THE SPOKESMAN • WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 2021 P5
School board, Part 2: All candidates for Positions 3-4 would be newcomers to elected office
All six candidates running
for positions 3 and 4 inter-
viewed in this article have never
served on the board, and none
have held elected office.
Position 3
Jill Cummings said she is fa-
miliar with both the financial
world — she’s an administrator
with Summit Bank — and, as a
mother of two Redmond stu-
dents, the education world.
“I think we’re dealing with
the two most important things
to most people: their kids and
money,” said Cummings, 41.
“I feel uniquely qualified with
both.”
Two of Cummings’ main
concerns about Redmond
schools deal with the ripple ef-
fects of COVID-19: learning
loss and falling enrollment. The
student population fell by 400
this school year, and the district
is only planning for about 250
of those students to return in
September. State funding is tied
to student population.
“For budgets, that’s going to
wreak havoc,” Cummings said
of the enrollment drop.
Lavon Medlock, a health care
administrator for St. Charles
Health Services and a mother
of two Elton Gregory Middle
School students, said her pas-
sion for education started early.
Growing up in Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, her par-
ents told her that education
could provide opportunity, and
encouraged her to attend col-
lege in the United States.
“It opened doors to me that
otherwise wouldn’t have been
opened, and I want to create
that same opportunity for stu-
dents locally,” Medlock, 43,
said.
Medlock is a member of
Redmond School District’s
equity task force, which was
formed in September 2020 to
address inequities in local ed-
ucation. Celebrating diversity
— whether it’s diversity of race,
gender or thought — is import-
ant for helping local students
succeed in the modern world,
Cummings
Gonzalez
she said.
Ron Osmundson, a day-
care co-owner and former
assistant football coach at
Ridgeview High School, said
he was prompted to run for
school board after being dis-
mayed from seeing online
school first-hand. If elected, he
hopes to make some curric-
ulum changes that are easier
for younger students and have
a heavier emphasis on post-
school adult life, he said.
“A lot of the curriculum was
tough on students, like they
didn’t understand,” said Os-
mundson, 40. “Sometimes the
teacher was a little too strict
and was starting to get un-
nerved with students.”
Osmundson has three chil-
dren, with the oldest expected
to start kindergarten at Sage El-
ementary School in the fall. He
ran for Redmond City Council
in November 2020, landing in
fifth place out of nine candi-
dates with about 11.5% of the
vote. He is currently an ap-
pointed member of the city’s
budget committee.
One of Osmundson’s top is-
sues with Redmond schools are
Lawson
Lopez
high schools hosting vaccine
clinics without requiring paren-
tal consent, he said.
“What scares me is that these
kids are able to make these
decisions without getting any
kind of guidance or any kind of
thought into it by their parents,”
he said. “They’ll just do it by
themselves or be pressed under
peer pressure to get them.”
Position 4
Oscar Gonzalez, currently
a staffer with Bend nonprofit
Latino Community Associa-
tion, was an administrator for
the KIPP Academy charter
school in Houston in the ‘90s
and ‘00s. That school had stu-
dents attend class during sum-
mer to keep them from losing
knowledge — and that’s some-
thing he’d like to implement in
Redmond.
“It’s just a radical, revolu-
tionary concept that worked,
especially for our kids, who
were already two or three years
behind,” said Gonzalez, 60. “I
really feel strongly that kids
taking summer off is so anti-
quated.”
Gonzalez’s children are
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Medlock
Osmundson
grown adults, he said.
Gonzalez also believes the
Redmond School Board —
which is entirely white — needs
Latino representation. As of
October 2019, 18% of Red-
mond students identified as
Latino or Hispanic.
“A lot of kids that typically
fall through the cracks ... I don’t
think they really had much of a
voice at the table,” said Gonza-
lez, who identifies as Latino. “I
felt compelled to be that voice.”
Carmen Lawson is the only
teacher running for a Red-
mond board seat — she teaches
kindergarten at Madras Ele-
mentary School. She believes
that experience gives her an
advantage in figuring out how
to best help students and keep
Redmond teachers happy.
“I can collaborate well with
staff and teachers and admin-
istrators, and understand the
stressors they’re in, because
it’s the job I do every day,” said
Lawson, 42. “Whatever deci-
sions (the board) is making,
it affects the workplace of a
teacher, and the workplace of a
teacher is the environment of
students’ learning.”
Lawson has three sons in
Redmond schools: one each at
Redmond High School, Elton
Gregory Middle School and
John Tuck Elementary.
Keri Lopez, an administra-
tive assistant for Bend contrac-
tor Rogue Builders, said her
top priority is keeping students
learning in-person next fall.
She’s worried about all students
being forced back to distance
learning, she said.
“It should be something
people need to think about,”
Lopez, 41, said. “I’m concerned
about it.”
However, part- or fully-on-
line school programs should
be made available for students
and teachers who prefer it, she
said.
Lopez is the mother of a fifth
grader at Tumalo Community
School and a sixth grader at
Obsidian Middle School.
“That really is important for
teachers, to feel supported,”
Lopez said. “They have the op-
portunity to say (to parents),
‘Hey, can you run and make
copies of this, so I can eat my
lunch?’”
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
jhogan@bendbulletin.com
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