Three Candidates Vie for Appointment to Portland School Board Vacancy

Three candidates are vying for appointment to an upcoming Portland Public Schools Board vacancy to represent Zone 1, which covers much of Southwest Portland, including Ida B. Wells High School.

The School Board will convene a special meeting Jan. 13 to appoint board member Andrew Scott’s successor, after he announced he’d moved out of his zone and could not serve out the remaining two years of his term. His appointed successor will serve until May, when voters will elect a replacement, who will serve a two-year term until 2027.

Jazzmin Reece, Christy Splitt, and Jackie Wirz have all filed applications for the board, as The Oregonian first reported Jan. 6. Reece is a real estate broker; Splitt is the government relations coordinator for the Oregon Department of Energy; and Wirz is a former executive director of Saturday Academy, a nonprofit that provides science, technology, engineering, mathematics and arts education to diverse student populations. Wirz now works as the chief operating officer at the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians and as executive director at Oregon Residency Collaborative Alliance - Family Medicine.

All three are residents of Zone 1 and parents to PPS children. Reece has served as treasurer of the Bridlemile Elementary School Parent Teacher Association and was part of the comprehensive planning committee for the Ida B. Wells modernization project. Splitt has been part of the Hayhurst Elementary PTA as both president and treasurer.

The candidates also represent different ethnic backgrounds. Reece is Japanese, Filipino, Native and Black; Splitt is a white woman; and Wirz is an Asian American adoptee.

The three applicants all submitted answers to 10 questions from the PPS Board. Four of the questions centered on equity and diversity, while the others encompassed their experience and understanding of board functions and how they would handle tradeoffs in the district’s budgeting process.

Splitt is the only candidate who has so far publicly indicated interest in running for the more permanent Zone 1 position in May. Her campaign website features endorsements from state Sen. Kate Lieber, new Multnomah County Commissioner Meghan Moyer, and Tiffany Koyama Lane, a Portland city councilor who represents District 3.

Splitt is running for School Board, she wrote, because she feels her experience with the Oregon Legislature means being a board member would put her in the “best possible place” to support the district. “For the past 20 years, I have worked in or near Oregon’s legislature….I understand budgets. I am aware of how committees and boards function,” she wrote. “This work has also taught me many skills that I could bring to the Board.”

Reece’s application is particularly concerned with swaying the Legislature to more generously fund public schools. “The Oregon education system has failed to deliver ‘a sum of money sufficient to ensure that the state’s system of public education meets quality goals established by law as outlined in the Oregon Constitution,” she wrote. “All of our students in Oregon deserve a quality education [and] sufficient funding.”

Wirz wrote in her application that her motivation to join the School Board came from “a deep commitment to equity, education and community development,” citing her extensive involvement in education-focused boards. “I believe academic achievement, equity, student mental health, and teacher support are interconnected priorities that require holistic strategies,” she wrote. “Equity must underpin all decisions, ensuring every student has the opportunity to succeed regardless of background.”

At the Tuesday School Board meeting, Chair Eddie Wang outlined the selection process. Each applicant at the Monday meeting will get a two-minute opening statement, followed by questioning from board members and the board’s student representative, follow-up questions and a concluding statement.

Questions will be the same as the ones asked in the application, Wang added. “Part of the reason we’re doing this is so that we have a uniform process for each candidate,” he said. “I think the idea here is to give them a chance to say it publicly and also maybe perhaps to expand upon some of their answers.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Jackie Wirz is executive director of Saturday Academy. She was the executive director of the nonprofit from 2020 to 2022, and has since left the position. WW regrets the error.