A conversation with the superintendents of Oregon’s 3 largest school districts

Beat Check with The Oregonian

Schools may be closed for the holiday break, but there’s a lot ahead for Oregon’s public education system in 2025.

We asked three of the superintendents of Oregon’s largest public school districts — Kimberlee Armstrong of Portland Public Schools, Gustavo Balderas from the Beaverton School District and Andrea Castaneda from Salem-Keizer Public Schools — to join Beat Check this week for a roundtable discussion.

Listen in to get the scoop on their thoughts about how the state funds education, and how that impacts urban school districts, which serve complex, high-needs communities, including families experiencing poverty and students who don’t speak English as a first language.

We also broke down the debate over greater accountability in Oregon’s school systems, what it’s like to be negotiating with teacher unions in the wake of Portland’s impactful teacher strike and what classroom projects — from language immersion to early literacy — have them really jazzed about 2025.

Read more:

How shabby or shiny are your local schools? In Oregon, it depends on where you live.

After Portland teachers’ strike and statewide budget cuts, Kotek backs ‘significant’ changes to funding formula.

In Albany, a teacher’s strike reverberates statewide

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