Parents, paraeducators and teachers urge tougher responses after incidents at Jacob Wismer and Meadow Park; staff say specialized programs are strained

Several parents, paraeducators and teachers used the board’s public-comment period on May 13 to raise safety concerns at district schools and to describe staffing and program strains in specialized classrooms.

Cindy Wang, who identified herself as a Jacob Wismer parent, told the board her daughter “has been the victim of repeated unwanted physical contact, harassment, and sometimes assault by the same individual,” and said she had not seen timely adult intervention. "I'm begging you to fix this," she said, urging the board to ensure students learn that violence against women is not acceptable.

Other speakers said the incidents have had ripple effects. Kevin Z., speaking for families in a local Mandarin preschool, said safety concerns at Jacob Wismer are already affecting prospective enrollment in the school’s Mandarin dual-language program because families are giving the issue weight when choosing elementary schools.

Travis Field and Sylvia Smart described exposure of Meadow Park middle-school students to explicit images circulated on cell phones during instructional time. Field said the family had been promised support by the school but that professional psychological services remain unavailable; his daughter remains on a wait list for a specialized psychologist. “We continue to call it inappropriate activity,” he said, and urged the district to improve phone policies and to provide psychological care and staff trained to support affected students.

Multiple speakers who work in specialized programs described extreme work conditions and staff shortages. Kristen Croft, who said she teaches one of the district’s most intensive specialized programs, said she and colleagues are “exhausted and stretched far too thin,” reporting very limited lunch breaks and recurring work injuries. A paraeducator, Cody Heuser, said proposed cost-of-living increases would leave some classified staff with “less than a dollar an hour increase,” and said the low wage environment makes retaining staff difficult.

Both the Beaverton Education Association and OSEA (classified staff union) representatives addressed staffing and program changes. BEA President Lindsey Ray praised a newly ratified substitutes contract but raised concerns about proposed shifts to English-language development (ELD) instruction that would move specialized ELD instruction from dedicated ELD teachers to general classroom teachers; she said nearly 500 Beaverton educators signed a letter asking for more collaboration before any full implementation.

District leaders acknowledged public concern and repeated that board policy limits responses during public comment; they described ongoing work such as bias-incident reporting and described administrative follow-up to individual incidents. Several board members asked staff to provide clearer reporting and to continue work on safety protocols and support services for affected students and staff.