NEWBERG, Ore. — While local students are enjoying their last days of summer break, preparing to learn everything from prose to math equations, Newberg-Dundee School District Superintendent Dave Parker said he’s working on a math equation of his own: how to fund the beleaguered school district after the failed levy in May.
Newberg-Dundee Public Schools students return to class Monday, Aug. 31, as the district begins a new effort to address the budget and staffing imbalance that followed the May failure of a five-year local option levy.
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Students in grades 1 through 5, grade 6, grade 9 and the Catalyst program start Aug. 31, according to an Aug. 21 message from Superintendent Dave Parker to families. Grades 7 and 8, along with the remainder of Newberg High School, begin Tuesday, Sept. 1. Kindergarten students attend a “soft start” on either Sept. 1 or Sept. 2, and the district’s regular Wednesday late-start schedule begins Sept. 2. All grades will be in session districtwide by Sept. 3.
The return follows a challenging spring and summer for the district’s finances. Voters rejected Measure 36-239 on May 19, a five-year levy that would have raised an estimated $6.1 million annually for district operations. The Newberg-Dundee School Board subsequently adopted a budget with $5.7 million in cuts and the elimination of 35 positions, 25 of them from the classroom, according to prior Newsberg reporting.
To address the underlying enrollment and staffing imbalance behind those cuts, the district is forming a District Restructuring Committee that will hold its first meeting Thursday, Sept. 3, according to Parker’s Aug. 13 memo to families. The committee will also meet Sept. 17 and Oct. 1, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., in the West Commons at Newberg High School. Each meeting will be livestreamed, with a link to be shared before the first session, the memo said.
Parker said each school is contributing four parents and four staff members to the committee. Newberg High School will not have a dedicated team, he said, because its enrollment is drawn from across the district rather than a single neighborhood boundary.
According to the Aug. 13 memo, the committee will review reconfiguration options developed by the district and weigh them against a consistent set of criteria: student learning, balanced class sizes, financial sustainability, student safety and transportation, and keeping neighborhoods and school communities together where possible. The committee’s role is to provide feedback, not make a final decision, Parker wrote. Any decision on reorganizing schools remains with the Newberg-Dundee School Board.
Parker said the restructuring conversation stems from years of enrollment decline that has left several elementary buildings without enough students to staff classrooms evenly. Four of the district’s schools now have two or fewer teachers per grade level, he said, which forces a choice between an oversized single classroom of roughly 30 to 36 students or splitting a grade level into two classrooms of about 17 students each.
“We’re either way too large, or we’re way too small,” Parker said. “We would love to have smaller class sizes, but with our financial challenges it wouldn’t be responsible.”
He said the district previously examined adjusting school boundaries to balance enrollment but found the changes would not shift enough students to resolve the imbalance. Parker said he hopes to bring a restructuring recommendation to the School Board by October or early November, which he said would give the district time to plan staffing and budget changes ahead of the 2027-28 school year.
The district’s financial strain mirrors a broader statewide debate over school funding. Oregon’s Quality Education Commission recommended this month that lawmakers increase state K-12 spending by nearly $2.5 billion to maintain current service levels for the 2027-29 biennium, and by close to $5 billion to meet new state accountability and attendance targets, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle. The recommendations face a skeptical Legislature, where several members have questioned the funding model used to produce them, the Capital Chronicle reported.
Parker said district costs are rising faster than state support.
“The increases in cost for us are far outpacing the increases in revenue that we’re getting from the state,” he said.
Despite the financial pressure, Parker said most students are simply looking forward to the new year.
“I think we’re just everybody’s really excited to get back to school,” Parker said. “That’s the funny thing about all of the adult stuff is: school is starting. We’ve got football games coming up, kids are excited to go back to class, and we’re excited to have them there. On one hand, yes, we have lots of kind of community decisions that have to be made. On the other hand, these students are only going to experience this grade one time. We have a great staff, and they’re going to make it as incredible of an experience as possible.”
Residents can follow the district restructuring meetings on a live stream or recording from the district, and district officials say they plan to set aside time for board members to hear directly from the public, according to the Aug. 13 memo. A link to the livestream is expected to be posted before the Sept. 3 session.
