Instead of a high school gymnasium or auditorium, the candidates for the Lake Oswego School Board gathered at City Hall April 29 for a forum organized by the local parent clubs and parent-teacher associations.

With three weeks until the May 20 special election, the forum was an opportunity for the five candidates to answer questions written directly by district parents.

The candidates are Neelam Gupta and Lena Elbakshish for position 2, Brian Bills for position 3 and Kasey Adler and Katherine Lupton for position 4.

The forum was moderated by Lakeridge High School students Jacob Stuckey and Lauren Fowler and Lake Oswego High School students Alice Thomas and Katie Austin.

The five questions captured a large snapshot of the district’s current challenges and concerns. Each candidate had two minutes to respond to each question, rotating back and forth for who would answer the question first. The parent hosts reiterated that the event was a forum and not a debate.

The first two questions covered the $10 million in planned budget cuts for the 2025-26 school year.

“Financial sustainability, for me, means being able to analyze and quantify all our decision making,” said Elbakshish. “We need to have a model and we need to say, ‘What is the cost now? What is the cost in the future?’ Then we need to do a retroactive to say, ‘Did the cost that we spend this actually yield the intended results?’’’

The proposed budget cuts, as well as the ongoing school funding discourse in the state Legislature, meant the two incumbent candidates — Neelam Gupta for position 2 and Brian Bills for position 3 — needed to reflect on past decision making.

“We, unlike neighboring school districts which have had deficits in the past, this is the first year,” said Gupta. “We are cutting in a way so that we only have to cut this one year. We have prioritized keeping class sizes small at the same level as they are at the elementary school level, because we know keeping class sizes small has results.”

Bills addressed the constraints that a public school board faces when making financial decisions.

“When considering how we manage the budget shortfall and the impact that it has on staffing, 80% of the district’s budget is staffing. So you don’t navigate a shortfall of the size that we are facing without an impact to teachers,” said Bills. “We have made decisions in staffing to not refill administrative positions that have been vacated for retirement or other similar reasons and have chosen instead to rely on existing administrators to pick up that slack, share the work and find ways to do more with less.”

The third question was, “What steps will you take to improve Lake Oswego’s students’ performance in reading, math and science?”

In the 2024 National Report Card, Oregon ranked close to the bottom for fourth grade reading and mathematics assessments, with only 27% and 31% of students achieving proficiency in each subject respectively. In 2023-24, 80% of Lake Oswego fourth graders met math proficiency standards and 78% for English language arts.

“I feel very fortunate to be in the Lake Oswego School District and I feel fortunate that our school board is currently reviewing all of the data to make sure that they’re doing the best that they can for our students,” said Lupton. “Most states in the United States have 180 school days required instructional days for students. And here in Oregon, we go by hours, which is a little tricky, and it equals out to about 160 days that are required by the state.We need to look at other ways to fund our students and support them.”

The fourth question focused on school security measures because of fears of gun violence. The fifth and final question centered on inclusion and belonging initiatives in the district.

“I do believe the work (on) the culture of belonging they’ve been doing has been fantastic and it’s definitely a worthy commitment for the district in terms of how we examine how we are approaching and best serving our underserved communities,” said Adler. “I think as a school district we really need to be digging into the data and seeing are we, in fact, serving all the different communities in Lake Oswego and making sure that we’re following up where we see success? And when we’re not seeing success, we need to go in a different direction.”

All school board members serve on board-appointed committees, including the culture of belonging committee, during their tenure on the board.

“This is extremely, extremely important work,” said Bills. “As educators, our priority is to educate all of our children. That education requires a broad, broad lens. It is not the lived reality of everyone that race, ethnicity, gender, identity poses no barriers. It is fantastic for those for whom that is not the case, but we all know that it is not absent in all instances.”

To watch a full recording of the forum online, visit: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FaIzLxjBZ-LLG fp40Gdavkyg5Vu0f9EX/view, or scan the QR code.