GERI WASHINGTON
OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: Executive Secretary, Union Organizer, Community Organizer
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: Grant High School; Mt. Hood Community College, Elementary Education Major.
PRIOR GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIENCE: Director Multnomah Education Service District, Position 5, Zone 1, 1999-present; Office of Neighborhood Involvement, mediation volunteer; Governor’s Task Force on Environmental Justice; Oregon State Health Division, HIV program; Albina Community Plan advisor; Interstate Urban Renewal Advisory Committee; MLK/Fremont Vision Task Force
As MESD Director for North and Northeast Portland, GERI WASHINGTON has given a voice to parents and students who are left out and left behind by our schools. As a single mother of three, Geri knows the struggles of working parents. As a youth worker, community activist and labor union organizer, Geri is a proven leader.
In her four years on the MESD board Geri has focused on keeping children in school and ensuring that all students succeed. She has pushed the board to consider the needs of low-income, immigrant and minority children and their families. Geri organized parents and staff to achieve a dramatic turnaround with Alternative Pathways, MESD’s alternative schools program. After years of no success, the re-organized program graduated 80 students in 2001 and 100 more in 2002.
GERI WASHINGTON serves as chair of MESD’s Public Information and Outreach committee, chair of the Program Evaluation committee, and on the MESD Foundation Board.
She has been employed as an organizer by the Urban League, Jobs with Justice, the Environmental Justice Action Group, Service Employees International Union, Basic Rights Oregon, Coalition for a Livable Future and as a public health advocate for the City of Portland and the State of Oregon.
GERI WASHINGTON is endorsed by the Portland Rainbow Coalition, Erik Sten, Serena Cruz, Rex Burkholder, Jackie Dingfelder, Jo Ann Bowman, Carl Flipper, Lucinda Tate, Jeri Sundvall, Jamie Partridge and MESD directors: Jean Haliski, Sy Kornbrott, Ron Chin, Harry Ainsworth, and Janice Gratton.
(This information furnished by Friends of Geri Washington)