Meet the candidates for Salem-Keizer School Board Zone 1

A majority of the Salem-Keizer School Board is up for election on May 20.

Salem Reporter interviewed each candidate about their background, priorities for the district and what motivated them to run.

As has become standard in Salem, two ideologically opposed slates of school board candidates are running in the nonpartisan races.

Lisa Harnisch is endorsed by Community for Salem-Keizer Schools, a coalition of union and progressive groups including the Salem-Keizer teacher union and farmworker union PCUN. The group says it’s endorsing “experienced leaders who know that students thrive when they get the support they need to meet high expectations,” and who will focus on protecting public education.

Anthony Mitchell is supported by Marion + Polk First, a conservative political action committee that focuses on school board and city council races. The group says its candidates are focused on schools with “academic rigor, quality, and hands-on training” as well as bringing police back into local schools.

We asked each candidate about several major issues facing local schools that have come up in the race:

•Early literacy and academics: State tests last spring showed just 24% of district third-graders are proficient in English reading and writing. Reversing that decline has been a major focus for district administrators over the past year.

•Superintendent and district leadership: A major duty of the board is to manage Superintendent Andrea Castañeda, whose contract runs through 2028. Castañeda runs day-to-day district operations, including security measures.

•Safety and security: The 2021 decision by a former superintendent to remove police officers from schools remains a major point of division among candidates. Some would prioritize returning officers, even as the district and Salem police both face budget and hiring challenges. Schools continue to struggle with student behavioral problems which sometimes become violent.

•Equity and federal policy: The school district collects data about student performance that included demographics, including race, income and disability, and designs programs to address challenges facing particular student groups. Such efforts are drawing federal scrutiny and funding threats as the Trump administration seeks to crack down on what it describes as “illegal diversity, equity and inclusion” programs.

Lisa Harnisch

Harnisch worked for years in early education, promoting training and funding for preschool, child care and early literacy programs.

She said she’s running to make sure every child has “academic excellence” while also showcasing the good happening in schools.

“I think the district is doing well and needs to do better,” she said in an interview. “Kids aren’t showing up, so our attendance is down, and if you’re not in school, you can’t learn. Parents are maybe feeling disconnected to schools, and we need to help to support our parents in feeling connected to our schools. Our workforce is tapped out. Kids are showing some pretty extreme behaviors and some loss in learning, and so they’re continually having to play catch up.”

Early literacy

Harnisch is supportive of existing school board goals to raise the share of children reading proficiently in third grade to 34% by 2028.

Harnisch said ensuring teachers have relevant curriculum, feel supported and have what they need to do their job are key to hitting the goal. She believes district leaders are taking the right steps.

“It’s hard as a community member to look at those incremental goals and feel like that’s enough,” she said of district targets adopted in 2023. She agrees that getting every student on track should be the ultimate goal.

She said major changes take time in a district the size of Salem-Keizer, which has 38,000 students and thousands of employees.

“Hopefully we’ll exceed those goals but you have to take into account what you can reasonably accomplish, and that’s not just the school’s responsibility. That’s also the community’s responsibility,” she said.

Superintendent and school leadership

Harnisch voted in March to renew Castañeda’s contract for three years and said the district’s leader, now in her second year, has done a “very good job” by thinking strategically. Harnish cited Castañeda’s ability to plug into larger Oregon issues in education funding and advocate for Salem-Keizer.

“I think in a very, relatively short period of time, she’s been able to put her finger on that pulse, and I admire her for her leadership. I admire her for her courage. And I think she is not only a school district leader, but she is a community leader.”

Safety and security

Harnisch said safety at school includes both emotional and physical aspects. Students need to feel like they’re welcomed and belong in class, and she supports efforts to make sure students feel connected to school through after school programs.

Making school buildings physically more secure was a focus of the school construction work that she helped oversee in a volunteer role. Voters in 2018 approved a large construction package to renovate every school.

Harnisch said she supports keeping weapon detectors in schools and opposes returning police officers.

“Bringing individuals who are armed feels pretty extreme. It also, I think, creates a sense of unsafety for many of our students, and that needs to be taken into account,” she said.

She supports banning cellphones in schools, something many district schools are cracking down on this year, as well as training educators to help de-escalate conflicts.

Equity and federal policy

Harnisch has voted in support of school board equity policies and a resolution in January affirming that the school district will not collect or share immigration information.

She sees equity as crucial to education.

“How can we ensure that all children that are in our schools can be successful? I think it’s not only race that we need to look at, but it’s all different types of diversity, whether it’s language, socio-economics or other other factors that are impacting our community. We need to take that into account to be able to provide an environment where they can learn their best,” she said.

She agrees with Gov. Tina Kotek and Castañeda that schools should not modify or cut programs because of federal threats to pull funding over diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“It’s a stand that we have to take to say that we are supportive of all of our students. It is a stand that says we can’t let these threatening positions hold us hostage to what we know is right. Our job is to educate students. Our job is to help ensure that they have the skills and the abilities to move into the next phase of life, after school, and we have to stay focused on those factors,” she said.

Anthony Mitchell

Mitchell said his experience working with data and being a parent to three elementary school students will help him guide the district toward having higher standards and returning to academic fundamentals.

“I want our schools to be better. As you heard we have some alarming statistics and some alarming data on outcomes,” he said at a recent Salem Area Chamber of Commerce candidate forum.

He decided to run after a friend approached him.

“I’m a huge proponent of civic engagement and citizen-led government, or government that’s run by ordinary people. And I am certainly that, and I love the idea of being able to help make the district a better place,” he said.

Early literacy

Mitchell said the school board needs to set more ambitious goals for improving early literacy so the share of kids reading at grade level is closer to 90%.

He said it’s also important that the data the district and state collect accurately reflect how kids are doing.

His children, for example, are in dual language classes and spend most of their day learning in Spanish, while state tests only measure if students can read English.

“It’s been my experience that, particularly at a state level or at a district level, we’re sometimes measuring things in a way that could be better or that could be more clear to parents,” he said. “So a modernized data system would go a long way to helping us, I think, identify where we put our resources and perhaps increase resources in specific areas.”

Superintendent and school leadership

While he doesn’t know Castañeda personally, Mitchell said he’s supportive of her.

“I overall have been very impressed with her, with how she carries herself and handles herself publicly. I think she’s very good at speaking to some items that parents are concerned about in our district, and I appreciate that … she takes time to be very transparent and very communicative about some of the issues that affect students in our community.”

He said she’s done a good job communicating about larger funding issues that are outside the district’s control and sees the board’s job in part as helping the public understand those challenges.

“I’m eager to work with her to identify the most efficient ways that we can get such a large school district to help more students,” he said.

Safety and security

Mitchell supports returning police officers to schools, saying they were a good influence in his school when he was a child. He said returning officers should happen after a wide range of community input on how to structure the program.

“I don’t believe in stretching our already limited police resources further than they can extend, but I do want our students in the district to build and maintain positive relations with law enforcement early on. I also want students to understand and believe and work with law enforcement to the point that they have faith in our own system and that they themselves, perhaps even can pursue a law enforcement career, which is desperately needed in our community.”

He said the board also needs to do more to set a standard for what’s acceptable behavior in classrooms and review discipline policies.

“I am shocked by how many parents in our district don’t feel like students are held accountable for their own behavior. I think it’s a combination of both formal policy about discipline and safety in classrooms, as well as increased communication,” he said.

Equity and federal policy

Mitchell said he broadly supports efforts to identify groups of students who are not being successful in school and find ways to help them. He said the district could do  better focusing on students with the greatest need.

“Everybody wants to make sure that their student has an equal opportunity to succeed, and I am 100% behind our district’s efforts to do that, to make sure that all students have an opportunity to thrive in the classroom, that they have an opportunity to thrive in life,” he said. “One of the things that I see as my responsibility as a board member is to build more bridges and help reduce some of the tension that has been so apparent in our district in this area, as well as other areas. I would really like board members to have more harmony with each other in pursuing student outcomes, as opposed to anything else.”

Mitchell declined to comment on how the district should respond to federal funding threats.

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

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