One race will be decided by Mountain voters in the May 21 special election,
with two candidates seeking the Oregon Trail School District board of directors
Zone 3 (Welches) position. All other positions feature one candidate or none.

Current board member Kurt McKnight seeks reelection for the position, while
former school board member Dan Thompson hopes to return to the position
he held before McKnight took over.

McKnight has held the board slot since 2008, when he was appointed to the
position, while also serving on the district’s budget committee, facilities task
force and bond oversight committee. The father of two – a freshman at Sandy
High School and a 2009 graduate of SHS – and the president of Ever Fresh
Fruit Company, McKnight ran unopposed for the position in 2009 and hopes to
build on the work and momentum the district has seen over the past years,
including minimizing cuts in recent years when other districts are suffering
more.

“What really made me decide to do another term was looking at
(Superintendent) Aaron (Bayer) and the fantastic leadership we’ve got, the
changes we’ve made,” McKnight said. “I feel I need to be there another term
to support what Aaron’s got going on.”
McKnight noted that the new Common Core State Standards are helping
students prepare for their next educational steps, including getting high
school students prepared for college.
“There’s just a whole different mindset that our kids are going to be groomed
going through the system,” he said. “There’s just so many things that we
have going on right now that’s positive, that are really showing results, that I
enjoy being part of.”
Thompson served on the school board in the same position for approximately
four years before leaving to serve as the district’s safety officer. Thompson,
who spent 32 years in law enforcement as a police officer and father of a
sophomore at SHS, noted his experience working for the district gives him a

unique perspective on how it works with the board.

“The administration very carefully crafts a sales pitch to the board, gives it to
the board, unfortunately the board isn’t really fully educated in the workings
of the school, or it’s so complicated that they don’t have time to figure it all
out,” Thompson said. “I’ve been inside these meetings, so I’m not talking off
the top of my head.”

Thompson hopes to develop partnerships between the school district and
private industries to create opportunities for students not wanting to go to
college, while noting it would be “tragic” to lose Welches Middle School to a
consolidated one in Sandy. He instead sees potential for a charter high school
on the mountain with a focus on forestry, fish and mountain recreation.

“We don’t have to build anything, we have the structures already here, and
the people, the knowledge,” said Thompson, who also stressed the importance
of school safety.

Both candidates see flaws in the Public Employees Retirement System that
need to be fixed, with McKnight calling the situation “a mess” and Thompson
hoping to work with unions in order to solve the problems.

Ballots may be deposited in various locations starting on Friday, May 3, and
ending at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 21 (postmarks do not count). Ballots returned
to drop sites do not need postage. The nearest drop site is the Hoodland
Library at 68256 Hwy. 26 in Welches.