It’s been a challenging year for the Grant School District. There was the community backlash over a sexually suggestive assignment by a junior high English teacher, the abrupt retirement-then-unretirement of the district’s brand new superintendent and the sudden resignation of two school board members. And now comes the resignation of Grant Union High School’s first-year principal.

Additional signs of turmoil could be found in two front-page stories in last week’s edition of the Blue Mountain Eagle, one about apparent violations of district policy and state public meetings law in the rehiring of Superintendent Louis Dix to serve in an interim capacity next year, and another about the upcoming school board election.

To recap, Dix was hired on a three-year contract to fill the opening left by the departure of Bret Uptmor, who retired at the end of last school year. Dix took the reins of the district on July 1, but in January (after what one board member described as a “hit job” of a performance review), he announced plans to retire at the end of this school year, although he also offered to stay on through next year if the school board was unable to find a replacement. In early March, his name surfaced as a finalist for a superintendent’s job in Myrtle Point, but on March 15, the Grant School Board voted 4-2 to rehire Dix as interim superintendent for 2023-24. That vote came at the end of the meeting, after the board emerged from an executive session “to review and evaluate the performance of an officer, employee or staff member.”

There was no public deliberation about whether to rehire Dix or any public discussion of any other applicants — if, in fact, the board ever advertised the position. Nor was there any opportunity for the public to comment on the decision — indeed, the public had no way of knowing that anyone might be hired that night for the superintendent’s job because it was not listed anywhere on the meeting agenda. This would appear to violate board policy, which calls for the board to thoroughly consider qualified applicants for the superintendent’s job and allow the public to comment. It also appears to violate state public meetings law, which requires that meeting agendas for public bodies give a clear idea of what is to be discussed.

The board’s acting chair, Alicia Griffin, insists that the body was acting on advice from its attorney and points out that the situation around Dix’s rehiring is unusual in that he was already serving as superintendent and was originally under contract for two more years before announcing plans to retire. Partly for that reason, the Grant School Board’s latest violations don’t appear to be anywhere near as serious as its breach of state law governing executive session during an August 2021 meeting, which earned “letters of education” for the board members from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. Still, the board’s actions are concerning in that they limited the public’s ability to weigh in on the (re)hiring of a superintendent.

Also of concern is the fact that, as our other story pointed out, five of the seven seats on the school board are up for election next month. Not only that, but every one of those races is contested — a strong indicator that local families are concerned about the course the district is on.

Our hope is that voters in the May election will choose the best-qualified and best-intentioned candidates for the open seats on the Grant School Board and that the board will be able to right the ship. Our north star in all of this must be the best interests of the district’s students. They deserve the best education we can give them, and that means the adults in the room need to provide stability and leadership. Let’s hope we’re up to the task.