ODE director’s site visits inform work ahead

Published: April 30, 2024

Travel has sharpened Charlene Williams' understanding of the education work ahead.

Williams was named Oregon Department of Education director in June 2023. She started an ongoing school tour a few months later in Malheur County. She said the trip "immediately opened my eyes to the vast differences in our public school settings here in Oregon."

Williams sat down with the OSBA Sounding Boards podcast to discuss what she has seen and what she hopes comes next. The conversation touched on overcoming negative Oregon education narratives, the school board's role and her priorities for ODE.

Among her take-aways is a need to streamline and simplify ODE's requirements.

"Policies that may look a certain way in a large urban district will play out very differently if there is one administrator completing applications and reports for 140 grants by herself," she said.

As Williams enters her second year, Oregon is embarking on a soul-searching discussion about what it means to fund schools adequately, equitably and reliably. Accountability will run through all the talks, and Williams says ODE has to be accountable to districts as well as being a regulatory agency.

"How we handle, how we manage, how we talk about accountability matters," she said.

She said ODE will be involved in shaping legislation for 2025.

Williams moved to Oregon in 1999 to be a math instructor at Portland Community College. She was an alternative high school principal before joining Portland Public Schools. She became the Roosevelt High School principal, earned a doctorate in education leadership and moved into district administration. Williams was an administrator in Southwest Washington for seven years prior to taking over ODE.

She remains a teacher at heart though, and those moments of classroom learning are still a driving force.

"I could weep over the number of times I've just seen kids … finally catch something and own it," Williams said. "You see those neurons firing and wiring. It's like cognition is happening. There is nothing that replaces those moments."

- Jake Arnold, OSBA
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Podcast link: ODE Director Charlene Williams: "Accountability matters"

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