Gov. Tina Kotek’s education adviser’s first foray into the Senate Education Committee to present a bill was a doozy. The bombshell Melissa Goff dropped with little warning Thursday would fundamentally alter Oregon’s education structure, shifting broad swaths of decision-making power from locally elected boards to Salem.
“In my 30 years in education, it’s the largest impingement on school board authority I’ve seen,” said OSBA Executive Director Jim Green. “It would be almost as if they don’t want school boards to exist in Oregon.”
Goff was frank about Senate Bill 1045’s aspirations. Describing a “common theme around accountability” from community groups contacted by the governor, Goff quoted the Systemic Risk Audit produced by Secretary of State Shemia Fagan in 2022: “Division 22 standards (the current enforcement tool available to ODE) lack clarity and enforceability.”
SB 1045’s -2 amendments, which even committee members had little time to review before the hearing, would add some teeth. The bill would:
- Repeal current law relating to the way districts are considered compliant and would replace it with a structure of standard, nonstandard and conditionally standard school districts and education service districts.
- Beginning with the 2024-25 school year, require the State Board of Education to establish standards so the Oregon Department of Education can determine if a school district is standard, nonstandard or conditionally standard. This would include annual monitoring and reviews.
- Require districts to prepare corrective action plans, require ODE to review those plans, and require districts to address corrective action plans within timelines established by ODE.
- Require ODE to take enforcement actions against districts that fail to correct deficiencies, which could include withholding non-State School Fund and Student Investment Account money, directing expenditures relating to deficiencies, filing complaints with the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission and designating school districts as high needs districts for purposes of the Student Success Act’s intensive program.
- Beginning July 1, 2023, it would repeal the ability of local school district boards to independently adopt textbooks and other instructional materials, instead requiring school districts to use a list of materials approved by the State Board of Education.
This bill version represents a permanent shift away from local control toward centralized control and enforcement by the State Board of Education and ODE.
OSBA opposed the measure, saying the bill represented a “seismic shift” away from local control. Locally elected school board members are in a better position to respond to the needs of their education communities than an appointed board in Salem.
The Coalition of Oregon School Administrators also opposed the bill, citing concerns including the measure’s lack of support for school districts. Morgan Allen, COSA deputy executive director of policy and advocacy, described the bill as heavy on “systems of compliance or punishment.” The bill doesn’t give ODE “any tools and technical support and professional development and coaching” to help districts avoid compliance problems.
Discussion, including committee responses, was mixed. Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, referenced a potential federal intervention stemming from a lawsuit.
“As we sit on the precipice” of that potential intervention, she said, they need feedback about how to address these concerns.
Committee Chair Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, made clear his desire for more oversight.
“Without a doubt, we need to have the compliance mechanisms to deal with egregious and immediate problems,” he said.
The bill is still a work in progress, with new amendments coming.
OSBA will continue to work with stakeholders and legislators on potential amendments. SB 1045 is scheduled for a work session Thursday, March 30, in the Senate Education Committee.
– Richard Donovan
Legislative Services specialist
