a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Texas. Her most recent service was as Director of Student Equity, Access and Advancement. Having recently retired from that position, Cynthia is ready to lend her decades of professional expertise to the School Board to continue to serve our students.
Kelley Strawn is as Associate Provost at Willamette University where he has been a professor and administrator for the past 15 years. He holds a Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin. He and his wife have educated two sons in Salem-Keizer schools. Kelley wants to bring his expertise in education and experience as a parent to the Board in order to support teachers and families in delivering the best possible education to our students.
Larry Scruggs served as an administrator for over two decades at the University of Portland. He holds a Ph.D. from Portland State University. Now retired, Larry works as a substitute teacher in Salem-Keizer classrooms where he has experienced firsthand what our students need for a great education. He is running for the school board to ensure that all our children have equal access to a quality education to prepare them for whatever field of endeavor they choose.
To learn more about the candidates, check out the descriptions of two candidate forums reported on by the provocatively-titled Salem-Keizer Proletariat.
This substack newsletter is written by Andrew Hickey, who describes himself this way:
Andrew Hickey is a journalist and communications professional living in Marion County, Oregon. He writes Salem-Keizer Proletariat, a digital newsletter focusing on the Salem-Keizer area and written from a progressive, working class perspective.
The good news is that Salem Keizer We Stand Together, a wacko group that sees "wokeness" as the biggest problem in our children's education, failed to get enough signatures to recall three school board members who didn't conform to the group's extreme right-wing agenda.
None of the three Salem-Keizer Public Schools governing board members targeted in a recall effort will be removed since petitioners failed to collect enough signatures before the deadline.
Casity Troutt, vice president of the parent advocacy group Salem-Keizer We Stand Together, filed paperwork on Aug. 25 to recall board Chairwoman Ashley Carson Cottingham, former Chairman Osvaldo Avila and co-Vice Chairwoman Karina Guzmán Ortiz.
Brian Van Bergen in the Marion County Clerk's Office said none of the three proposed recalls was able to collect enough signatures before the deadline.
The bad news is that Salem Keizer We Stand Together (the gr0up doesn't use a hyphen) almost certainly is going to continue to meddle in the education of children in our area, having drunk the Trumpian Kool-Aid fantasy that our nation's schools are a hotbed of Critical Race Theory, LGBTQ grooming, and socialist propaganda.
After reading the Statesman Journal story, my initial inclination was to write about how wrong Salem Keizer We Stand Together is on issues involving racial justice, LGBTQ rights, public health/Covid, and such.
But I changed my mind about this after realizing that Salem Keizer We Stand Together isn't interested in bringing reasonable conservative views into discussions of school policies.
To echo the Free Oregon web site, it seems clear to me that Salem Keizer We Stand Together is a group of power thirsty ideologues who care much more about promoting their Trumpist political agenda than in improving local schools.
So don't be fooled into believing that Salem Keizer We Stand Together is a bunch of reasonable conservatives who want to bring some balance to the current progressive leaning of the school board. If that was what they wanted, they'd work harder on winning school board elections.
No, Salem Keizer We Stand Together is very much in the mold of Moms for Liberty, the subject of a fascinating story in the November 7, 2022 issue of The New Yorker, Class Warfare: School boards are being attacked by partisan saboteurs.
Basically Moms for Liberty made up crap about the English and Language Arts curriculum in a Tennessee school district (Wit & Wisdom) that had been carefully reviewed before being adopted, and was well liked by both teachers and students.
But just as Salem Keizer We Stand Together sees the mirage of Critical Race Theory and woke leftism wherever they cast their Fox News loving eyes, so did Moms for Liberty. Resistance eventually surfaced to the Moms for Liberty agenda, as described in the story.
Moms for Liberty members were portraying Wit & Wisdom as “critical race theory” in disguise. Garrett found this baffling. C.R.T., a complex academic framework that examines the systemic ways in which racism has shaped American society, is explored at the university level or higher. As far as the board knew, Williamson County Schools had never introduced the concept.
...The Antis jeered at speakers who expressed support for Golden or the district’s diversity efforts. They mocked a woman whose daughters had experienced anti-Asian slurs at school. The mom told the board, “I’ve heard people say that teaching these parts of our history is ‘racist’ or ‘traumatic.’ What’s traumatic is Black, Latino, Asian, and L.G.B.T.Q. kids going to schools where they face discrimination and don’t feel safe.”
A local psychologist, Alanna Truss, said, “I’m yet to see a child in my practice who’s been traumatized by our county’s curriculum choices. I have, however, seen many students experiencing trauma due to being discriminated against and bullied within our schools, related to race, religion, gender, and sexuality.”
I invite you to check out the Salem Keizer We Stand Together web site. It's filled with so many lies I had difficulty choosing one to share in this post. I settled on an excerpt from a Daily Caller story that's featured on the home page. Here's how the story starts out. Like I said, lies piled upon lies.
It’s back to school! You bought all the school supplies and new clothes, but what about insulating your children against school indoctrination? Sadly, indoctrination resistance is now part of going back to school so you must stay vigilant and teach your children personal boundaries.
Lesson plans about “social identity,” which may be called Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Critical Race Theory, cultural competency, or other names, obliterate the personal boundaries of children in order to break down kids emotionally and build them back up as social justice activists.
The process involves forging emotional bonds to influence children to become political proteges of the teachers and peers that emotionally manipulated them. Adopting leftists’ mindsets and behaviors becomes an act of loyalty to a collective identity that is prioritized over individual human value.
Thanks to the Salem Reporter, which scooped the Statesman Journal on this important story, we know that an effort is underway to recall three progressive Salem-Keizer school board members elected in 2021.
Here's how the story by Rachel Alexander starts off.
A Salem parent is seeking to recall three members of the Salem-Keizer School Board, alleging they have been dismissive of parents with differing political views and failed to prioritize the education of students.
Casity Troutt filed petitions to recall board Chair Ashley Carson Cottingham, former Chair Osvaldo Avila, and Second Vice Chair Karina Guzmán Ortiz with the Marion County Clerk on Aug. 25. All three were elected to four-year terms in 2021.
So one big problem Troutt has with Avila, Carson Cottingham, and Ortiz is that they were against people carrying firearms on school grounds and in favor of keeping books in school libraries. Sounds good to me.
Sure seems like these aren't the sort of transgressions that justify recalling school board members, but then I don't have any sympathy for right-wingers who are trying to control school boards around the country in an effort to force their archaic view of America onto students who, by and large, reject their outdated attitudes.
They make for entertaining reading, because they provide a peek into the mindset of someone who wrongly sees horrendous things happening to students because the school board members have a reasonable 21st century approach to education.
For example, Avila is accused of saying that educators have the primary responsibility for educating students, not parents. Given my own educational experience and that of my daughter, who attended Salem-Keizer schools from first grade until she graduated from South High, Avila is absolutely correct.
Carson Cottingham's infractions include being in favor of school based health centers and equal rights for transgender students. Again, this strikes me as entirely appropriate. But then, I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories about how "woke" liberal notions are ruining schools.
Ortiz' sin against the restricted view of reality favored by extreme MAGA Trumpists is that she views racism as being part of the structure of American society. There's room for disagreement about how extreme this structural racism is today, but little or no doubt that it exists.
Look: I'm completely in favor of conservatives having just as much say in how Salem-Keizer schools are run as liberals do. If the school board hasn't made conservatives feel welcome at board meetings, that's a problem which needs addressing.
However, it doesn't make sense to recall these three school board members for simply acting in accord with their conscience, not for any sort of wrongdoing. In 2021 the conservative slate of school board candidates was rejected by voters.
The right way for conservatives to rectify this is to work harder to win school board elections. The wrong way is to attempt a recall of three duly-elected school board members just because their progressive views rub conservatives the wrong way.
Today the Statesman Journal ran a lengthy subscriber-only story by Natalie Pate, "School boards in the Mid-Valley and beyond have become political battlegrounds."
It's well worth reading.
In looking the story over again before writing this blog post, my attention was hijacked by a mention early on about Salem Keizer We Stand Together, a group dedicated to the false conspiracy theory that our local schools are hotbeds of leftist teachers and administrators pushing students to embrace critical race theory, premarital sex, Marxism, and a LGBTQ sexual orientation.
But the story almost makes Salem Keizer We Stand Together sound reasonable.
What curriculum is taught, how schools respond to the ongoing pandemic and where educators stand on issues of race, gender identity and sexuality are increasingly being debated in board rooms across the United States.
And though Salem-Keizer school board members are elected as nonpartisan representatives, more and more political action committees and organizations have been throwing tens of thousands of dollars into these races, hoping candidates who hold the same values win.
While those in Salem Keizer We Stand Together see themselves as a group of concerned individuals fighting for the safety and wellbeing of their students, others see many of the things they're advocating for as dangerous.
Yeah, count me in that group. I definitely think this group is dangerous.
Not because they're conservative, since even though most conservatives these days have joined the fact-free Cult of Trump, there's still plenty of reasonable people who inhabit the right side of the political spectrum.
What instantly turned me off about Salem Keizer We Stand Together after I visited their web site was the invitation at the top of the home page to come to a forum today, February 6, featuring Jeanette Schade.
Since this screenshot is rather hard to read, I've copied in below how Schade is described. I've boldfaced the especially crazy parts.
As you read what follows, ask yourself if you want students in the Salem-Keizer School District taught in line with how Schade views the world.
Jeanette Schade | Chief Intelligence Officer
Jeanette has been in public school education, in multiple states, for more than 24 years as a certified classroom teacher. As an advocate for American values and equality, she has been fighting against Marxist indoctrination throughout her career. In May 2021 she ran a nationally recognized Beaverton school board campaign in fierce opposition to Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) and Comprehensive Sex Education (“CSE”). She was featured on Fox News, News Max and the Glenn Beck show.
She was publicly doxed by Antifa and teachers’ unions but refused to back down. While her race for Beaverton School Board was lost, among legitimate indications of election fraud, her message to parents in the Beaverton area was a huge success. Post-election, Jeanette focused her energy to expose corruption and indoctrination in the Beaverton School District deploying FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and Public Records Requests. As a result of her efforts she mastered the PRR process, exposing scandalous (and illegal) financial activities by district administrators and undeniable institutionalization of Marxist ideologies.
Jeanette is the Founder of Build Back Basics in Education. In her activism she has trained numerous parents and concerned citizens, across the state of Oregon, to successfully execute the Public Records Request process. She leads the team of analysts at Free Oregon as the Chief Intelligence Officer and is our leading expert on public school policy.
My rule of thumb is that one mention of Marxism brands you as a crazy right-winger, but Schade squeezed in two mentions in three paragraphs, so she earns my Wacko Right-Winger designation.
Her association with Free Oregon confirms that designation, since that group's web site says: "Upon decades of Marxist indoctrination in our government schools, power thirsty ideologs [sic] have used Covid-19 to springboard the 'Great Reset' on American civil liberty."
OK. But I doubt it was Marxist indoctrination that caused the folks at Free Oregon to not learn how to spell "ideologues."
After reading the Statesman Journal story, my initial inclination was to write about how wrong Salem Keizer We Stand Together is on issues involving racial justice, LGBTQ rights, public health/Covid, and such.
But I changed my mind about this after realizing that Salem Keizer We Stand Together isn't interested in bringing reasonable conservative views into discussions of school policies.
To echo the Free Oregon web site, it seems clear to me that Salem Keizer We Stand Together is a group of power thirsty ideologues who care much more about promoting their Trumpist political agenda than in improving local schools.
Racism is bad. This should be a uncontraversial position, but last night there was plenty of arguing about the pros and cons of a Salem-Keizer School Board resolution calling for a commitment to equity and antiracism.
I watched much of the public testimony online, along with the board's discussion of the resolution.
My main takeaway is that the school board did the right thing when it approved the anti-racist resolution on a 4-2 vote -- with the four recently elected progressive board members voting in favor, and two conservative holdover members voting against. A conservative member was absent.
There were good arguments made by reasonable people on both sides, along with some lousy arguments made by extreme people on both sides.
Here's the video of the meeting. I've made it start at the beginning of the public comment period. The testimony is well worth watching.
What I found encouraging was that the school board meeting served as a forum where people who ordinarily wouldn't be talking with each other because they belong to different political camps were able to listen to those who disagree with their position.
This is one purpose of education: to expose yourself to a variety of ideas that push you out of your comfort zone. Several school board members spoke about the resolution being just the beginning of a broader community discussion about racism and anti-racism.
Hopefully that will occur.
Salem, along with the rest of the United States, needs to take a big step backward from the political cliff where many on both the right and left view the other side as so utterly wrong, they deserve to be pushed over the edge into societal oblivion.
Yet I doubt that there were any genuine racists in the room last night -- just people who disagreed about the wisdom of passing an anti-racist resolution.
Opponents of the resolution correctly noted that sometimes "white supremicist" is used as an undeserved epithet. Just because someone disagrees with a BIPOC (black, indigenous, person of color) individual doesn't mean any sort of racism is going on.
And they espoused a goal that few would disagree with. As Martin Luther King put it, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
However, currently too many conservatives consider that racism is nowhere, while too many progressives consider that racism is everywhere. The truth is somewhere in-between. Much progress has been made with racial justice, while much work remains to be done.
Likewise, opponents of the resolution had a good point when they decried a push for equal educational outcomes as opposed to equal educational opportunities.
But this assumes that all students are able to make equal use of those opportunities. Disadvantaged students, either through systemic racism or some other unfortunate circumstance, deserve special attention until that hoped-for day when all young people have generally the same opportunity to thrive in school.
The so-called "school to prison pipeline" due to police officers assigned to schools came in for repeated mention. A woman who opposed the resolution said that she had researched this question and learned that less than 1/2 of one percent of student arrests were associated with School Resource Officers.
This points to the need for solid data to back up claims of pervasive racism in Salem-Keizer schools. It's easy to be swayed by anecdotes where a teacher or student acted badly toward a BIPOC individual. But in any large group of people, a few always will act like jerks.
So it was good to hear school board members and others say that they're committed to getting as much data as possible to inform the goals of the anti-racist resolution. I suspect that racism in Salem-Keizer schools isn't as widespread as those on the left believe, while it is more common than those on the right believe.
Lastly, I have to note school board member Chandragiri's curious comment that he has been told that BIPOC people like himself can't be racist. This can't be true. I'm not even sure that someone can't be racist toward their own racial group, not to mention others in the broad BIPOC category.
In India, for example, there's a longstanding bias against those with darker skin, as a New York Times story says:
Colorism, the bias against people of darker skin tones, has vexed India for a long time. It is partly a product of colonial prejudices, and it has been exacerbated by caste, regional differences and Bollywood, the nation’s film industry, which has long promoted lighter-skinned heroes.
Here's the resolution that was approved last night.
RESOLUTION NO. 202122-2 COMMITMENT TO EQUITY AND ANTIRACISM
WHEREAS white supremacy is the upholding of white people as a superior race and systematically excluding other communities based on their ancestry, religious beliefs and/or country of origin, including those of Jewish and Islamic heritage, from services and opportunities such as housing, education, and migration; and white supremacy has no place in our schools or in our boardroom; and
WHEREAS an antiracist is a person who, by their beliefs and actions, supports and advocates for ideas and policies to dismantle oppressive structures and promote racial equality; and
WHEREAS it is a cherished asset that the Salem-Keizer Public Schools community is full of people with traditions from all over the world as well as the traditions held right here upon the land we live, through the Kalapuya, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians; and
WHEREAS our students’ diverse learning needs and cultural values are an integral part of the learning community, we must create systems that are inclusive and celebrate our students' learning assets, and speaking a language other than English is an asset we celebrate; and
WHEREAS we collectively acknowledge that racism is real and is a threat to students’ and employees’ physical and psychological well-being; and the systems of structural racism have historically oppressed students from Black and African American, Latino/a/x, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American and Indigenous heritage; and
WHEREAS every student must feel safe, welcome, and fully included in their school community; and when students are alienated from their school communities and experience bias and discrimination, they are inherently less safe psychologically, emotionally, and physically and it hinders their ability to learn and grow; and we must build inclusive environments that empower students and employees to thrive; and
WHEREAS community engagement and involvement are paramount to achieving equity; and we will engage with respect, authentically listen, and have the courage to share decision-making, control, and resources; and
WHEREAS we must directly address the overrepresentation of students of color in special education and the underrepresentation of students of color in talented and gifted and college-prep programs; and
WHEREAS we know that students of color are overrepresented in suspensions and expulsions in our schools, starting at middle school, and this impacts their ability to stay meaningfully engaged and graduate successfully; and
WHEREAS hiring and retaining a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community we serve is an antiracist action, and we commit to ensuring this occurs; and
WHEREAS being antiracist means looking deeply at systems, policies, and curricula that oppress our diverse populations; and it involves making real changes so that we change biased yet predictable outcomes related to disproportionate discipline, achievement rates, and the school-to-prison pipeline;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED Salem-Keizer Public Schools commits to being antiracist, knowing we must continually work to do better by developing knowledge and bystander intervention will and skill; and we commit to routinely interrupt systems of oppression on behalf of the students and staff in Salem-Keizer Public Schools and in our community; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED Salem-Keizer Public Schools Board of Directors commits to support the district’s efforts to build a restorative model for discipline, to monitor discipline data and our key performance indicators disaggregated by race and ethnicity, and to develop a system for monitoring the diversification of our workforce.
It took two weeks after the May 18 Salem-Keizer school board election day for this to happen, since that's how long voters have to "cure" ballots with signature problems: a missing signature or a signature that doesn't match the one on file.
Pleasingly, each of the four progressive candidates ended up winning -- an amazing accomplishment.
Amazing, because Oregon Right to Life and its associated PACs (political action committees) went all out this time around, as they have in previous school board elections, in support of a conservative slate of candidates.
Yet Ashley Carson Cottingham has a 73 vote lead over Linda Farrington. Karina Guzman Ortiz has a 285 vote lead over Mike Slagle. Ovaldo Avila and Maria Cecelia Hinojos Pressey had substantial leads over their opponents on election night, so their victories weren't in question.
This gives the progressive slate in last month's election a 4-0 win over the conservative slate, leaving progressives with a 4-3 majority on the Salem-Keizer school board.
A Salem Reporter story says that a recount in the Cottingham-Farrington race will happen, but it's unlikely this will overturn Cottingham's victory.
An unofficial final vote tally in the Salem-Keizer School Board races on Wednesday showed a liberal sweep of the board, with candidates backed by the Community for Salem-Keizer Schools political action committee holding on to narrow leads in two races that had been too close to call.
The contest for zone 3, however, was so close it will head for an automatic recount under Oregon law.
...State law requires an automatic recount when the number of votes separating two candidates is less than 0.2% of the votes cast for both. The margin in the race was 0.17%.
...Marion County Clerk Bill Burgess said a recount will take place after election results are certified, which will happen by Monday, June 7. He expected the recount would take one or two days.
While it’s always possible a recount could change the result in the race, Burgess said such events are rare.
Before the election, I was talking with a group of fellow progressives about the school board races. "They won't win them all," said a knowledgeable observer of Salem's political scene, speaking of the four progressive candidates.
Yet it's looking like they did win them all.
This is almost as surprising as the two Georgia Democrats who unexpectedly pulled out wins in their run-off races in early January of this year, providing Democrats with a 50-50 tie in the Senate with Vice-President Harris being the 51st vote when needed.
With the four Salem-Keizer school board victories (assuming Cottingham survives the recount), progressives will end the nightmare of the current conservative school board majority being at endless war with both students and the Superintendent.
Such wouldn't have happened without a heck of a lot of work put in by those supporting the progressive candidates' campaigns.
Credit also goes to the Statesman Journal and Salem Reporter for publishing detailed profiles of each school board candidate, along with their positions on key issues. When voters are well-informed, they're more likely to make wise choices when they fill out their ballot.
After Ashley Carson Cottingham and Karina Guzman Ortiz had comfortable leads over their Salem-Keizer school board opponents on election night, their margins have shrunk considerably after additional votes were tallied.
Currently Cottingham has a slim 86 vote lead over Linda Farrington in the Zone 3 race, while Ortiz has a 279 vote lead over Mike Slagle in the Zone 5 race.
Cottingham and Ortiz are part of the progressive slate that competed against a conservative slate.
The other two progressives have insurmountable leads. Osvaldo Avila is up by 1,807 votes over Kari Zohner in the Zone 1 race. Maria Hinojos Pressey is up by 1,099 votes over Liam Collins.
So whether the seven member Salem-Keizer school board has a progressive or conservative majority comes down to the Cottingham-Farrington and Ortiz-Slagle races, since the three board members not up for election this year are conservatives.
A Salem Reporter story says that final vote results won't be released until June 2, following a two-week period when citizens whose votes weren't counted have the opportunity to "cure" ballots lacking a signature or having a signature that doesn't match the one on file.
Sure, I could wait for June 2 to come around and see whether Cottingham and Ortiz win, as I hope they will. But that's no fun for a political junkie like me.
So I did some analyzing of the uncounted votes reported in the Salem Reporter story with the goal of figuring out the likelihood that Farrington and Slagle will overcome the leads enjoyed by Cottingham and Slagle.
Bottom line: Farrington has a decent chance of beating Cottingham, though Cottingham is favored to win. Slagle, though, almost certainly won't beat Ortiz.
Here's how I reached those conclusions.
The Salem Reporter story says that Marion County Elections rejected 512 ballots due to signature problems. Either the ballot envelope wasn't signed (148) or the signature didn't match the one on file (364). Bill Burgess, the county clerk, estimated that about 2/3 of ballots came from voters within the school district boundaries.
Two-thirds of 512 is 341. So that's the number I used for potential additional Salem-Keizer school board votes from Marion County. The story also said that a few hundred ballots are uncounted in Polk County (West Salem) and about 100 Polk County ballots have signature issues.
Today Polk County reported 274 additional votes. So I'm assuming that accounts for the "few hundred." The Polk County tallies for the Salem-Keizer school board races didn't change, which means the 274 additional votes came from outside the school district boundary,
That leaves the other 100 ballots with signature issues. To date 47% of Polk County voters cast ballots in the Salem-Keizer school board races. One hundred times .47 equals 47, the number I used for potential additional Salem-Keizer school board votes from Polk County.
Adding 341 (Marion County) and 47 (Polk County) gave me an estimate of 388 for the total number of potential additional school district votes.
Since Farrington is 86 votes behind Cottingham, she needs to get 87 votes more than Cottingham from the pool of 388 potential additional ballots. To do this, Farrington would have to get a bit more than 61% of the 388 (237), leaving Cottingham with 39% (151).
Yet so far Farrington and Cottingham have been splitting the vote 50-50. Sure, it's possible Farrington would get more than 61% of the ballots with signature problems.
But there's no reason to think that these voters are different from the pool of voters whose ballots already have been counted. And every ballot with a signature problem that isn't resolved reduces the number of additional school district votes, making it more difficult for Farrington to close the 86 vote gap with Cottingham.
(For example, if there are only 300 ballots with signature problems that end up being counted, Farrington would need a bit less than 65% of them to surpass Cottingham's vote total.)
So this is why Cottingham is in a better position than Farrington to end up winning the Zone 3 school board seat. Obviously the fewer votes left to count, the harder it is to close a vote gap, even one as small as 86 votes. This requires getting a considerably larger percent of the vote than the 50-50 split in the current pool of 43,026 votes.
Slagle faces a much greater hurdle in his race with Ortiz. Behind by 279 votes with my estimate of 388 potential additional ballots, Slagle would have to get 86% of the 388 to overtake Ortiz' vote total. That isn't going to happen.
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