Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek this week nominated two people from Central Oregon to serve on the state’s top education policy board.
Amanda Page, a Redmond School Board member and recent candidate for Deschutes County Board of County Commissioners, and Sonya Littledeer-Evans, a juvenile justice leader who lives in Jefferson County, were nominated for the Oregon State Board of Education.
They are among two of dozens of nominees for various boards and commissions Kotek submitted Monday to the Oregon Senate. A Senate committee will consider the nominations in September, according to a press release.
Anna Ingram, an administrative program assistant at the University of Oregon, was also nominated for the State Board of Education.
The nine-member board — made up of mostly educators and local district officials — is in charge of approving and implementing education policy created by the governor and legislature. That could include things like graduation requirements, instructional time or school safety. According to its website, the state board’s mission is to provide “equitable policies and practices that lead to the educational and life success of every Oregon student.”
“I think the state board has a lot of power to really change the direction of public education,” Page said in an interview with the Source. “I’m mostly just excited about it and looking forward to doing the work there.”
Littledeer-Evans didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. According to her LinkedIn profile, she has served as the Deputy Director of the Deschutes County Juvenile Community Justice department since 2014 and was a supervisor at Jefferson County Juvenile Justice Department for 14 years before that.
An enrolled member of the Klamath Tribes, Page works as a paramedic and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor for Life Flight, an emergency air medical transport service. Page has served on the Redmond School Board since 2023. She was reelected in May 2025.
More recently she made a bid for a seat on the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners, but was eliminated in the May primary, gaining 21% of the vote.
One policy discussion Page said she anticipates tackling is the return of graduation requirements — mostly standardized testing — which the legislature suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, the state board extended that suspension through the 2027-2028 school year.
“How do we transition out of that to make graduation requirements be meaningful and truly mean that kids are prepared and ready for the next step for them?” Page said.
She added, “How are we judging that? What does that look like? Because if it’s just standardized tests, that might not be the best way to evaluate students. In fact, for a lot of students, it’s not.”
Another question some board members are grappling with has less to do with education and more to do with the role of the board itself — and how much sway it truly has in shaping policy.
Page will replace state board member Shimiko Montgomery, a former school board member for Bend-La Pine Schools. As the end of Montgomery’s state board term approached in June, Kotek denied her application for reappointment. At a board meeting a few months earlier, Montgomery and other board members had spoken out against Kotek’s executive order setting instructional time requirements for schools, raising concerns about the financial effects for districts facing budget pinches.
The timing of her application denial, Montgomery said during a June meeting, “has raised questions about the independence of this board and whether thoughtful critique from our board is welcomed by the Governor’s office.”
Another board member, Becky Tymchuck, also stepped down in June. She told OPB the education board’s role felt more like a rubber stamp than anything else.
Page said she spoke with Montgomery prior to accepting the Governor’s nomination because she had similar concerns.
Page told the Source she plans to, “explore how far our boundaries go” when it comes to influencing policy.
“When you find those boundaries aren’t full enough, and they don’t cover enough ground for you to actually make meaningful, important changes that you know are going to improve outcomes for students, then it becomes your role to advocate for more power,” Page said.
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