Across the state, Oregon Education Service Districts (ESDs) help alleviate administrative challenges to school districts by providing programs to support schools.

For smaller districts and frontier schools in rural Oregon, these districts are particularly impactful.

“The most rewarding for me is making sure there’s equitable services for students regardless of where they’re living in the state and regardless of any other types of barriers they’re encountering,” Amber Eaton, executive director of the Oregon Association of Education Service Districts, said.

Oregon has 19 regional ESDs across the state, which cover and support four key service areas: special education, technology, administrative support, and school improvement. ESDs have also grown to provide services under contracts as well, such as COVID grant agreements or the Student Investment Account.

Eaton said every year each ESD region designs a local service plan with its schools to address specific needs. Programs could range from counseling and behavior, youth transition programs, career and technical education (CTE) program services, human resource services and more.

“Our school districts share their needs and priorities so ESD can respond and provide assistance,” she said. “Every service plan is unique, though there’s certain things that need to be in there, but the way in which districts access those services differ.”

For InterMountain ESD, District Superintendent Mark Mulvihill said that behavioral and social needs are the number one issue they are facing, particularly post-COVID. Although he also sees a commonality of needs between districts for technology and state reporting, as well as hiring and retaining teachers.

“We have enough money, but we don’t have enough people,’’ he said. “It’s a strange shift. It used to be we didn’t have money but we had people looking for jobs, and now we have money, the needs are so great, but finding a workforce is a challenge.”

Mulvihill added that they’re trying creatively strategize, from incentivizing a pay structure, tuition reimbursement and tele-therapy.

Between the 21 school districts within the Inter-Mountain ESD, Mulvihill said there’s a lot of diversity. From the Burnt River School District with 25 students in a dormitory to Pendleton, as well as a high Latinx population and active relationships with the tribes in their region.

“The real demarkation of how we serve a 3A and above district we serve in niche ways, but for 1A and 2A districts — which I have nine of — we’re the district office, we’re their HR and business department,” Mulvihill said. “That’s where we customize.”

In Lake ESD where there are only five school districts, Superintendent Lane Stratton said that funding, distance and staffing are the three biggest challenges. Due to its size, the ESD is flat-funded with additional flow-through money because there aren’t enough students to be funded through the per student-model.

“With those funds, we have to do our best to provide resources to all the districts in our county. That’s the super hard piece,” Stratton said.

ESDs are an equity-based organization, Mulvihill said, adding that, “Sometimes I have to explain to superintendents, my job isn’t to make everyone happy, my job is to distribute resources equitably to kids that need them.”

Mulvihill, who has been in K-12 education for 36 years and with InterMountain ESD for 15 years, said he’s realized that the only way to make change in education is by staying in it, building relationships and staying true to the mission.

“The most rewarding is that I’ve changed the ESD from being an auxiliary organization to we are K-12 embedded in with you,” he said.

Beyond making his ESD a one-stop-shop for his districts, Mulvihill is proud to have taken part in creating the Eastern Promise Program, offering early college credit, countywide wrap-around services, a principal academy, an operational learning hub and outdoor school.

“People don’t understand us,” Mulvihill said. “They think we’re an unnecessary level of government sometimes, when in fact, we are so critical to K-12’s function, we become an arm of ODE. We’re the implementers, we’re the middle man of all the initiatives.”

Aliya Hall is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.