Sean C. Morgan
Five candidates have filed for five different Sweet Home School Board positions.
Jim Gourley is running for Zone 8, at large; Jason Redick for Zone 7, Sweet Home; Jason Van Eck for Zone 5, at large; Debra Brown, Zone 4, Cascadia; and Chanz Keeney for Zone 1, Holley. All are unopposed.
No one filed for the Zone 2, Liberty, position. Benjamin Emmert is seeking the position as a write-in candidate.
Most terms are for four years. Brown’s will be for two years.
Chanz Keeney
Keeney, a logger with Miller Timber of Philomath and the incumbent in Zone 1, Holley, is running for office again because his son, Blake, is still in the district as a sophomore at Sweet Home High School.
“I’d like to see him graduate,” Keeney said. “Now that we’re going back to the five-day (school week), I’d like to see that implemented and doing well.”
Keeney voted against going to the four-day school week currently in effect. Based on test scores that have been falling, relative to state averages since about 2014, the board voted unanimously earlier this year to return to a five-day school week.
Implementing the five-day week is the biggest issue for the board right now, Keeney said. “We have to negotiate with the teachers, and that’s what we’re doing.”
The board will have to make some compromises, he said, and it will need to put children first.
“Definitely, better test scores” are at the top of his priorities, he said. “I’d like to see at the high school level, the industrial arts stay and maybe grow,” offering youths more opportunities than simply going on to college.
That may include getting a Future Farmers of America program going too, he said.
He said the trades, metal shop in particular, helped him as a high school student. He received a scholarship based on it.
Keeney said he wants to continue promoting sports as well, noting that athletic GPAs show that participants tend to be overachievers.
He also would like the district to be competitive paying its staff, he said.
Keeney is married to Nance Keeney. He has two children. His daughter, Kayleen is a graduate of SHHS and is attending Linn-Benton Community College where she is studying to become a veterinarian.
Debra Brown
When her position had no candidate two years ago, Brown ran a write-in campaign. The county clerk would not name her the winner of the seat because she is one of three Debra Browns.
Knowing that she was running as a write-in for the position, the board appointed her to the position. Appointed board members serve until the next election. Winning this election, she will serve until the end of what would have been a four-year term which began in 2015, but no one initially registered to run.
“In a way, it’s what I initially signed up for,” said Brown, the incumbent in Zone 4, Cascadia. “I think I do have something to say, to contribute.
“It’s actually been a pretty pleasant experience. This is a good school board.”
Board members don’t always agree, she said. They discuss issues, decide and move on.
“I just like the process,” Brown said.
She has seen education from every angle, she said. She has been a classroom assistant working with children with disabilities in Grants Pass. She worked in the maintenance office in Bend. She is a parent, and she is married to a teacher, Steve Brown, who is currently assistant principal and athletic director at SHHS. The Browns home-schooled their children through the third grade and then sent them to public school.
“I understand where everybody’s coming from,” she said.
The biggest issue facing the board right now is the proposed $4 million bond. In addition to school board elections, voters also are deciding May 16 whether to approve the bond levy.
“If the bond passes, the biggest thing then will be budgeting,” Brown said, developing the specific projects.
More of an ongoing issue is student achievement.
“We’re hoping that going back to a five-day school week is going to help with that,” said Brown, who was not on the board when it voted to go to a four-day week. A lot of research went into the decision to return to a five-day week, she said.
“I just felt like the case was pretty compelling for a five-day school week,” she said. “That significantly helps kids. It’s less work getting them back on track when Monday comes back around.”
Supt. Tom Yahraes has a lot of good ideas too, Brown said, as he and mentor teachers and work with district staff to help recreate successes in their classrooms.
“He’s done it before in other districts,” Brown said, and she is eager to see the results in state testing over the next year or two.
“I’m very impressed with Sweet Home School District,” Brown said. In places where she has worked before, the relationship between the district and its staff, classified and teachers, has been antagonistic. “I just haven’t found that to be the case here.”
Debra and Steve Brown have three grown children, living in Portland, Salem and Durango, Colo. They have one grandson living in Durango. Debra Brown is retired as an executive assistant at Regency Lighting in Van Nuys, Calif.
Jason Van Eck
“I’m running because I still have children in the school district, and my wife is employed by the school district,” said Van Eck, the incumbent in Zone 8, at large.
“I want to make sure they have a good learning and working environment, learning environment for the kids, working environment for the employees.”
Van Eck’s top concern is getting the district back into a five-day school week, “so our kids have more days of learning,” he said. “I think we fell short with the four-day school week, and we started losing opportunities to educate the kids. The classroom hours were there, but for younger kids, the longer hours didn’t help them because their attention span is short.”
The shorter classes provide more frequent opportunities to refresh their brains, Van Eck said. “I’m hoping that it creates a better learning environment.”
Van Eck was not on the board when it voted to move to a four-day week.
The transition is in process now, he said. “My next goal is school improvements, needed maintenance and repairs. The bond is a great starting point.”
Van Eck is married to Trisha Van Eck, who is a classified employee at Foster School. They have four children, two still in school, Alana Van Eck, a senior at SHHS; Jada Autry, a seventh-grader at Sweet Home Junior High, and two adults, Colyn Van Eck and Taylor Conn.
Van Eck is a sergeant with Sweet Home Police Department.
Jason Redick
Redick, who has served multiple terms as board chairman, believes that the School Board is an important place to be involved in the community.
“I think there’s a lot of good that comes from volunteering this way,” Redick said. “I like to think I’m contributing to the future of our community and our kids.
“I think the most important issue going forward is to stabilize our teacher pool. We’re struggling to keep new teachers.”
Sweet Home is becoming a kind of training ground, Redick said, and he would like to see the district improve longevity among teaching staff.
“I think that we’re addressing it currently by actively recruiting people that want to be in our area,” Redick said. The board is looking at salaries on the lower part of the salary schedule and working to build a culture among them where Sweet Home is a place they’d like to live for a long time and raise their children.
The issue relates to student performance on state tests, he said. A lot of factors contribute to how well students perform on assessment tests, and this is one of them.
Redick is married to Amanda Redick, who is a classroom assistant at the Sweet Home Charter School. They have two adult children, Gabriel and Gavin, and one granddaughter.
Redick is a warehouse worker at Target Distribution Center in Albany.
Jim Gourley
Gourley, who wrapped up 24 years on the Sweet Home City Council on Dec. 31, 2016, had no plans to run for School Board, he said.
“And then I got told there wasn’t a lot of people running.”
Incumbent Michael E. Adams had filed for the position but then withdrew from the election. That’s when Gourley filed.
“I think the No. 1 issue is always going to be school funding and how we spend the money,” Gourley said. “We have to look at the monies we get from different areas and decide how best to use them.
“We have to make sure we have our buildings in good shape and that they’re able to be used for the functions they are meant to be used.”
The district needs to take care of its employees, he said, and make sure “that they have what they need to have to do the job.”
There’s a big difference between having funding and getting it where it needs to go, Gourley said. “It needs to be used on the kids and their programs and their classes.”
Gourley thinks the district is doing that, he said, but “I think that you have to continue to look at that over and over every year to make sure you’re doing that.”
Gourley is married to Lisa Gourley, who is a classified assistant at SHHS. They have four adult children, Cindy, James, Kim and Laura, all of whom graduated from the high school. They have five grandchildren, including one granddaughter who is attending school in Sweet Home.
While serving on the City Council, Gourley was mayor for six years and president pro tem for 14 years. He is a millwright at Cascade Pacific Pulp in Halsey.
Benjamin Emmert
Emmert is a write-in candidate for Zone 2, Liberty. The New Era previously reported Emmert’s candidacy in its April 12 edition. If elected, he will succeed Jenny Daniels, who did not file for reelection.
Emmert is a presale forester with Cascade Timber Consulting. He is married to Amanda Emmert. They have no children.
He told The New Era that he supports the move to a five-day week and the district’s bond request, which will fund major renovations at SHJH and minor projects at eaver other school.
April 25 is the last day to register to vote.
April 26 is the first day for the clerk to deliver local ballots to the Post Office for the May 16 election.
Ballots may be returned by mail or dropped off at City Hall or the Sweet Home Police Department.