The ballots for the May 17 election will be mailed one week from today, along with the voter pamphlets. A few people have asked me where to find more information on the other candidates running. There isn't a lot of information out there that I am aware of, but the voter pamphlet statements are available online on the web site of the Washington County election office.
http://www.co.washington.or.us/deptmts/at/election/may05/vp0505-B.pdf
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80 people attended today's performance of
Witness our schools by Sojourn Theater at Glencoe high school in Hillsboro. Next week is the last weekend of performance of this incredible piece on our Oregon public schools. If you have not had the chance to see it during the many performances during the past nine months, head to Roosevelt High School in Portland on April 25 at 7 PM. It is an incredibly powerful portrait of our schools and of the opinions of Oregonians about them.
It is hard for me to describe what Witness our schools is. It is based on interviews of 500 Oregonians about public schools, and the words of the play are often those of people around the state.
For me, those words were often the words of my neighbors. In the past few weeks I have knocked on hundreds of doors, introducing myself as one of the candidates for school board. The dozens of conversations that I had on doorsteps and living rooms match precisely the ones in Sojourn's piece. I saw the talented actors play parents who are involved in their schools and in their kid's education. I saw them play educators who work hard to do what is best for their students in spite of federal and state mandates, and who don't get the recognition they deserve from some parents and from the community at large. I heard the voices of people in my neighborhood who don't see the value of public schools because they don't have any connection with them.
Many of the voices that I heard today were those of students. They were very well represented in the audience. It was very interesting to participate in the discussion after the play with those high school students. They really deserve to be heard, because of their personal experience and because of their vested interest in the quality of education.
Not surprisingly, the audience was made of people who were very vocal about our schools. They are students, parents and teachers who want to be equal partners in shaping the future of our schools.
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An editorial in the Hillsboro Argus last Thursday (
65 Percent Solution) uses some interesting statistics to continue the myth that schools are wasteful places...
According to the article, Oregon spends 58.8% of its funding "in the classroom", which the columnist thinks is too low. Evil bureaucrats waste the remaining 41.2% on school busing, principal salaries and facility maintenance.
Statistics can be conveniently used to prove nearly every position. But the reality is the money we spend on items that impact the kids education directly (and that includes anything from school buses to toilet paper) is closer to 88% in our district.
I just hope that the district starts doing a better job at communicating the reality of the district budget this year. And I hope that the Argus starts to look at some good ideas coming from both sides of the isle, not just from those that seem to be interested in having public education fail.
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Hillsboro School Foundation
I had the pleasure to attend the HSF dinner and auction yesterday evening. I am guessing that between the fundraising last night and in the phoneaton last fall, the foundation raised around $100,000 to be spent on activities that enrich the classroom experience for the students in the Hillsboro schools. Alongside the HSF we have booster clubs, PTO and PTA groups that collectively raise probably over $600,000 a year, and businesses like Nike and Intel that provide another $100,000 or more in funds when their employees volunteer in our schools.
All that money is spent on activities that enrich the classroom experience in many ways, ranging from art to music to activities before and after school hours. Those hundreds of people who donate and raise funds deserve our deep gratitude. Without their effort and the strong committment of our educators, our schools would be a dull place with mediocre education.
On the other hand, the million dollars that we are able to raise and spend are almost pocket change compared with the over 150 million dollars a biennium that the district receives from the state. Think of what we could do with an additional 1% increase in our state funding.
And how long can we go before the handful of people that are helping with the needed funding for all those activities get burned out?
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3000 doors
Over the next few weeks, I will be knocking on doors all around Hillsboro and North Plains, to introduce myself. I want to talk with all of your about the value of our public schools, and hear your opinions and your ideas. I have already visited close to 500 homes, and I had some very interesting conversations on many doorsteps...
I have talked with many people who, for one reason or another, are not very supportive of our local public schools. I met with a retired couple who really does not want any more of their property taxes to go to fund public schools. My answer to them and to many others who have no current connections in our schools is that that they should vote and help elect someone like me who will help manage our limited funding well, to get the best educational value out of the taxpayer's dollars. The district recently refinanced many of the school bonds, which will reduce the total property taxes in the district by over two million dollars.
I met with the parents of an ADHD student who ended up taking their child out of school and homeschooling. I heard their story and shared my vision of a public school system that meets the needs of every student, including special needs students, ESL and TAG students. I want to see students, teachers and parents work together to find ways to improve our shcools. And I would like to see some meaningful conversation between the homeschooling community and the public school community in our neighborhoods. I think that we have much to learn from each other's experience.
I met with a first grade teacher, who teaches in one of our elementary schools where a large percentage of students are from Hispanic families. We talked about the gap that my wife and I see in the reading skills in our own school, for those kids are bright and hard working but don't have someone to help them after the school day is over. I listened and shared my ideas on how we can increase the quality and quantity of parent involvement both inside and outside the classroom.
I talked with a father of a second grader who feels that with our current system and our current resources kids who are more talented are not challenged. I told him of teachers I have seen do the impossible, and be able to challenge students according to their skills. I shared my idea of having our great teachers share their experience with their peers across the district, so that we can all benefit.
I heard from many people who are angry at some of the bad decisions that they feel that the district made in the past. I heard a lot about the new administration building, and the new facilities building. I told them that I feel that transparency is critical and that good communication is essential for people in the community to be aware of what is happening.
I talked with many parents, who were pleasantly surprised to see someone care enough about their schools and their opinion to walt to their home and knock on their door.
The countless conversations I had in these past two weeks have been wonderful. I am having a great time and I look forward to visiting three thousands homes during this campaign. All the rain in the past few days hasn't slowed me down a bit.
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