Past Engagement
Spring 2025
Over the past year, the Oregon Governor and members of the state legislature asked the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to make the state’s education spending more transparent to Oregonians, helping to ensure that we are collectively accountable for our investments in K-12 public education. As part of that work, ODE has prioritized creating a data dashboard that everyone can use when they seek information related to education funding and spending in Oregon.
As ODE began to plan for and create that financial data dashboard, they sought to better understand how education partners and community members currently use educational financial data and how they would like to access and use such data in the future. ODE partnered with Oregon’s Kitchen Table (OKT) to hear about people’s needs related to financial data transparency and their preferences related to a data dashboard.
Between January and March 2025, OKT staff conducted 15 interviews and 6 small group conversations with approximately 45 people across the state. The people we talked with are in a number of roles in how they relate to education in Oregon and come from a variety of communities and types of schools, from the most densely populated urban areas to very rural areas.
The OKT summary report identifies themes and areas of uncertainty or disagreement for ODE to consider. It also suggests places where more information and engagement might be helpful as ODE continues to develop the data dashboard.