Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Comment Counselors Privacy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
BEA president and community speakers urge Beaverton board to protect counselors and demand data safeguards before math contract
Summary
At the April 14 Beaverton School Board meeting BEA president Katie Lukens and multiple community members urged the board not to cut school-based counselors and asked that any large math curriculum contract include strong student-data protections amid a pending federal lawsuit against a vendor.
Katie Lukens, president of the Beaverton Education Association and an elementary teacher, told the school board that teachers support adopting a new math curriculum but asked trustees not to rush a long-term contract while a federal class-action lawsuit alleges the vendor has mined and sold student data. "This can't override our ethical obligation to student privacy," Lukens said, urging the board to require "ironclad protections against the data mining and monetizations alleged in the current litigation." She said a seven-year, multimillion-dollar contract would lock the district into a vendor that, if the lawsuit's allegations are substantiated, could have exploited students' private information.
Multiple public commenters during the meeting's public-comment period pressed the board to protect school-based mental-health and substance-use counselors amid the district's budget gap. Samantha Heron, a parent and mental-health advocate, said she had heard proposals to cut counseling and pleaded, "please do not cut those fundings," describing counselors as "phenomenal" supports for students. Kevin Foreman, the substance-use specialist who serves two high schools, said written budget-survey responses — roughly 4,000 submissions and about 1,500 written comments — showed broad community support for protecting direct student-facing positions and recommended deeper cuts at the district-office level instead.
Several parents and coaches also urged the board to sponsor extracurricular teams such as Science Olympiad so students can compete at state and national levels; speakers described insurance and sponsorship barriers that may prevent travel. Other commenters raised concerns about extensive classroom screen time and called for clearer limits and more print resources for early grades.
Board members and interim district staff acknowledged the appeals. School leaders repeated that the district faces structural budget pressures — including enrollment decline and constrained local-option levy revenue — and said the board is balancing competing priorities. Several trustees asked staff to provide clearer data on proposed central-office savings and to ensure any contract considered for classroom technology meets the district's student-data and privacy standards.
The meeting's public comments did not result in a final vote on budget or curriculum decisions; trustees said they would consider the input as part of deliberations on budget reductions and curriculum adoption.
