Has the recall become another partisan battlefield? Once politics becomes the main curriculum in a school fight, students are usually the ones who lose.
“If the board leans too heavily on party-backed validation” yeah they already did when members spoke at a Benton County Democrats meeting asking for support to oppose the recall effort.
What a disappointing article. If I didn't know better and only read your piece, I'd assume the initiative is driven some hidden rightwing agenda–– and that couldn't be futher from the truth. The recall organizers are simply a mix of parents who want better public schools. I'm impressed by the group's intelligence and integrity and disappointed that they were driven to this recall by a district that refused to listen to their concerns.
We moved here in the 90s in part because of the reputation of Corvallis schools, but nobody would say that now. Philomath has stopped accepting transfers from Corvallis students. Many parents with financial means now send their children to private schools and others are homeschooling. We're creating a two-tiered system of education here-- private schools for the privileged and public schools for everyone else. Is that what we want?
We didn’t take sides. And we are not right or left wing. Generally stay away from that. Merely written as an informative piece. I guess the point was that the recall, the board, etc… should be in the interest of the students, not politics. Note the last paragraph. Sorry if that disappoints, or reads different to you. Obviously not everyone can be pleased, and has an opinion. Thank you for reading though. We don’t want a two tiered system either, as it doesn’t seem fair to different income families.
Thank you for your response. Rereading your article, I think I was a little unfair to you and I'm sorry for that.
I know people on both sides of this issue, and I can understand why school board members feel defensive and even why some of the members have politicized this (appealing to the BC Democrats for support and attacking businesses that allowed signature gathering, for example.) The issue of public schooling is inherently political, and maybe the recall people were naive (or expecting too much of their community) to think they could avoid that.
They did also, by the way, address the issue of the influence of the recall on student learning.
The recall itself is an uphill battle, but hopefully people will think about the issues raised by this group, and maybe in the future the district will do a better job of truly listening and responding to parents and teachers.
Thank you for starting a news outlet here! We needed that.
It seems if the recall goes through or not, it atleast is going to shed some light on the issues.
We looked into it a bit further, being such a hot topic in Corvallis, and Corvallis is not alone. On a national level, private school enrollment has gained 2-4% market share (annually) over public school enrollment post-covid. Corvallis is actually growing in population, which would make you think enrollment would increase. Either way Corvallis has outpaced this number, in terms of loss of student population in public schools percentage wise.
It's probably safe to assume that school boards and recalls have statistically grown as well in terms of political battlegrounds, based on the current political environment. But also, these battlegrounds have always existed to an extent. Assuming that is.
“If the board leans too heavily on party-backed validation” yeah they already did when members spoke at a Benton County Democrats meeting asking for support to oppose the recall effort.
What a disappointing article. If I didn't know better and only read your piece, I'd assume the initiative is driven some hidden rightwing agenda–– and that couldn't be futher from the truth. The recall organizers are simply a mix of parents who want better public schools. I'm impressed by the group's intelligence and integrity and disappointed that they were driven to this recall by a district that refused to listen to their concerns.
We moved here in the 90s in part because of the reputation of Corvallis schools, but nobody would say that now. Philomath has stopped accepting transfers from Corvallis students. Many parents with financial means now send their children to private schools and others are homeschooling. We're creating a two-tiered system of education here-- private schools for the privileged and public schools for everyone else. Is that what we want?
We didn’t take sides. And we are not right or left wing. Generally stay away from that. Merely written as an informative piece. I guess the point was that the recall, the board, etc… should be in the interest of the students, not politics. Note the last paragraph. Sorry if that disappoints, or reads different to you. Obviously not everyone can be pleased, and has an opinion. Thank you for reading though. We don’t want a two tiered system either, as it doesn’t seem fair to different income families.
Thank you for your response. Rereading your article, I think I was a little unfair to you and I'm sorry for that.
I know people on both sides of this issue, and I can understand why school board members feel defensive and even why some of the members have politicized this (appealing to the BC Democrats for support and attacking businesses that allowed signature gathering, for example.) The issue of public schooling is inherently political, and maybe the recall people were naive (or expecting too much of their community) to think they could avoid that.
They did also, by the way, address the issue of the influence of the recall on student learning.
The recall itself is an uphill battle, but hopefully people will think about the issues raised by this group, and maybe in the future the district will do a better job of truly listening and responding to parents and teachers.
Thank you for starting a news outlet here! We needed that.
Alison Clement
It seems if the recall goes through or not, it atleast is going to shed some light on the issues.
We looked into it a bit further, being such a hot topic in Corvallis, and Corvallis is not alone. On a national level, private school enrollment has gained 2-4% market share (annually) over public school enrollment post-covid. Corvallis is actually growing in population, which would make you think enrollment would increase. Either way Corvallis has outpaced this number, in terms of loss of student population in public schools percentage wise.
It's probably safe to assume that school boards and recalls have statistically grown as well in terms of political battlegrounds, based on the current political environment. But also, these battlegrounds have always existed to an extent. Assuming that is.