OSBA Board member Kraig Albright sports a T-shirt from the 2024 OSBA Annual Convention at the 2025 Summer Board Conference while talking with (from left) OSBA Director of Finance and Member Services Jaime Conder, PACE Administrator Dave Harvey, OSBA Chief Legal Officer and Interim Deputy Executive Director Haley Percell, and OSBA Board Vice President Dawn Watson. Networking was an important part of the weekend event in Salem. (Photo by Jake Arnold, OSBA)
Mark Gent of the Fern Ridge School Board said he had no idea all the stuff entailed in being a school board member when he was elected in May.
“Not everyone is born knowing how to do a board, let alone a school board,” he said.
Gent said he had heard about the support OSBA offers boards, so he joined nearly 300 board members, administrators and administrative assistants in Salem for the OSBA Summer Board Conference. OSBA put on preconferences for board members and administrative professionals on Friday, Aug. 8, with the main conference running Saturday and Sunday. Almost a third of attendees were at the event for the first time.
Gent said the chance to learn and network is well worth the time and travel from his district west of Eugene, but it’s tough to give up a summer weekend away from work and family. Attending a conference closer to his district would be “a no-brainer,” he said.
OSBA has heard that call.
Chris Cronin, OSBA Board president, announced Saturday at the conference the launch of OSBA Summer School Sessions.
“OSBA has listened to your requests for extending the reach of its conferences while being conscious of your budgets,” said Cronin, a Grant County Education Service District board member from John Day.
Starting in 2026, the new Summer School Sessions will replace Summer Board as the mid-year training offered to all OSBA members. OSBA plans to hold regional one-day conferences that offer the same high-quality workshops on important board governance topics but in a more compact package and for less than the cost of Friday’s preconferences.
OSBA announced plans for a Summer School Session on July 10 in Redmond and July 16 in Eugene.
“OSBA is dedicated to making its training accessible, practical and community centered,” said Kristen Miles, OSBA Board Development director. “We know volunteering for a school board is a major commitment. We want to make it a little easier while helping board members learn about the kind of governance that makes a difference in students’ lives.”
OSBA’s final Summer Board Conference presented the mix of nuts-and-bolts knowledge and next-level training members have come to expect.
With a theme of “Govern with Confidence,” the conference offered workshops on issues such as policy for banning cell phones, vision-directed planning, parliamentary procedure and required training for public meetings.
Carol Hacherl of the Port Orford Langlois School Board said she was particularly interested in the public meetings rules.
“It can be really dangerous and expensive to get it wrong,” she said.
Hacherl is in her second year on the board and at her second conference. She said board roles are “not intuitive” and it takes training to learn how to move a school district in a positive direction from the board role.
Adolfo Jiménez, a newly elected Parkrose School Board member, said he ran for the school board with an aim of being a voice for those in his Portland district who don’t have the time or resources to be on a school board.
But to do that, he said, he still needed to learn how to navigate the system. He came to Summer Board for some foundational understanding.
Korinn Hockett, the new board chair for the Port Orford Langlois School Board in southwestern Oregon, said OSBA’s training has been invaluable to her already. Her board has been working with OSBA Board Development Specialist Janet Avila-Medina.
“I feel safer knowing whatever it is, I can call Janet,” Hockett said.
For her, the conference is a chance to expand her network of people she can lean on, especially education leaders in Oregon’s more remote small districts.
“It’s understanding you are not in this alone,” she said.
Networking is one of the top reasons board members and administrative executives give for attending Summer Board and other OSBA conferences.
Heather Quaas-Annsa has been on the Springfield School Board for a year, and this was her second conference. She said she was delighted to see people she recognized.
“Now I know people in other parts of the county and other parts of the state who are doing the same work I do and care about kids like I do,” she said.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
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