News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Candidates for the Sisters School Board plan to continue the district's efforts to tie Sisters' diplomas to state standards.
The three unopposed candidates Guy Gleason, Jeff Smith and Steve Keeton made themselves available for public questions at a forum Monday, February 22. One parent showed up.
Guy Gleason, who is currently serving in an appointed position on the board, said that tying grades and diplomas to state mandated standards for the Certificate of Initial Mastery is the only way to make the CIM matter to students.
"I think our kids need to be challenged and pushed to compete internationally," Gleason said.
Tying the diploma to CIMs "gives meaning to the CIM. It makes it a real issue for families," he said.
The board is currently exploring ways to incorporate state standards into grade requirements at Sisters schools.
Jeff Smith, who currently serves on the schools' budget committee, favors a phased-in approach that might offer a diploma with CIM certification and one without.
"I'm not disinclined to moving toward having the CIM as part of a diploma from Sisters," Smith said.
"I'm philosophically committed to having a number of bars," he said. "They'd just be different levels of performance."
Steve Keeton said he wanted to become more educated on the board proposals before developing a position.
Keeton, who was deeply involved in the elementary school classroom raising project, said the biggest challenge facing the district will be "just maintaining the level of service that we've got, or improving it with such a limited budget."
Budget constraints represent a major challenge to all three candidates - one they can have little direct impact on, since the schools are dependent on the vagaries of state funding.
"Stable funding has to be the issue we're all concerned with," Gleason commented.
Mail-in ballots have arrived in the hands of voters for the March 9 election.
Gleason is running for the unexpired two years of Position 5; Keeton is running for the four-year term of Position 3; Jeff Smith is running for the four-year Position 4.
Jo Zucker, who also filed for Position 4, has withdrawn from the race.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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