Meet the candidates for Salem-Keizer School Board, zone 4

Local voters get a chance to elect three school board directors on May 16, who will guide the Salem-Keizer School District as a new superintendent takes office.

Board directors oversee an annual budget of $1.3 billion and set broad priorities for the education of 40,000 local students.

This year, seats representing zone 2 in northeast Salem, zone 4 in southwest Salem and zone 6 in Keizer are up for election. All voters in the district can vote for all positions.

School board directors are unpaid volunteers who serve four-year terms. While officially nonpartisan, as in past elections, supporters and donors of the six declared candidates have come out along largely partisan lines.

Salem Reporter sent candidates a questionnaire to get a sense of their positions on major issues facing the district. Along with their responses is information about candidates’ major donors and supporters.

Responses are unedited except for formatting.

In the southwest Salem zone, psychiatrist and incumbent school board member Satya Chandragiri, who’s seeking a second term, faces a challenge from Willamette University professor Kelley Strawn.

Chandragiri, 59, was first elected to the board in 2019 and served as chair for the 2020-21 school year. As chair, he put forward a policy limiting public comment offered during meetings to written submissions, rather than live call-ins following a series of contentious meetings in the summer and fall of 2020. 

He’s since been critical of the board’s current leadership for closing live meetings to the public over security concerns, allowing public participation only by teleconference or call-in.

Chandragiri has advocated for a return of police officers to local schools and worked with the Zenzele Learning Center, a community program for Black students intended to encourage them to pursue classes in science and math.

Chandragiri is supported by Marion + Polk First, a conservative group who also backed a slate of candidates in 2021, and Oregon Right to Life. He’s also endorsed by Marion County Commissioner and former school board director Danielle Bethell, Marion County Sheriff Joe Kast, Keizer Mayor Cathy Clark and current board director Marty Heyen.

Strawn, 54, is a professor of sociology at Willamette and serves on the university’s threat assessment team. He’s previously served as the chair of the Willamette Academy Task Force, overseeing the university’s college readiness program which works with Salem-Keizer students.

Strawn is supported by Community for Salem-Keizer Schools, a coalition of liberal groups, including the political action committees for the Salem-Keizer Education Association, the local teachers union, and farmworker union PCUN.

The same group backed a successful slate of liberal candidates in the 2021 school board election, with voters electing Osvaldo Avila, Ashley Carson Cottingham, Karina Guzmán Ortiz and Maria Hinojos Pressey.

Strawn is also endorsed by Carson Cottingham and Hinojos Pressey, Salem Mayor Chris Hoy, and state Senator Deb Patterson, a Democrat representing Salem.

Satya Chandragiri

How long have you lived in the Salem-Keizer School District? 

Since 2005

Do you have any children currently in the district, or children who have graduated from the district? If so, please list their current grade(s) or graduation year(s).

Daughter graduated from Sprague High school in 2012. Son graduated from south Salem High school in 2017.

Describe one volunteer circumstance where you held a leadership position and used that position to accomplish a specific goal. This is intended to share with readers a concrete example.

-Leading through disasters as the board director and past chair, I bring a unique perspective.

-In January 2022, I was the chief sponsor for the policy on two way dual language immersion model along with two other directors. I even wrote an OpEd on this topic in Statesman Journal and went all the way up to ODE, legislators and got public support and often I found myself having to continue to courageously advocate against intense pushback for nearly seven months before the district agreed to allocate funds or identify the schools to start this model. After waiting for nearly twenty years for schools to have this model in areas where more Hispanic communities live. Otherwise we were violating the Title VI civil rights, Title III of Education and Equal opportunity act and Castaneda standards for our English language learners. 

Please describe your previous experience with K-12 education or issues. This could include paid or volunteer work in schools or with youth, work in a related organization, or service on committees, boards, task forces, booster clubs, etc. Please include the year(s) for the work or service.

Salem Keizer School board Director zone 4 since 2019, Chair, Salem Keizer School Board between 2020-2021 also the first Person of color to be the chair in the history of Salem Keizer School board.

Past member Legislative and policy committee, Oregon School Board association 2019.

What one issue motivated you to run and how would you address that as a board member?

In 2018, Marion county lost 20 youth to completed suicide. There were two completed suicides 17 days apart in Sprague high school. I am a parent and psychiatrist. I realized that I have to roll up my sleeves and show up. At that time none of the nearly 200 school districts in our state even have a suicide prevention policy.

The mother of one of the student who died by suicide spoke at my campaign launch. I gave her my word that even if I am the only one in the board, I will speak with her and advocate for suicide prevention.

On my first meeting in 2019, I asked for a suicide prevention policy and our district became one of the first district to have a suicide prevention policy in our state even before Adi’s act required it. Sadly, I now have to speak for her as the student’s mother also died by suicide. We have lot of work ahead and there is a serious mental health and safety impact after the pandemic and school closures. The scale of the problem is huge and I see my role as a psychiatrist with nearly 35 years experience with diverse populations will be very important in our board and it will allow me to continue with helping craft much needed policies and perform oversight functions.

What duties do you see rest solely with the school board separate from the superintendent and executive district leadership?

The board is responsible for the SAFETY, LEARNING outcome, passing the budget, hiring superintendent and crafting policies, adopting curriculum, performing superintendent evaluation (as it is the district evaluation), setting up board goals and ensuring superintendent via executive limitation (delegated role) accomplishes the goals, operates within the budget, laws and policies.

Superintendent via the executive limitation is the operational head and in turn oversees all the staff and educators and is in charge of all the operational responsibilities.

An example:
School board is legally responsible for Safety.

The board delegates this responsibility via executive limitation to the superintendent to operationalize the safety goal.

Superintendent will develop district policies including hiring School resource officers, develop or change needed discipline policies, hire school counselors, develop a threat assessment process and will implement the policies and ensure school is a safe place for all our children, staff, families and visitors. The board is required to regularly monitor the safety goal by regular reports of key measures given by the superintendent or by direct observation or any external audit to ensure the delegated responsibility is fulfilled and schools are safe.

What skill would you bring to help board members resolve policy differences that divide the board or do you think instead such significant differences can’t be resolved?

I am confident that we can resolve any differences and get our focus back on all our children and get the schools to refocus on what schools should be doing- safety, learning and authentically engaging all families. Inclusive means include everyone with no exceptions.

My experiences and skills are best suited for helping us move forward in this direction.

I am a psychiatrist, an immigrant parent, the only incumbent to be running again. I will bring the much needed experience, stability and continuity to our board. I was the past chair especially during the perfect storm of the pandemic, social unrest, school closure, wildfires and other disasters. It allowed me to learn a lot by leading through the disasters and remaining focused on all our children, staff and educators. I dealt with many challenges both internally and from the community and kept our board together through the turmoil.

As a psychiatrist, I served communities dealing with disasters such as Malheur Refuge takeover in Harney county in 2016 and helped the community recover and heal.

I have learned to work with communities holding diverse perspectives and populations experiencing trauma.

Public service has taught me to be courageous, persistent, have ability to include everyone. We need to be transparent and hold each other accountable, never forsake anyone and be prepared to ask hard questions and speak truth to power. I learned that speaking truth is an act of love, resistance, courage. It’s end is liberation, freedom and reconciliation.

I learned that in disasters, communication is the intervention. If the board and district keeps secrets from the public, it is always harmful for our children.

I bring the most diverse and culturally proficient lived experience in the board and the best person to relate to the diverse communities. Between my wife and I, we speak nine languages, lived and served in three countries, and my career has allowed me to serve diverse communities in a very deep and authentic manner.

I came from the largest democracy in the world to become the citizen of the oldest democracy in the world.

Hence, I believe that citizen participation is citizen power and object to the public meetings be closed to all the public for the past eight months with no end in sight using some false flag pretext.

The board has a specific policy to consider underserved, diverse, and marginalized individuals and groups when deciding school policies (often called the “equity lens”). How do you see that policy fitting into decisions you would make as a board member?

A focus on real equity is vital to help uplift the students from vulnerable communities. My idea of equity is allocating resources according to the need so that all our children have equal opportunities to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Equity is the heart and soul of Public Education.

In marginalized communities, escaping the multigenerational cycle of poverty often depends on the ability of young people to get good education. It shapes good health outcomes, economic opportunities and social mobility. Investments are needed to address the gaps in education to improve the outcomes and uplift communities trapped in a state of persistent cycle of disadvantage.

I’ve tackled head-on longstanding neglected issues causing disproportionate harm due to disciplinary problems, juvenile justice involvement, youth suicide, the digital divide, school closure, and the impact of back-to-back disasters on nearly 42,000 students despite all odds.

Educational equity requires a shared vision where we believe all students are capable of high achievement and they can be an engaged learner, every teacher is a caring educator, every principal is an inspiring leader in education, and every school has the potential for being a good school.

Delivering high quality education across the entire school system so that every student benefits from excellent teaching. Achieving educational equity is not just a social-justice imperative, it is a way to use resources more efficiently, increase supply of knowledge and skills that fuel economic growth and promote social cohesion.

What is your understanding of student district reading scores compared to state and national figures and what issue does that create for the board?

Third grade reading is an important metric. The child learns to read by third grade and later has to read to learn. If they don’t achieve this by third grade, it makes it difficult to graduate, lag behind in math, science, and all other fields.

As mentioned above, as school board director, I sponsored a policy to expand the Two way Dual language immersion model in Salem Keizer school district (English and Spanish) and our board passed this with needed plan for budgetary allocation and a plan for expansion as we have the highest number of Emergent English language learners in the state (85% of 7,300 EL students) and the previous model of instruction was leading to significant disparate outcome in graduation.

Our district also had low third grade reading proficiency with disparate outcome for vulnerable groups and was essentially pulling down the state third grade reading proficiency metrics. There is a need to providing an evidence based model that closes the achievement gap is important part of the Title VI civil rights, Title III of Equal education and opportunity act and meet the Castaneda standard. In my district we have students speaking nearly 110 languages and for us to have the ability to have research and science based reading and language instruction that sustainably closes the achievement gap is a mater of equity issue.

There is a level of urgency in addressing this serious literacy crisis we are having in our state and especially in Salem Keizer.

Salem Keizer school district third graders who are reading at proficient level is low- 25.8% for all children, 14.3% in Hispanic/ Latino students, 7.1% in pacific Islanders in 2021-22.

Our board has to continue to stay focused on expanding this model to all our schools as it will help children learn English and Spanish or another language from the start and result in the best outcome.

In addition the board should advocate for phonics and science based reading as it will help all our children and especially those who come from homes where English is not the primary language or may be speaking a tonal language.

What issue of school safety would you urge the board to address if you were elected?
School Safety is the legal responsibility of the board. The buck stops with the board. While we have delegated this to the superintendent to implement needed district policies and procedures to ensure our schools are safe.

The unilateral decision by the district superintendent in 2020 to discontinue the SRO contract due to political and social pressure was the biggest mistake. The entire board, Marion County DA, law enforcement agencies, students task force among others cautioned the superintendent. Our worst fears has come true.

School safety is community safety. It is a matter of public record that we are facing unprecedented safety crisis in our schools and communities. There has been increase in violence, fighting, bullying, suicide, drugs, gangs and lockdowns occurring at a scale that is beyond what we have seen before.

Even the public is shut out of public-school board meetings for the past 8 months because we could not keep the public safe.

The staff survey shows over 1000 staff injuries, over half the teachers are afraid of their students, lack of record keeping and reporting to OSHA when staff are injured. We have received the notice of class action lawsuit which describes gruesome instances of staff injuries and lack of training. The reluctance of the board leadership to discuss the data, make needed policy changes, improve transparency and accountability to ensure safety has not helped.

We need to elect school board directors who are willing to address safety as the topmost priority.
Moving forward:

-Courageously ask for immediate review and reset all our failed safety policies. Be honest and transparent with our community.
– Ask the district to reinstate the contract with law enforcement and bring back trained SRO’s back in our school and ensure there is proper oversight, community input in recruiting culturally informed SRO who are trained in trauma informed developmentally appropriate ways to be mentors, teachers and sworn law enforcement officers who will help with building relationships with all our children and families and be proactive and prevent our children from becoming victims of crime, gangs and other negative pathways. This will reassure parents and families to trust our schools will be truly a safe place for all.

When I knock at the doors in various neighborhoods, everyone is asking about the lack of safety in the community and schools. When children and families live in fear, it impacts their health, development, learning and attendance. We can’t keep saying “everything is fine and we have no safety problems in our schools” when children witness their teachers get hurt, hear gun shots every night, see gangs, fentanyl in the streets, communities are afraid of letting their children play outside their homes, in the park or in their neighborhoods. Parents see our policies are not based on their reality and their fear. We come across people in a position of privilege.

Many of our immigrant communities came here escaping community violence, cartel violence, terrorism, targeted attacks on girls going to school. They are not feeling reassured when we tell them that there is no need for law enforcement in our schools and they see our policies are not keeping their children safe.

What role do you see for the school board in vetting and approving book selections both for school libraries and classrooms?

School board can play an important role in ensuring that the policies and procedures are in place that allows parents from diverse communities are authentically included at every level of book selection and adoption. Since this has become an emotional wedge topic, it is very important that the directors learn more about this topic, laws pertaining to book selection and ensure our policies and practices are best practice helps our communities.

This will allow the books and educational materials selected are appropriate and consistent with the developmental stage of the children, family values, hopes, dreams and respects the cultural values. This does not mean that families will not have different (at times) conflicting values, but everyone will be fully aware of how the books were adopted and the reason for the adoption.

The board also should ensure that the policies and process is fully transparent, inclusive and any parent is able to fully exercise their rights and legal protections without any fear or retaliation. If for some reason the book selection is inconsistent with their values, they can have their children opt out as allowed within the law and be aware of all the rights afforded to parents such as federal Protection of Pupil rights amendment (PPRA) and other legal protection. The Board must exercise its fiduciary oversight duty to ensure that the policies and practices are consistently enforced.

When a white mother emailed me that she was offended by the required reading materials her son was given, which had racially derogatory words depicting African American and Black communities and frequent use of the N words, as a board director, I alerted the superintendent that she wanted her son to not have that as the reading material and this matter was addressed.

A new superintendent will start the same day the new board takes office. What should that superintendent’s top priority be and why?

1. I believe the top priority for our new superintendent and the new board is urgent focus on regaining safety. When safety is breached there is 100% learning loss. It will traumatize everyone and will continue to polarize and divide communities even more. When people are scared, they enter a spiral of silence and that is not helpful. This is very harmful for learning, health, attendance, and sense of belonging.

2. As our board has not performed any superintendent or district evaluation this year, it is very important for the new board to ask the new superintendent to do an in-depth external audit of all the departments starting with academic and safety, staffing safety, recruitment, what areas are functioning well and those that aren’t and systemic barriers that needs to be dismantled. This will help map the equity gaps for different vulnerable communities and help us make targeted investments or programmatic or policy changes. It is like a building inspection when you buy a new home so that we can reset and move forward and focus on safety, learning and authentic family engagement. 

Kelley Strawn

How long have you lived in the Salem-Keizer School District?

Almost 18 years. I moved to Salem in August, 2005, with my wife and our first child. I came to take a job as a Professor of Sociology at Willamette University, where I continue to work.

Do you have any children currently in the district, or children who have graduated from the district? If so, please list their current grade(s) or graduation year(s).

My wife and I have raised two boys in Salem, both of whom were schooled in the Salem-Keizer Public Schools. The older son graduated in 2020, and the younger son is a junior in high school.

Please describe your previous experience with K-12 education or issues. This could include paid or volunteer work in schools or with youth, work in a related organization, or service on committees, boards, task forces, booster clubs, etc. Please include the year(s) for the work or service.

I have worked in education since I graduated from college in 1991. I am a Professor of Sociology, and currently hold the administration role of Associate Provost for Institutional Research (June, 2020, to Present). Previously, I served as the Associate Dean for Curriculum in our Salem undergraduate college (January, 2018, through May, 2021.) The issues we face when students begin and matriculate through college are directly shaped by the education delivered to students in public education. I have known dozens of Salem-Keizer graduates as students at Willamette University over the years. This professional experience, coupled with my experience raising two boys in the district, has given me a keen understanding of what S-K students’ strengths are in terms of college- and career-readiness, and where they need work. I also have had a front-row seat to the ways that COVID made teaching and learning a challenge – for my own kids, for S-K students generally, for teachers, and for parents and families. In addition to my decades of work in higher education, I also taught high school for two years at a school in Mexico (1996-1998).

My volunteer work within the district has been primarily informal. My wife and I have been active, supportive parents of our own kids, their friends, and their teachers. Among other volunteer activities, we have been regular volunteers for Sprague High School band events and activities; I have spoken to students in middle school classes about how to think about college at their age; and, I spent one season coaching a little league basketball team in Salem (2014).

I have done additional volunteer work within the area of higher education, as well. This includes having been elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the Pacific Northwest Sociological Association (2019-2021), and working with Willamette University students to found (and serve as a mentor for) a support group for college-aged young men (roughly 2018-2022).

Describe one volunteer circumstance where you held a leadership position and used that position to accomplish a specific goal. This is intended to share with readers a concrete example.

In 2016, I was invited to serve as Chair for the Willamette Academy Task Force at Willamette University. In this role, I was given the very challenging task of working with a diverse committee to evaluate the long-term viability of our college-readiness program that serves the Salem-Keizer public schools, and to make recommendations to the administration. In brief, I was able to lead us through a contentious evaluation, to integrate family and community participation into the process, and to lead us to a series of recommendations that have, over time, largely been adopted. The result is a program that continues to thrive, having recently graduated its 20th class of students. It continues to serve as a pathway for Salem-Keizer kids to get ready for college, and as a preparation process for those in the program that go on to become Willamette college students.

What one issue motivated you to run and how would you address that as a board member?

I am running with the goal of ensuring that the energies and attention of the Board and the Superintendent stay focused on problem-solving and delivering for our students, their families, and their teachers. There is not just one motivating issue – there are many that need our urgent attention: improving student outcomes and graduation rates; the growing crisis of student mental health; reducing classroom size and improving support for teachers; ensuring the safety of students, teachers, and staff in our school buildings; and ensuring that the public school curriculum is appropriately driven by science, arts, humanities, and career and technical offerings that prepare all students to succeed after graduation.

I will address these issues by bringing years of appropriate experience in education and a pragmatic, evidence-focused, problem-solving commitment to the Board. I will work to keep us focused on issues that are of concern to all students, their families, teachers, and district employees.

What duties do you see rest solely with the school board separate from the superintendent and executive district leadership?

The distinct roles of the School Board and the Superintendent are clearly outlined under the “School Board Policies” section of the Salem-Keizer School Board website.

It is the primary responsibility of the Salem-Keizer School Board to hire, evaluate, and provide consultation to the Superintendent of the district. It is also the unique responsibility of the Board to establish broad policy objectives and guidelines, and to ensure that state-level guidelines and requirements are being met.

The Superintendent is the chief executive officer of the school district. It is their responsibility to carry out the job of organizing and delivering high-quality, results-indicated public education to our district, and to do so in a manner that is consistent with policies established by the Board and the State of Oregon.

What skill would you bring to help board members resolve policy differences that divide the board or do you think instead such significant differences can’t be resolved?

I approach any disagreement or conflict with a conviction that differences can be resolved. This may not mean that everyone agrees or that everyone gets what they want; but it means that everyone reaches the end of a process and believes they were heard, considered, and given fair opportunity to achieve their goals. This is essential to democracy and healthy society, and we are at a moment where this matters more than ever.

As a lifelong educator, I teach the skills of conflict resolution and compromise, and I have a long record of successfully leading in contentious situations in my professional community. I have chaired a number of committees that engaged in important, difficult work at Willamette University, such as the 2016 Willamette Academy Task Force. I have also held leadership roles in which I was responsible for guiding my community to a successful outcome, such as leading the revision of our general education curriculum as our Associate Dean from 2018 to 2021. I have also served on the board of directors of a regional professional association, where the duties and challenges were very similar to those of a school board.

The board has a specific policy to consider underserved, diverse, and marginalized individuals and groups when deciding school policies (often called the “equity lens”). How do you see that policy fitting into decisions you would make as a board member?

I am running with an explicit commitment to ensure that all Salem-Keizer students graduate having maximized their learning opportunities and ready to pursue their own personal career or college goals. Each student does not learn the same way nor move through their school years at the same pace. Our public schools need to be organized to support every student where they are actually at in their educational development.

I am also committed to the equity-lens perspective. It is an evidence-driven finding from my discipline – Sociology – that our society is organized in a way that institutionalizes inequalities. This may not be the intent of the individuals in the society, but differences are real. We need look no further than unequal outcomes across various demographic groups to conclude that structural inequality exists. I want to work to solve this in our schools.

These two commitments are not in conflict with one another – we can achieve both.

What is your understanding of student district reading scores compared to state and national figures and what issue does that create for the board?

Salem-Keizer outcomes are not where we want them to be, whether in comparison to other Oregon districts or in comparison to national statistics. And, our outcome indicators dropped during the core Covid pandemic years.

While comparisons to state and national outcomes tell us what others are accomplishing, I prefer to focus on getting our outcomes to the highest levels that we can – as long as that does not compromise teaching and learning. We cannot have teachers teaching only to test outcomes.

What issue of school safety would you urge the board to address if you were elected?

Safety has a number of facets, and they all need attention. We must resist the temptation to reduce the safety question to any one narrow dimension. For understandable reasons, the national discourse is focused on gun violence. The physical safety of our students must be a top priority for us locally, and it is. We must also be attentive to the emotional and psychological safety of our students, and we must work to ensure that we have the necessary resources and strategies available to meet their needs. Finally, we must prioritize the physical and psychological safety of our teachers, licensed professionals, and classified staff, as well.

What role do you see for the school board in vetting and approving book selections both for school libraries and classrooms?

It is essential that the Salem-Keizer School District have clear procedures for resolving issues like book selection. With established policies, everyone has the opportunity to be heard and to know that decisions are being made in transparent, fair ways. The role of the Board, then, is to ensure that we have clear policies and procedures in place for processes such as these.

Currently, there is a district policy and process for book selection. This policy was approved by the Board, but does not involve the Board in specific decisions. This seems appropriate to me. The Board has set the procedures, and a team of qualified district employees carries out those procedures consistent with the district policy.

If there is a role for the Board in the coming term, it would be to review and revise the current selection policy. My sense is that this is not necessary, but I would not make that determination until I have more direct experience with it.

A new superintendent will start the same day the new board takes office. What should that superintendent’s top priority be and why?

The top short-term priority of the new superintendent has to be building a positive, trusting relationship with the Board, with district employees, and with families. If trust and cooperation can be established early, the new superintendent will be best positioned to find success working to address the top policy priorities facing the school district: Improving learning outcomes so that all students graduate ready for career or college; expanding resources badly needed to address student mental health and well-being; hiring and retaining qualified teachers, licensed professionals, and classified staff; reducing class sizes and expanding support resources; and, ensuring that our public schools are both physically secure spaces and an environment in which all students feel safe and seen. 

CAMPAIGN MONEY: Here are totals for each campaign as reported by the state Elections Division as of April 26. To look into individual donations and expenditures, start with this state website: Campaign finance.

Chandragiri

Contributions: $24,610.90. Expenditures: $20,138.93. Cash balance: $4,471.97.

Top five donors: Marion + Polk First PAC, $5,543.27 in-kind; Mountain West Investment Corporation, $5,000; Oregon Right to Life PAC, $2,318.63; Michael Compton, $1,000; The River Church, $563

(Disclosure: Larry Tokarski, Mountain West president, is also a co-founder of Salem Reporter.)

Strawn

Contributions: $21,762.35 Expenditures: $4,939.21. Cash balance: $16,823.14.

Top five donors: Oregon Education Association PAC, $1,500; PCUN (Oregon’s farmworker union), $1,230 in-kind; Shelby Radcliffe, $1,000; Oregon AFL-CIO, $700; Paul Howard, $640

Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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