These are tumultuous times, and we believe the wellbeing of our community’s children is best served by Sami Al-Abdrabbuh being reelected to the Corvallis School Board. Al-Abdrabbuh takes a studied and resolute approach to challenges and works tirelessly to develop connections that can meaningfully help get things done in the community.
His state and federal relationships mean he is more able to advocate for our district in a funding and legislative environment that we see as increasingly uncertain, and most likely difficult.
He has served as a president of the Oregon School Boards Association and is now serving as a Director for the National School Boards Association. In all the best ways, Al-Abdrabbuh is what an education nerd looks like. There’s a reason, probably many reasons his peers keep putting him into key leadership positions. But it’s not just his peers, Gov. Tina Kotek recently appointed him to the Fair Dismissals Appeals Board.
All of this has translated into millions in state and federal funding for Corvallis Schools. Al-Abdrabbuh helped win federal Medicaid dollars to pay for mental health services for the district’s students. He lobbied for millions in Student Success Act dollars and has successfully fought proposals for those funds not to be deducted from State School Fund totals. He has lobbied successfully for early literacy dollars and Measure 98 funds. The list could go on, but you get the idea.
When it comes to opportunities for children, Al-Abdrabbuh is someone that shows up and means it. However, like anyone that pushes for what they believe in, to get things done, he does have his critics.
Al-Abdrabbuh has two worthy opponents in this race. Charlotte Willer grew up in Corvallis schools and is a local real estate broker. She is running as public school enrollments continue to slide, and she presents data that area private school attendances are increasing at the same time. She believes a loss of parent confidence in the School District is behind that juxtaposition.
In the debate we co-hosted with City Club of Corvallis, Willer specifically pointed to a sense shared by many parents that the district is teaching to the lowest common denominator. She worries the district isn’t adequately breaking students into smaller groups with specific needs.
Many parents hold that view – that the district doesn’t offer adequate help for students needing enhanced support to come to the average, or the opportunities to excel past it.
She worries that cutting programs to make the budget work doesn’t serve students and may ultimately backfire fiscally if those cuts motivate more families to leave the district. She believes there are other ways to save dollars.
Willer also expressed frustration with districtwide reading scores. Privately, she’s also expressed concerns about math scores.
Christopher Blacker shares those views and offered direct answers for how he believes the district should address some of these challenges. He also added some direct concerns about the district’s performance teaching math, given the view that Corvallis is an engineering town.
He expressed the idea the district would save enough money closing Mountain View and Kathryn Jones Harrison elementary schools to both keep more teachers and reduce class sizes – and to maintain special interest programs like art and music at prior levels. He points to the experiences of the Bethel School District in Eugene as a positive example of rightsizing for a declining enrollment.
In debate, Blacker whose background is in mathematics and information technology, frequently cited statistics and administrative decisions that he sees as demonstrative of a district falling short and failing to anticipate.
Willer often shared dialogue she has had with parents and teachers while debating, and quite effectively presented their and her lived experiences and frustrations with the district. Both Willer and Blacker have or have had students at district schools. All three candidates can be fairly described as progressive.
Al-Abdrabbuh often cites the lived experiences of students in the district, and what their experience means for them after they graduate. During the debate, he spoke directly to students not because they vote, but because he believed it was the right thing to do. He also, albeit less clearly than would be desirable, spoke more to the experiences of students needing the most help.
In short, Al-Abdrabbuh may be a little overly policy wonkish in a debate, but he strikes the right chords, and he’s exactly what the Board needs heading into this next term.
The district finds itself in a frustrating time. Funding from the state is based on enrollment, and the precipitous declines absolutely mean impacts to our local district’s budget.
Corvallis Schools started the decade with 6,668 students, now they have 5,898 students, and they are projected to end the decade with 5,140. Ouch. In those budgetary circumstances, in a district that is accustomed to a certain level of programs, it would be impossible to avoid cuts that hurt and frustrate everyone concerned.
Voters in our fair burgh generally blunt that pain, consistently approving locally optional taxes to help the district pay for some extras. Corvallisites have generously given to the Corvallis Public Schools Foundation, a private nonprofit that works to fund programs the district couldn’t otherwise afford. In the coming years, we hope folks continue supporting those voluntary taxes and giving to the Foundation and even increasing their generosity if they can.
But fewer students will mean fewer dollars. There will be district downsizing no matter what. Some blame Corvallis’ housing costs for driving away would-be enrollees. But even if we build affordable housing that attracts families to Corvallis, we can’t do that fast enough, and that won’t address the larger realities. Birth rates are declining nationally, and that’s even more the case in Corvallis.
It’s no secret that district staff and volunteers are already weighing school closures – and from what we can gather, they will be issuing recommendations in either late summer or early fall. This is Corvallis – we anticipate a robust public comment process.
Conversely, we believe Al-Abdrabbuh’s challengers make salient points concerning academic rigor. District students should be achieving better reading and math scores. We also believe they should be getting a deeper civics education.
Al-Abdrabbuh, and the School Board generally, should be driving the district’s top administrators to do better. We see the challengers delivering hard truths that the district needs to act on. In this respect, we agree the Board should be more activist than they’ve been. However, in our experience watching how bodies like the Board work, we don’t think that any one freshman member can make that happen. Change like that comes from community pressure on the whole of the Board. It takes a critical mass.
If there is to be movement like that, we think Al-Abdrabbuh offers the best opportunity for it to stick. His track record speaks for itself. He doesn’t always appear to be moving quickly, but he is deliberate, and he makes change happen. His pace aside, over time his list of accomplishments has become longer than most. He is an asset on the Board, and most especially now, given the times that we are in.
If you would like to view the School Board candidates debate, we have posted it below.
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