Liz Martin said it hurt when the Lincoln County School District was named in 2018 as a district in need of improvement, an Every Student Succeeds Act designation meaning students weren’t making adequate academic progress.
“It wasn’t a time to sit there and say, ‘Oh, poor us,’” Martin said. Instead she asked what the district needed to do to improve.
Martin said the district turned that negative moment into a starting point to improve its schools. The board, with Martin as vice chair, hired Karen Gray as the district’s new superintendent. Gray, who had just been named the 2018 Oregon Superintendent of the Year, and the board implemented a continuous improvement plan that moved 13 of the district’s 15 schools out of the ESSA designation, with the remaining two much improved.
Martin’s leadership since joining the board in 2010 has culminated in her being named as the 2023 Oregon School Board Member of the Year. Martin was recognized Saturday at the OSBA Annual Convention in Portland.
OSBA launched the Oregon School Board Member of the Year award in 2018 to recognize outstanding board members who make a difference in their communities. The honor is based on a board member’s efforts in advocacy, leadership and student achievement. Winners receive a year of free OSBA event registration and are enshrined on a plaque in OSBA’s Salem office.
“She is the most supportive, upbeat, hard-working, loving board member I’ve ever worked with,” said Gray, who retired earlier this year after two decades of superintendent experience. She said Martin was always supportive but challenged her with hard questions. “It’s every superintendent’s dream to have someone like Liz to work with.”
In 2023, Martin joined Gray and another Lincoln County board member and administrator to present at the National School Boards Association conference in Orlando, Florida. They spoke about empowering students and effective continuous improvement plans.
Lincoln County is a sprawling central coast school district, unifying five distinct communities. Martin has spent significant time in all of them.
Martin attended Lincoln County schools, as did her two children, and ran a local business. She was a school volunteer for more than two decades, and became a school board member after her children graduated.
Martin is committed to helping her community. She serves on the board of Neighbors for Kids, an afterschool program, and the Depoe Bay Harbor Commission. She also has volunteered for nine years with ASPIRE, a mentoring program that helps students become college or career ready. Martin helped start the annual Lincoln County School District Leadership Gathering to bring together community leaders to talk about local issues.
Fellow board members and school administrators said Martin’s deep community ties and understanding of historical contexts are invaluable.
“If you have Liz Martin on your side, projects will get done and there will be answers to difficult questions,” Depoe Bay Mayor Kathy Short wrote in her recommendation for Martin.
Martin said she didn’t know much about being a school board member when she was appointed but good mentors on the board helped her learn.
Peter Vince, the current chair, said she has paid that forward, helping him since he was elected in 2021.
“She just knows so much, all of those soft skills about how a board operates,” he said.
Vince said Martin’s experience helped guide the hiring of Majalise Tolan as the new superintendent. Tolan has worked for the district for 15 years, so she has seen Martin at work.
Tolan said she is most impressed by Martin’s districtwide involvement, being informed and supportive without being a micromanager.
Martin said one of the most important things she has learned over the years is good school leadership requires getting the right people in the right places and then trusting them to do the day-to-day work.
Martin said she approaches every school issue by asking herself what is best for the children. But some of the ideas about what is best for students have changed in the years she has been on a board. For that reason, she said, school board members need to keep current with the research and look beyond what they think is best.
Successful boards are always adapting, Martin said, ready to ride the next wave in education changes.
“You really have to do your homework,” she said. “You have to be in your school, see what is happening and see what the kids’ needs are.”
Martin spent more than three years moving the district toward adopting its equity lens in 2022. She said collaboration is essential to build the trust necessary to confront education challenges.
“You have to believe in what you are doing, and you have to make it believable to other people,” she said.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
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