The Mercury didn’t endorse candidates in this month’s election for the Portland Public Schools Board of Education, but not because it’s not important. The seven-member volunteer school board steers a district made up of nearly 50,000 students across 81 schools, and faces enormous challenges.
And right now, you’ve got an opportunity to pick three of those members (a fourth seat is uncontested). It’s an off-year election, with little else going on, so chances are you’ve not even opened the red and white ballot envelope that showed up the other day. Absolutely open it—ballots are due by 8 pm May 19—but first listen to the good work of KBOO reporters Joe Meyer and Don Merrill, who posed questions to each of the candidates and have their answers (and candidate introductions) available in bite-sized audio chunks for your perusal.
KBOO was cool enough to share the effort with us. Now we’re sharing it with you. Vote!