Meet the candidates for Salem-Keizer School Board Zone 3

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.

Read all of our election coverage here.

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

Angelo Arredondo Baca 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 said 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.

Jennifer Parker is supported by Marion + Polk First, a conservative political action committee active in 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.

Both candidates for Zone 3 are South Salem High School graduates.

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 includes 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.

Angelo Arredondo Baca

Arredondo Baca is the son of Mexican immigrants and learned English while attending local schools.

He said he’s running because he wants to provide a fresh perspective on the board as someone who was raised in the district’s system and graduated recently. He serves as an educational guardian for his sister, who’s currently a junior at South.

Arredondo Baca said he wants the school board do more outreach, talking to parents where they are, especially given that many immigrant families fear coming into government buildings.

“We should really be going into parent meetings, cultural events. If a parent is most comfortable inviting us to their home, we should be doing that. So really meeting parents where they’re at,” he said.

Early literacy and academics

Arredondo Baca supports the board’s goals to incrementally improve the share of students who can read proficiently.

“I think following those goals, being accountable to those goals, is the start that we should be doing,” he said.

Individual attention to student needs is key to rogress, he said. That includes help for students whose native language is Spanish.

“We should be focusing on dual language courses. We should be focusing on one-on-one instruction. And for all those things, we need funding,” he said.

He said he was familiar with the basics of the district’s efforts to improve early literacy, but not enough to assess how it’s going.

Superintendent and school leadership

Arredondo Baca said from what he’s seen watching school board meetings, he believes Superintendent Andrea Castañeda is performing well. He cited her broad support on the board.

“From my perspective, being an outsider, I think she is doing a good job, but I would obviously have to be on the school board to really be critical about her,” he said.

Safety and security

Arredondo Baca said the best way to improve student behavior and address issues like fights is through proactive help like more counseling for students who are struggling.

“I really do believe that if students feel like they belong, if they feel like they can trust each other, they will be more open to reporting if they are concerned about our classmate, because students are obviously the first people to know when a classmate is going to act out, is having issues,” he said.

He said he’d like to see more data on the weapons detectors the district installed early this year at high schools. His sister feels less safe with them at South, he said, but he knows other students feel better having them. He opposes returning police to schools.

“A lot of my peers just felt unsafe with them around. All of them didn’t fit the stereotype of getting into trouble. A lot of them were straight A students, students who had a lot of scholarships to college, and even those students felt intimidated and attacked,” he said.

Equity and federal policy

Arredondo Baca describes himself as an advocate for equity in schools. To him that means

“giving the necessary tools to all students, depending on their needs,” he said. As a student, he said he struggled with math in middle school.

“I worked slower. I needed more support, and that is how I managed to pass my math classes. Not all students, not all my peers, needed that,” he said.

He said the board plays a role in making sure all students feel welcome in school. He was in high school during President Donald Trump’s first term and said he saw far more bullying of immigrant students after Trump’s inauguration.

“When he came into power, it was the first time that I’ve heard, ‘Hey, go back to your country. Go back to Mexico,’ in the schools from my own peers,” he said. He said that perspective would help him understand and support students struggling during the current Trump administration.

Arredondo Baca said he agrees with a recent school board proclamation affirming that the school district will not collect or share information on immigration status or allow immigration agents into schools. He also believes schools should continue promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, even amid threats to withhold federal funding.

“I don’t want some students to be attacked, and I think that if we scale those programs back, that is what’s gonna happen. Students should focus on being students,” he said.

Jennifer Parker

Parker said she’s running because she wants to see schools improve their performance. 

As the single mother of a Salem-Keizer graduate with disabilities, she said she wants to make sure programs well serve students who need extra support and prepare them for life after school.

“They’re giving it a good try. I mean, they’re working hard,” she said of schools. “We all want the same outcome. We all want the children to succeed, but we’ve just got to figure out a way to do it a little bit different.”

She also said the board needs to do more to listen to parent concerns about curriculum and school safety.

Early literacy and academics

Parker said she wants more efforts to get community volunteersto help students enjoy reading from a young age.

“I think they have a good vision,” she said of the school board’s existing goals. “They have a good foundation to get started with it. We just need to improve and increase those scores.”

She provided few specifics for what the school board should do differently to improve student performance.

“We got to do more, engaging with the families, getting involved, listening with the teachers, listening to teachers’ ideas,” she said.

Superintendent and school leadership

Parker said Castañeda communicates well with families and is committed to the job.

“She has a strong vision, and she has great ideas and outcomes that she wants to achieve. But we just need to work harder to get those schools improved. Parents are concerned.” Parker said.

Safety and security

Parker said she wants mental health support in schools. She said schools need more consistent policies and discipline.

“Our teachers are having such a battle right now,” she said at a recent Salem Area Chamber of Commerce forum. “They’re being hurt, the students are being bullied. There’s no clear consistent policies right now,” she said.

She said many parents don’t feel their viewpoints are considered by the school board.

“A lot of the safety issues, that’s a big one. They don’t always feel that their children are going to school really safe,” she said.

Parker supports returning police officers to schools. She said that would allow students to feel safe and teachers to teach again while officers respond to dangerous or violent disruptions. She didn’t have a suggestion for how to pay for such a program.

“I would have to go look at the budget and see where we could, where the gaps are, where we can find some funding,” she said. 

As a last resort, she said she’d consider asking voters for a tax increase to pay for police.

“That would be one of the last resources that I would do because I know parents right now are struggling, and can barely pay for housing and food,” she said.

Equity and federal policy

When asked how the school board should factor equity into its decisions, if at all, Parker said, “All children should be treated the same, no matter their background or race … They all should have the tools they need to succeed no matter if they speak Spanish or they’re living on the streets, all children should be treated equally. We should just shoot for success for every child.”

Parker said she didn’t have an opinion on the superintendent and Gov. Tina Kotek pushing back against a federal order to remove “illegal diversity, equity and inclusion” programming from schools or risk losing federal funding.

“I’m gonna let that go to the politicians, and I’m just focused on the schools and students succeeding,” she said.

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

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