2 challengers trying to unseat former Richland School Board president
Jill Oldson wants to serve a second term on the Richland School Board, but first she must fend off two challengers.
Gene Nemeth and Matthew Bishop have filed for her Director No. 5 seat and are facing off in the Aug. 1 primary election.
Ballots for the primary election were mailed last week.
Online voter registration is available through July 24. And Washington state voters have until 8 p.m. on election day to register and vote in-person at their local auditor’s office.
Oldson and Nemeth say the district must return the focus of the board’s work back to student outcomes and achievements after a year of bitter politics.
While they may share a larger vision for quality education in Richland schools, their goals for getting there differ.
Bishop did not return multiple emails from the Tri-City Herald requesting an interview and his voter’s pamphlet statement includes no information, and he did not participate in local League of Women Voters forums.
He is a parent and a former Benton County Republican precinct committee officer, according to previous Herald reports.
Positions on the Richland School Board are unpaid and the board’s primary job is to hire and evaluate the superintendent, set the vision of the district serving 14,100 students, review and adopt policies and adopt a budget.
A majority of the school board seats in Kennewick, Richland and Pasco are on the ballot this year, but only Richland so many candidates that the field must be narrowed in the primary.
The top two vote-getters will face each other again in November.
Jill Oldson
Jill Oldson is running for another term to bring a “level of stability back to the district and to the community.”
She’s been involved with the district for about 18 years and helped form the White Bluffs PTO in 2008. She raised two students who graduated from Richland High School.
“I’m incredibly passionate about this,” she said. “But I know why I do this. I really do this for the kids and for the community, and it’s the greatest gift we can give to the community.”
Oldson, 57, a former marketing executive in the hospitality industry and substitute para educator, is the second-most senior board member on the Richland board.
Oldson famously lost her first race for school board on a coin flip after the 2015 general election tally was a tie.
In 2018, she was appointed to fill a vacancy on the board and won election to the seat the following year.
Since then, she’s served as both president and vice president of the board, and has been on multiple state and federal committees with the Washington State School Directors’ Association.
Oldson is endorsed by both the local and state teachers unions: The Richland Education Association and the Washington Education Association.
“My experience, willingness to listen, objectivity and open-mindedness will help lead the district to set high standards in education for all kids,” she wrote in the voter’s pamphlet.
Recently, she’s helped lead board work to pass a new district strategic plan, implement new structured literacy programs in the elementary schools, address mental health problems with new programs and online counseling, eliminated some high-level administrative positions to fund more teaching positions and funded more counselor positions.
“The district hasn’t had a strategic plan in many years,” she said. “I personally think it’s critically important because it gives our staff and administrators a common goal to move forward with in achieving student success and achievement.”
But student achievement is much more than state test scores at the end of the day, she said. It’s important the district continues to also focus on students’ social-emotional learning, attendance rates and disciplinary rates.
Oldson has also been a vocal advocate for lobbying the federal government to increase its payment in lieu of taxes program, which it receives to compensate for land that was taken by the U.S. government for the Hanford site.
“I’m incredibly frustrated with the fact that 85% of our school districts sits on federal land and we only collect about $3 million annually for that,” she said. “That is one of those things that I will fight for forever because we should be getting substantially more money than what we are getting. I would like to see it even based on students.”
As of January, the district’s total assessed value was more than $12 billion.
She also believes the district should be doing more to invest in resources for teacher and students to ensure special education students receive the best instruction possible. Oldson said she understands the challenges parents face with advocating for their student.
“The part that I want to see moving forward with special education is I want to see us make it as user-friendly as possible for parents,” she said.
Oldson is a supporter of the Aug. 1 recall measure to remove fellow board members Semi Bird, Audra Byrd and Kari Williams from office.
Read her voter’s pamphlet statement here: bit.ly/OldsonRichland.
Gene Nemeth
Gene Nemeth is a parent of three Richland school graduates with special needs and he believes the school board has become complacent to the challenges parents like him have faced.
“I really want to return the district’s focus back to student achievement and make sure our graduates are ready for life’s challenges and opportunities,” Nemeth, 55, told the Herald.
The retired 26-year Navy captain is no stranger to the Richland community. He led nuclear facility operations and readiness at the Waste Treatment Completion Company, a Bechtel subcontractor at the vitrification plant, for the last seven years.
He recently left that job and is now working in Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s facilities and infrastructure operations department.
He does not have previous experience in elected public office.
Nemeth is also a member on the Richland School District Special Education Task Force, a group that has met regularly since 2019 to help correct shortfalls in the district’s special education programs.
“The world of special education is challenging to navigate because you have to be on top of everything and oftentimes you’re working with special education teachers that have a lot on their shoulders. Your student is not their only student,” he said.
As a parent, Nemeth has run into obstacles with getting his children the resources and accommodations they need to learn. He knows the struggles parents go through to advocate for their children, and believes there needs to be administrative improvements to student individual learning plans.
If elected, Nemeth said his priorities on the board would be to restore trust to the board, establish clear and measurable goals for the superintendent, reinvigorate the Special Education Task Force and shorten the time-frame of the district’s corrective action plan and increase transparency.
Nemeth is concerned about Richland’s 2022 spring test scores, which saw 56% of students meet grade-level standards in English, 42% meet standards in math and 45% meet standards in science.
“I think public education should always present itself not as the only choice, but the best choice,” he said.
He believes parents should be more involved in their student’s learning, and said the district should transition from an “opt-out” model for sex education curricula to an “opt-in” model.
“There’s been indications that there are some mistakes that have happened,” he said. “I don’t want the burden to necessarily fall on the teacher. It’s a collaborative effort.”
Nemeth is endorsed by the Benton County Republican Party, but says he has never been involved in partisan politics.
He’s also supported by Byrd and Bird, both of whom have backed the same candidates challenging Oldson and fellow board member Kari Williams, who is also seeking reelection this cycle.
Nemeth personally opposes the recall because he feels it was politically motivated to undo past elections, but said he believes its the choice of the voters whether or not they should be removed.
He ultimately believes each side of the issue should be more focused on recovery from learning loss and academic achievement than antagonizing each other.
Read his voter’s pamphlet statement here: bit.ly/NemethRichland.
