As they say, all politics is local, and in Lane County, local politics gets heated when it’s school board elections.
The issues are huge in K-12 education racism and diversity, COVID, standardized testing and more. We are impressed by all the people willing to take on this tough and important duty. Good board members are simultaneously independent thinkers, willing to question how the board is voting and why, and yet also able to function effectively with other board members they may not always agree with to get things done.
It’s great when voters and candidates get fired up about the school board especially if it means positive changes for the kids. So knowing that Eugene and surrounding communities take their school boards seriously, our small editorial board Zoomed with as many candidates as we could, and sent surveys out to the ones who we either couldn’t squeeze in or who didn’t respond. Some candidates didn’t respond in time or at all.
At Your Service eugeneweekly.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eugeneweekly.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lane Community College s Board of Education has four seats up for reelection this May, with a total of five candidates vying for two contested seats.
Zone 1, which primarily represents western Lane County including west Eugene and Florence, and Zone 5, which makes up downtown and south Eugene, are both contested. Whoever is elected to Zone 1 will win a four-year term on the board. The winner of Zone 5 will serve for a two-year unexpired term.
The seats for Zone 3 and Zone 4 are uncontested with incumbent Mike Eyster for Zone 3 and newcomer Austin Folnagy for Zone 4.Each seat has a four-year term.
All of the candidates for the contested board seats are newcomers and shared their reasons for running, backgrounds and goals for the college in interviews with The Register-Guard.
The University of Oregon has received a $4.52 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a new initiative envisioning a transformative.