NYSSA – The Nyssa School Board swore in a new member at its monthly board meeting on Monday, July 8.
Jazmine Ramirez will fill the seat of Jeremy Peterson, who resigned in April over a year-old requirement requiring school board members to file financial disclosure forms.
The requirement is intended to guard against public officials using their positions for personal gain. The financial disclosure statements require public officials to list their major income sources but not amounts.
Last year was the first year school board members were required to file such statements with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. Five of Nyssa’s seven members quit last year over the requirement.
After interviewing three applicants during the board’s work session on Monday, July 1, the board selected Ramirez to fill Peterson’s term, which expires June 30, 2027.
Pat Morinaka, the board chair, said the district had six applicants. She noted that all were allowed to interview, but three could not make the interview due to “personal reasons.”
Ramirez, who, according to her application, has lived in Nyssa for 25 years, wrote that her son graduated from Nyssa High School while her daughter attends the district’s middle school.
She wrote in her application that she wanted to be a board member to ensure her daughter gets a “quality education.” Ramirez also wrote that she felt staff and teachers supported her son while he was at the high school.
Ramirez wrote that as a migrant parent fluent in Spanish, she feels she can help bridge the gap between the Hispanic community and the Nyssa School District.
Some in the community criticized the board for allegedly not including Hispanic migrant families in parts of the review process to pick a permanent superintendent in March. The contentious superintendent interview process concluded with the Nyssa board splitting a 4-3 vote to hire Ryan Hawkins as the permanent superintendent.
Peterson, Susan Ramos and Morinaka, along with Dustin Martinsen, a Vale attorney, voted to offer Hawkins the permanent position. The three board members who voted against hiring Hawkins were Don Ballou, Megan Robbins and Maribel Ramirez.
The board’s vote to make Hawkins the permanent superintendent led to a potential recall effort of Peterson, Morinaka and Ramos by Jacqueline Cuevas, a lifelong Nyssa resident with children in the Nyssa school system. In an interview, Cuevas declined to explain why Martinsen was left out of her recall effort.
Malheur County Clerk Gayle Trotter said Cuevas had not taken additional steps for the elections office to approve the recall process.
Peterson, a local farmer, emphasized that he was not stepping down over the prospective petition to recall him and two other board members.
Ramirez, who lists her occupation as a housewife, noted on her application that she has worked on the district’s budget committee and the parent advisory committee. She also helps at the local food pantry, according to her application.
Open-minded and “easy to work with,” Ramirez said she could bring “the ideas and needs of the Hispanic community to the board.”
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