The following information is copied from the information that the candidates themselves submitted for VOTE411.org. All candidates were invited to submit their biographical information and to answer our questions.
Candidates may enter their information up until Election Day, May 18. Please urge candidates to provide information to voters, if they haven’t done so yet. We provide this service for free to candidates and voters.
Zone 1, Position 1
David Linn has not responded yet. However, he has a statement on page M-27 of the Multnomah County Voters’ Pamphlet.
Zone 3, Position 5
Claudia Andrews has not responded yet. However, she has a statement on page M-27 of the Multnomah County Voters’ Pamphlet. She is a current member of the board.
At Large, Position 6
Rod Boettcher, retired. In addition to answering our questions, he has a statement on page M-28 of the Multnomah County Voters’ Pamphlet. He is a current member of the board.
Erica Fuller has not responded yet. However, she has a statement on page M-28 of the Multnomah County Voters’ Pamphlet. In addition, she was interviewed for our Video Voters’ Guide.
Questions
1. Even before COVID and the transition to online learning, school districts struggled with disparities in academic achievement. Educators fear even greater gaps upon their return to classrooms. What strategies will you consider to address these increased disparities?
Rod Boettcher: Currently, we are going to be offering three week summer classes, paid for by Covid-relief funds. We have found that some students across the spectrum have actually done much better than in traditional classrooms, so we will continue CDL for those students as needed and/or requested by parents. Up until Covid, the district had been making modest progress with gains in these educational groups. In that pre-Covid times, we struggled with lack of state funding and a reduced pool of teachers of color throughout the grades. We have been working hard to create parity and equity led by a great team of administrators who are all pulling in the same direction and bolstered by the hiring of many administrators educators of color (superintendent and curriculum director, for example). We have worked diligently (through policy changes) to reduce the out-of-class and disproportionate disciplinary time
Erica Fuller has not yet responded.
2. COVID has shown us the importance of family support in facilitating students’ education. How will you build on this understanding to increase the role of parents in decision making and promote parental involvement in schools?
Rod Boettcher: Family support is not like having a four to six year degree in the field of education. Parents can always increase their students’ chance for success by: creating a stable home life, prioritizing education as having current and future value, always reflect respect for their teachers, having an interest in the home work their student brings home, reinforcing work habits that will mirror the completion of homework sent by their teachers, making sure their student attends school regularly and look to include their student in extracurricular activities. This is just a short list of what parents can bring to help their student achieve success in school. These are important decisions that can and should accompany the educational process that the instructional staff brings to the educational decision matrix. Our school could offer (free) classes to parents that gives them information on how to structure all of the above work that is critical for student success.
Erica Fuller has not yet responded.
3. What is the impact of the pandemic on school budgets and spending priorities? How do you propose meeting these new challenges?
Rod Boettcher: The spending priorities will be funded by the Covid-relief funds. For this to happen, we are told that we have to: get authorization for an expenditure, spend our own district monies up front and then wait for the federal government to reimburse us. Depending on how strict the budget is for our district, seeings as how we need to meet payroll on time every month and have a large enough money reserve in our contingency bucket to care for large authorized but not yet reimbursed expenditures and have a great CFO, this is doable. As soon as we get a sense of how long the reimbursement lag time will be, then we will get a rhythm going for scheduling what needs to be done when so we are not nervously awaiting “the check is in the mail” to pay outstanding bills.
Erica Fuller has not yet responded.
At-Large, Position 7
Heath Curry, paralegal. In addition to responding to our questions, he has a statement on page M-29 of the Multnomah County Voters’ Pamphlet. He also was interviewed for our Video Voters’ Guide.
Questions
1. Even before COVID and the transition to online learning, school districts struggled with disparities in academic achievement. Educators fear even greater gaps upon their return to classrooms. What strategies will you consider to address these increased disparities?
Heath Curry: The challenges to students during this pandemic will be being studied for decades to come. Our biggest obstacle is going to be getting past the analysis paralysis that always seems to plague our schools and the success of our students. I plan on working with local elected officials, a dialogue that I have already begun with Gresham City Councilman Eddy Morales, as well as HD 50 Representative Ricki Ruiz, who has endorsed me, to take advantage of the 2 billion dollars in Covid relief funds for Oregon and create pathways to get the kids that have been left behind back on track, and get help to families that have relied on their children to help get them through these times, the support they need, so kids can return to school. This will require out of the box thinking, compassionate discourse, listening to what students and families needs, not what we THINK they need, and being bold in getting them that support, to bring kids back to the classroom safely.
2. COVID has shown us the importance of family support in facilitating students’ education. How will you build on this understanding to increase the role of parents in decision making and promote parental involvement in schools?
Heath Curry: I think this pandemic has shown what families are truly capable of, when the chips are down. While the bulk of my focus will be on getting students back who have slipped through the cracks, an equal measure of focus will need to be spent on how to continue to support kids who have thrived during this distance learning experience. We have an opportunity to change the relationship between schools and families. This will require unique approaches to learning, creative solutions to learning barriers, and a dedication by all, to not returning to the status quo. We must embrace this challenge and envision a brighter, stronger vision for our kids and their families, going forward. This will mean an active, dedicated plan to keep parents engaged as much as they have been over the last year, once our kids return to in-person learning. Engaging in the community and with families directly will be the key to building stronger school/family alliances
3. What is the impact of the pandemic on school budgets and spending priorities? How do you propose meeting these new challenges?
Heath Curry: School budgets are devastated. That is not hyperbole. The way schools are funded in Oregon is unique. This uniqueness presents more than its fair share of unique challenges. We MUST embrace a new way of teaching our kids and this means embracing the new distance learning skills that teachers and students have been forced to adopt. A great deal of expense can be mitigated with hybrid learning. However, this will require that we embrace change, a skillset most folks are not especially great at. If we can show how well kids who thrived during distance learning can continue to thrive with that support, while focusing on kids who have not with in person learning, and target resources in that manner, I think we can come up with some creative ways to bear the burden of even greater budget shortfalls than we normally deal with. Also, this pandemic and the struggles it has brought has now forced us to address the school funding issue head on. We simply cannot continue as we have been.