Salem-Keizer School Board Race Takes Shape

Heyen won't seek re-election. Anti-transgender activist files to take her place.

Hey now, SKP doesn’t often get to dabble in a “breaking news,” but we happened to spot a few quiet, but significant, developments in the May 2023 Salem-Keizer School Board election.

Former School Board Director & current board member Marty Heyen has decided not to seek re-election.

According to anti-education group SK We Stand Together, Heyen, who has well-documented ties to anti-government and white nationalist groups, will “retire” from the school board.

Image grabbed from the SK We Stand Together website. I’m not linking to them. They suck.

According to campaign finance records filed with the State of Oregon, local anti-transgender activist Casity Troutt will seek Heyen’s seat. Troutt helps lead SK We Stand Together, and has close ties to Oregon Moms Union, an anti-union group dedicated to dismantling and defunding public schools.

Screenshot from Oregon campaign finance records. Blocked out candidate’s home address.

Troutt also has an impressive list of embarrassing failures to her name, including:

• Leading multiple anti-mask demonstrations during a public health crisis

• Organizing an anti-transgender demonstration to protest district policies that allowed staff to create accommodations for transgender students.

• Attempted to have the school district ban a book written by a black scholar because she found the diverse perspective upsetting. She failed.

• Organized recalls against 3 progressive school board directors because she disagreed with decisions they made. All three failed.

• During her recall campaign, she took an excerpt from a memoir out of context and framed it as pornography - which she then paraded around the community. It was honestly very, very weird.

So, y’know….weird choice for a school board candidate, but what do I know?

Two other seats on the Salem-Keizer School Board are on the ballot in May 2023.

One is Danielle Bethell’s former seat. Appointee Robert Salazar has been in Bethell’s abandoned board seat since she quit on her Keizer constituency in October 2022.

And we wrote recently about the third seat - the first person to declare for Salem-Keizer School Board in 2023, Satya Chandragiri, here:

Satya Chandragiri, 2023 Salem Keizer School Board Candidate: Behind the Money