Thank you for your excellent article on 4J school board candidate Dr. Martina Shabram (“Do It for the Kids,” 4/25). Oregon’s Working Families Party is getting involved in school board and other local elections around the state this year because they are closest to and have a big effect on working families. Dr. Shabram is one of several candidates in Lane County whom we have endorsed.   

We need change on our school boards. They have become self-perpetuating rubber stamps for administrators.  

We need new people with new ideas who will challenge established assumptions and practices. In addition to Shabram, we have endorsed Gordon Lafer and Deanna Chappell Belcher for 4J, Lisa Fragala for LCC and Todd Mann for Springfield School District.  

We are supporting these candidates because they have committed to resisting and reversing the corporate reform model of education; fully supporting career and technical education; utilizing Project Labor Agreements or Community Benefit Agreements on school bond construction; implementing anti-racist education; supporting special needs students and curriculum; ending the school-to-prison pipeline; improving employee working conditions and upholding the right to strike; opposing the use of public funds for private for-profit charter schools, vouchers, non-certified teachers in publicly funded classrooms and other schemes that weaken public schools and accelerate the privatization of public education; and fighting for tuition-free higher education.

The Working Families Party has also endorsed Chris Wig for the Willamalane Parks and Recreation District Board.

Please join us and vote for these candidates in the May special election.   

Stefan Ostrach 

Eugene