Katherine Lupton grew up in Salem, attended Salem-Kaiser Public Schools and is a big believer in the difference that public education can make in students’ lives.

“I’m a parent of three, I was a classroom teacher for eight years, my parents were both public school teachers and I was born in Salem, grew up in Salem — and I’m running for school board because I want to make sure that Lake Oswego can preserve and expand on its reputation as the number one school district in Oregon,” said Lupton. “My kids are going to be part of this school district for at least the next 20 years.”

Lupton is running for position 4 on the Lake Oswego School Board, currently held by Liz Hartman, who will retire from the board at the end of the current term.

“My number one priority as a school board member is to ensure that our students can compete academically on a national level,” said Lupton. “We must provide our students with rigorous academic offerings. I want Lake Oswego to compete not only in Oregon but nationally. I think we can be a leader and bring Oregon up higher in the state rankings.”

A professional educator, Lupton worked as a high school Spanish teacher and now runs The Immersive Classroom, where she writes lesson plans, curriculum and textbooks for Spanish teachers. She is also an examiner for International Baccalaureate tests, reflecting her passion for global education and culturally-responsive teaching.

“My second priority is to empower the community to provide input to the Lake Oswego School Board. This can be achieved by increasing opportunities for students and families to connect with board members formally and informally,” she said.

She wants to partner with community stakeholders such as Oswego Lake Watershed Council, Respond to Racism Lake Oswego and the neighborhood associations.

“We must create policies that adapt to current best practice and technology. We must partner with our teachers to develop more targeted training and support them with current best practice reading and math techniques, and getting the teacher input on that is really important,” said Lupton.

She also acknowledges that it’s a stressful time for the community because the district plans to cut $10 million from the budget next school year.

“It’s still causing a lot of upset and anxiety throughout the district — not only parents and teachers, but also I’ve heard from students that are really upset, and especially at the high school level,” she said.

Lupton said her experience teaching outside of Oregon made her appreciate strategies that would benefit students in Lake Oswego, such as adding instructional hours or school days.

“It really opened my eyes to what Oregon can do as a state if we invest in public education,” said Lupton. “Increasing children’s time in school, whether that’s putting more minutes on the day or adding more days to the year.”

Lupton knows that suggesting more days or hours of school can be unpopular because of the associated costs, but putting it out there for the benefit of students is what she’s all about.

“(We should) make cuts where it will affect the least amount of academic achievement and outcomes, always prioritizing the kids and the kids’ success and the kids’ time in the classroom,” she said.

She hopes that, if elected, she could advocate for neighborhood schools, especially coming out of the discussions surrounding Lake Grove Elementary last year.

“I’m always going to lean towards keeping the neighborhood schools going, because it means a lot for the community, and it means a lot for the parents and those schools. When we rebuild them, they end up becoming community gathering places,” said Lupton. “I am personally benefiting. My children are personally benefiting from the bond at River Grove — we have this brand new, beautiful school and all of the events in the community are being hosted there. Everyone wants to be there. The teachers want to teach there because it’s a beautiful new building.”