Hotseat: Scott Bailey Explains His Run for Portland School Board

Scott Bailey, 63, announced on Facebook Dec. 14 that he would run for the Portland School Board seat currently held by Pam Knowles, who says she's in no rush to declare whether she'll run for a third term.

If she does, Bailey and Knowles will be reprising a match from 2009, when the two schools activists last faced each other in Zone 5. (In Portland Public Schools, candidates for school board must live in specific zones to run for those seats, but they're elected districtwide and make decisions for all schools, not just those in their neighborhoods. Zone 5 covers Northeast Portland.)

Bailey, an employment economist for the state of Washington who works in Vancouver, graduated from Grant High School, as did his two grown children. He spoke with WW about the district's greatest failings—and its potential for improvements—on Friday.

WW: What are the greatest weaknesses of the district right now?

Right now it's the central office. We've seen things kind of grind to a halt almost, as the interim superintendent has kind of seen how things aren't working. It's like he's called a time out to say, 'Hey,we need to fix some things.' In a lot of the central office there seems to be a lack of management systems. We've heard for years that it's top-down silos that don't work together well.

Are there other areas that concern you?

That rolls out into almost everything else. It's hard to do districtwide initiatives around any kind of education piece when you don't have everyone on the same page working together, whether it's rolling out new curriculum or changing the way we provide special education services.

What would you focus on if elected?

I have pretty good working relationships with current board members. As a board, we have to work together and be a really solid team. So that would be the first thing to take on, to continue to build those relationships. The second thing is, presumably we'll have a new superintendent. It would be to work with that superintendent. The third thing is, we don't have an educational vision for what we want to see happen in our schools. And I think we should do community-driven vision and values for the district.

That "community-driven" phrase makes me nervous. We've had a lot of community-driven processes that have dragged out for years and produced few results. The district-wide boundary review is now entering its fourth or fifth year, depending how you count.

I don't mean the community does it without the district. Everybody has to be on board with this vision, which includes principals and teachers and all the other staff and central office—plus parents and the business community and communities of color. I think we can do a reasonably quick and directed process where we get input from lots of people that leads to consensus, or as close to consensus as you can get, to move forward. We can do good community process that has a beginning and an end.

Let's talk about the districtwide boundary review [DBRAC]. It's a crucial effort to rebalance enrollment across schools so that PPS can equalize programming and resources. You've sat on the committee that's steering the effort. Why has it dragged on for so long?

Right now, DBRAC has agreed to do something that's really separate from its mission, and that's to fix the Ockley Green [Middle School] overcrowding. I'm OK with that, and we should be done with it relatively quickly.

So you've been sidetracked from the larger issue?

Correct. After the first of the year, that's where our focus will be—the entire east side.

Initially, though, the idea was that relief for schools was on the horizon for 2016-17. So far, PPS has addressed the west side and a few other pockets of schools. What happened?

The DBRAC process really took the lid off a lot of issues that were simmering for a long time without getting the attention they needed.

You're talking about where the district should put focus-option programs, how it should grow dual-language programs and how it should implement the conversion from K-8s to elementary and middle schools, correct?

It's forced the district to look at some longstanding, foundational issues.

How would you like voters to view your role in this process?

My role has been to ask critical questions and I think I've been doing that.

Assuming Knowles runs again, what's your argument for why you're a better candidate?

I think I've just been making it. There are issues that have been around for years that have not been tended to. They haven't been a secret.

Why not challenge her four years ago?

A couple of things. It's tough to run against an incumbent, and I had put a whole lot of time into working on the 2012 bond.

What do you make of the decision to keep the superintendent search confidential?

This was a choice between different options. I don't think there's a right or a wrong or necessarily a better or worse option. I really have no problem with that decision. Having a public option right at the end doesn't work very well in terms of public input. Some people would come to the conclusion, 'Oh, they already have their mind made up and this is just window dressing.'

A majority of the board argued successfully that an open search would drive away potential candidates who don't want to alert their current employers to their job hunting. What about the counter argument that a closed process will invite candidates who aren't equipped to handle public scrutiny, candidates for whom public communication isn't a strong suit?

Interviewing someone is a limited way to find out how effective somebody is. It's much more important to look at their track record. … It's not that 'this method is clearly superior to that method.' There are pros and cons either way.

You said you supported the final decision. But how would you have voted?

I would have voted for a joint board-community hiring community. But I would have been very much in the minority on that one.