Pam Orebaugh: I am running to bring a conservative voice and my experience to the CVSD board

By Pam Orebaugh

I have been a citizen of Liberty Lake since 2000 and all of my five children attend Central Valley School District schools. I have been actively campaigning and running for CVSD board position five since the end of May. A former opponent and I collaborated to form a group consisting of concerned parents and citizens to bring the district’s focus back to education and support teachers and staff. I am beyond frustrated and appalled at how myself and this group are being labeled, threatened, and the lies that are openly published and circulated. You as voters and taxpayers have a right to know the truth.

I am running to bring a conservative voice, my experience, and my knowledge to the board. I have been a nurse for almost 30 years, mostly caring for the youngest of our citizens. I now teach nursing and have a masters in nursing with an educational emphasis (I do not speak on behalf of WSU). As a mom, I recognize the need for a school district that supports learning and does not teach against our values. As a Christ follower, I am honest, hardworking and respectful.

Our children are the future of our community and they deserve a quality basic education in a supporting learning environment that is free of political ideology indoctrination and crushing mandates. Our children, their families and our community deserve a school board that will ensure our youngest citizens receive such education. Our families and community must be able to communicate and access board members, especially in times of uncertainty. CVSD has been esteemed as one of the best school districts in the state and I want to ensure this remains true for CVSD while working on aspects to further improve the district.

The focus of the board and district must return to providing high quality education for all of our children. The math and language arts scores of CVSD students prior to the pandemic were both 55%, which is a failing score. The focus of the district needs to be on providing basic education to our children, increasing test scores, ensuring they are safe, supporting their mental health, and making up for lost learning due to COVID. Anything in the curriculum that takes away from basic education takes away from achieving these goals and should not be in the curriculum nor take up class time.

Our group consists of concerned parents, grandparents, citizens, teachers and staff who are troubled by the path the district is taking. These are parents who have dealt with a loss of learning and other related issues. They are also witnessing their children struggle with depression, anxiety, fear or worse. They all desire to have the state and federal constitutions upheld. They are all law-abiding citizens. Nobody in this group is an extremist, bully, anarchist, threatening or other vile attacks flung at us. I have never, and will never, advocate for violence or threats of any kind to anybody, including school employees or board directors. I also will not associate with any persons doing such activities.

From the onset of meetings, I was very clear that we must be respectful, arm ourselves with data and engage using existing laws to fight lawless actions and conflicting laws. We started this summer collaborating with the board and administration to clarify misunderstandings and work together for our children.

Neither I nor the group has ever advocated nor pushed for the district to lose funding. Every time the Stan Chalich campaign states this, they are lying. We have advocated for the district to use every resource and option possible to maintain local control as per RCWs 28A.320.015 and 28A.150.230. OSPI directed districts to follow the governor’s mandates that conflict with existing laws and threatened to pull funding if they did not comply. However, in that directive, OSPI detailed a period of time for warnings and compliance before any funding is pulled. They did not give an amount that would be pulled other than it would be for a month at a time. So, every time Chalich states they would lose 80%, that is a lie. Washington law only allows pulling funding from schools that are failing, making these threats illegal and worthy of legal action the district can take against the state. If we don’t stand against illegal mandates now, when will we?

I promise I will work hard to advocate for high quality education, a safe environment, and teacher and staff support. Please see more at electpam4kids.com.