Oregon
Number of diverse teachers in Oregon on the rise, but retention remains a challenge • Oregon Capital Chronicle
Efforts by Oregon education officials to make the diversity of the state’s teachers mirror that of students have paid off with modest progress in the last decade. But keeping ethnically and racially diverse teachers beyond the first five years of their careers remains a challenge in the state and nation.
The proportion of licensed Oregon teachers who identify as racially or ethnically diverse today has grown nearly 4% in the last decade, from about 10% of the teacher workforce to nearly 14%, according to the latest Oregon Educator Equity Report from the state’s Educator Advancement Council. The 21-member council, largely made up of teachers and administrators from around the state, has published the reports every two years since 2015.
In the latest analysis, council members credited school district investments in “grow-your-own” alternative teacher training programs with helping to get nonlicensed staff from diverse communities into teacher training programs. They credited state community college and university investments with diversifying teacher degree candidates. And they said the Oregon Legislature’s investment in scholarships and funding for diverse teacher recruitment, mentorship and apprenticeship programs had also helped diversify teaching staff.
Grow-your-own programs have had great success in the Umatilla School District in eastern Oregon, which has one of the highest proportions of diverse students and teachers in the state. Nearly 76% of students identify as racially or ethnically diverse, as do nearly 26% of teachers. Superintendent Heidi Sipe said ensuring diversity among teachers is a priority for her in hiring, so every student in the system can feel connected and seen among their teachers.
“We’ve developed pathways for people in our community who understand and represent our community, to become the teachers in our schools,” she said. “Our new principal is a Umatilla alumnus with experiences in multiple districts around the state, our new vice principal is a bilingual and bicultural educator who has taught for the past five years in our school system. Together, they’re a great combo to welcome students to the high school. Of the eleven teachers we’ve hired for this year, four have participated in our grow-your-own efforts, six are bilingual and six are educators of color,” Sipe said.
Still, the number of teachers in Oregon from communities of color – about 4,400 – pales in comparison to the proportion of diverse students in Oregon, who make up 42% – or more than 227,000 – of the state’s 547,000 enrolled students. The report defines “diverse teachers” as those who self-reported in a race and ethnicity survey from the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission as Asian, Black, Latino, Hispanic, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawiian or Pacific Islander or reported two or more races.
All kids benefit from having diverse teachers in school, research shows. Decades of data shows that schools with a higher proportion of diverse teachers have lower absentee rates and fewer discipline disparities. Students of color also experience major benefits. In one study, Black students were more likely to graduate high school and more likely to attend college if they’d been taught by a Black teacher at least once between third and fifth grade. Black students are also more likely to take advanced courses and to reach graduation if they’ve had a Black teacher.
The problem of retention
The greatest progress in growing teacher diversity in Oregon has been in the proportion of first-year teachers who identify as racially or ethnically diverse. That figure doubled from 9% in 2012 to more than 21% in 2022, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine, who contributed to the report.
“Compared to states like Maryland, Washington and Massachusetts, which have also established grow your own initiatives and pursued strategies to diversify the workforce, Oregon has done as well as or better at increasing the racial/ethnic diversity of its entering teachers,” they wrote.
But teacher retention remains a challenge.
The number of racially and ethnically diverse teachers with five or fewer years of experience has tripled over the past decade, according to the Oregon Department of Education, and nearly half of all racially and ethnically diverse teachers in the 2023-24 school year were in the first five years of their teaching career. Getting more diverse teachers to stay beyond that is a problem across the U.S., where nearly half of teachers leave their job or the profession entirely within the first five years, according to research from University of Pennsylvania Professor Richard Ingersoll.
About nine out of 10 teachers hired in schools across the U.S. are hired to replace a teacher who has left the profession, according to research from the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization based in D.C., and most of those teachers aren’t leaving to retire, they found.
UC Irvine research found that many of Oregon’s new and diverse teachers were placed in schools with difficult working conditions that had high turnover among teachers and administrators.
“Together, these analyses suggest that while Oregon has successfully recruited more diverse teachers into the workforce, the school environments they are placed into may be contributing to their turnover, hampering the progress that can be realized.”
Council members recommended getting early career teachers into supportive schools with resources and veteran teachers to mentor them and also to recruit teachers from existing staff and help them obtain their license. The council also said making educator preparation programs at state universities and community colleges more affordable and accessible would go a long way toward increasing teacher diversity in Oregon schools.
The report suggested that institutions of higher education need to create pathways for nontraditional students, such as older students who are working and have families, to become teachers and appealing to those hoping to make a career switch.
And finally, the council recommended more robust data collection and sharing across state agencies and districts, so schools and education officials can exchange more information about the state of the teacher workforce and needs.
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SALEM, Ore. — A new K-9 is joining the Oregon State Police ranks, and troopers are asking for help in naming their newest recruit.
The one-year-old red Labrador Retriever is training to join their other K-9s Scout and Drake on the OSP Fish and Wildlife Conservation K-9 program. Together the team will help protect Oregon’s natural resources.
While they say they’ll still call him “Good Dog,” they say he’s ready for an official name.
They are asking youths between the ages of 9 and 17 years old to help name the new dog.
They are suggesting the names involve the outdoors or fish and wildlife, considering his assignment.
Entries will close on June 14, and are limited to one entry per youth.
Finalists will move on to a round of statewide voting. The youth who submitted the winning name will get to meet the K-9 and get some items of recognition from Oregon State Police.
MORE FROM OREGON STATE POLICE:
OSP’s conservation K-9 program began in 2018 with K-9 Buck, who recently retired from active service. Fish and Wildlife K-9s receive specialized training in wildlife detection, human tracking, and area searches to support investigations into the illegal take of birds, wildlife, and fish around the state. Dogs are trained to detect deer, elk, bear, turkey, waterfowl, salmon, and sturgeon, as well as firearms, shell casings, and other items containing gunpowder residue. Conservation K-9 teams have been instrumental during investigations into poaching, missing persons, and other criminal activity.
The new conservation K-9 team will be stationed at OSP’s La Grande patrol office, joining teams currently based in Bend and Springfield.
The Conservation K-9 program is a collaboration between the Oregon State Police and the Oregon Wildlife Foundation. The Oregon Wildlife Foundation maintains the Wildlife Conservation K-9 Fund to help cover expenses associated with the canine members of the Conservation K-9 teams. Donations to the fund support the costs of veterinary care, training equipment, and other essential supplies.
SALEM, Ore. — Oregon Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (Summer EBT) will be issued to families who are automatically eligible beginning today, June 5, 2026.
Summer EBT is a food benefits program that helps address hunger in Oregon when children are on summer break and don’t have easy access to healthy meals at school.
Families should check their EBT card balance at www.ebtedge.com to confirm receipt. Summer EBT provides $120 for each eligible child to buy food.
This is the third year of Oregon’s Summer EBT program, which is administered by the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) and Oregon Department of Education (ODE). The program expects to serve about 360,000 children this year.
Families who didn’t automatically get Summer EBT on June 5, 2026, should check program requirements before applying. Families can check requirements at sebt.oregon.gov or by contacting the Summer EBT Call Center at 833-673-7328. The Call Center is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., PDT. Apply online in English and Spanish or with a paper application in multiple languages at sebt.oregon.gov.
“Access to nutritious food is essential to children’s health, well-being, and learning,” Oregon Department of Education Director Dr. Charlene Williams said. “Summer EBT provides important support to families during the summer months, and we encourage eligible families to take advantage of this resource.”
Summer EBT is an evidence-based program proven to reduce child hunger and support healthier diets. With this help, families will be able to spend more than $43 million in their local grocery stores, farmers markets and other places.
“We know summer can be especially hard for families who are already struggling to keep food on the table,” said ODHS Director Liesl Wendt. “When school is out, many children lose access to regular school meals, and no child should have to worry about being hungry. Summer EBT helps families buy healthy food and gives kids the nutrition they need to grow, learn, and enjoy their summer. Our goal is to make sure every eligible child in Oregon can access this support.”
Who is eligible for Summer EBT food benefits?
Families can find details about Summer EBT at sebt.oregon.gov.
Families will get benefits automatically on their Oregon EBT card if they have children between the ages of 6-18 and have received one of the following at any time during the 2025-26 school year:
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits
- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance
- Medicaid, if household income is below 185 percent of the federal poverty level
- Foster care services
Families also may automatically receive benefits if they have children who:
- Were determined by their school to have a status as migrant, houseless or runaway.
- Took part in the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations.
- Attended a Head Start program that was part of the National School Lunch Program or School Breakfast Program.
Families may need to apply if:
- Their household meets income requirements for free or reduced-price school meals.
- Their child attends a school that was part of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) or School Breakfast Program (SBP).
Important Summer EBT dates:
- June 5, 2026 – The online application opens and applications begin processing.
- Sept. 1, 2026 – Application deadline.
- Sept. 25, 2026 – The Summer EBT call center closes.
Children cannot receive 2026 Summer EBT benefits in multiple states. The program invites families to apply if they have children living in Oregon during the 2025-26 school year. Summer EBT benefits are not considered in a public charge test and are available to children regardless of immigration status.
Additional resources:
PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – Portland General Electric (PGE) has filed for regulatory approval of new electricity rates that would increase costs for large data centers while lowering rates for residential and small business customers, the utility announced Wednesday.
The proposed changes, filed under Oregon’s POWER Act regulatory framework, are scheduled to take effect June 10 pending review and approval by the Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC).
Under the proposal, rates for large-load data center customers would increase 29%. Residential customers would see a 1.3% decrease in rates, while small business customers would get a 3.7% reduction. Commercial customers would see a 2.2% decline and industrial customers would get a 1.5% decrease.
The filing follows a May 7 decision by OPUC approving PGE’s implementation of the POWER Act. making it the first utility in Oregon to establish a desperate customer class for data centers and adopt a framework designed to allocate infrastructure costs based on growth-related demand.
PGE said the new structure is intended to ensure customers driving increased electricity costs bear the costs associated with new infrastructure investments.
“Oregon is building a modern regulatory framework that supports responsible growth while keeping customer affordability front and center,” said John McFarland, Chief Customer Officer at PGE. “As energy demand from large-energy users grows, this approach helps ensure the costs of new infrastructure are paid by the customers driving that growth.”
The commission also authorized more measures aimed at managing data center growth, including exit fees, minimum charges and special contracts intended to support clean energy development.
The proposed rate changes remain subject to regulatory review and approval by OPUC.
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