A bill establishing job protections for school superintendents who comply with state or federal law — and who may be facing pressure from their school boards to do otherwise — was approved Oregon State Senate on Thursday, Feb. 10.
Democrats advanced Senate Bill 1521 on a 16-7 vote, sending it to the House of Representatives for consideration on Friday, Feb. 10. It was a near-party-line vote, although State Sen. Lee Beyer, D-Springfield, joined the Republican opposition to the measure.
Under it, a school board may not direct a superintendent to take actions that conflict with state or federal law. The bill also limits the instances in which a school board may terminate a superintendent’s employment without cause.
State Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, who chairs the Senate Committee on Education, carried SB 1521. In a news release, he said staff stability is key to supporting students.
People are also reading…
“We need to make sure that school district superintendents are protected from extreme board decisions,” Dembrow said in the news release. “Our school superintendents have a difficult job and should be able to focus on keeping our kids safe in schools and improving the quality of public education in their communities.”
Reached by phone, State Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, said the Legislature has a responsibility to protect kids from political backlash at the school board level, adding that superintendents deserve basic employment protections, just like teachers and many other education professionals.
Gelser Blouin noted Oregon is an at-will employment state, meaning employees can be fired without cause. She mentioned the terminations of superintendents in Newberg and Adrian as influences behind the bill.
“It becomes very difficult, with as politicized as school administration has become, to recruit and retain people if their license is going to be at risk,” she said.
The argument against the measure is that it goes against the authority of school boards, Gelser Blouin said, despite the fact that it was supported by the Oregon School Boards Association and the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators. She acknowledged the value of local control — up until the point of violating the law.
The GOP sees it differently. In an email, Senate GOP Communications Director Dru Draper said SB 1521 flips democracy on its head by insulating an unelected superintendent from the will of school boards and the voters who elect them.
“Parents and local voters should be in charge of who runs their schools,” Draper wrote. “SB 1521 takes away part of that control.”
Cody Mann covers Benton County and the cities of Corvallis and Philomath. He can be contacted at 541-812-6113 or Cody.Mann@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter via @News_Mann_.
“It becomes very difficult with as politicized as school administration has become to recruit and retain people if their license is going to be at risk." ~State Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin