A few words on what these first weeks as City Council Vice President look like. To sign up for regular updates from my office, head over here. To contact my office directly or read past newsletters, click here.

As this year winds to a close, I’ve been thinking a lot about community. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been solo with my kiddos while my husband is in New Zealand, finally getting to see where his little brother has lived and taught for six years. This change in our routine has reminded me how important it is to lean on community. Friends and neighbors have been helping with school pick-up and drop-off, taking my kids for playdates, bringing meals, and just stopping by to hang out.

Building community feels good. Last week, PAT held a winter celebration potluck to bring together teachers, students, and families, and to mark our hard work during this wild year. In my classroom, community looks like third graders forming a “Supporting Our Unsheltered Neighbors Club” and collecting warm socks and blankets for BeaconPDX’s winter drive. In our Sunnyside neighborhood, it looks like a neighbor collecting household items for the many resettled Afghan families who are starting over in Portland. If you have items to contribute to either of these efforts, please drop a line to info@teachertiffanyforthepeople.com and I’ll connect you. We can do so much when we do it together. 

In my classroom we have been holding our annual reading of Jasmine Toguchi, Mochi Queen by Debbi Michiko Florence, a Japanese American author who we hosted at Sunnyside and Richmond last year. Students learn about Mochitsuki, the ceremony for making mochi, and Japanese American traditions at the beginning of a new year. Earlier this month, I took my own kids to the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) holiday party, where we decorated cookies, got to meet an Asian Santa, and felt the joy of being with—wait for it—community. 

Campaign-wise, I’ve started setting aside a chunk of each week to do “call time,” which has been a surprisingly fun, only kind-of awkward way to connect with friends and catch them up on the City Council race. I am enjoying Oregon Labor Candidate School (teachers also sometimes go to school!), and I’m preparing a mini presentation on the PATCO strike of 1981 for my cohort. I was accepted into the next Emerge campaign school cohort, and will start that in January.

In other news, like families all over Portland, I tried, and failed, to get my kids into Rec and Park swim lessons. I also took my kids to Great Wolf Lodge, aka Vegas for children, which was possibly the most fun they’ve ever had. Then yesterday I stayed home with my youngest, who was sick, and thought a lot about what it means to support families. I thought about parents who work, whether out at jobs, or at home taking care of kids and elders. I thought about grandparents and aunties and neighbors who step up when needed. I can’t wait to get to work next year supporting families and building community in Portland.

I’m wishing you a peaceful, joyful holiday season. Let’s get together in the new year.

[image: Members of the Portland JACL board take a photo with Santa Claus at the holiday party. Photo by Rich Iwasaki.]

We did it! After nearly four weeks of a historic strike, Portland Public School teachers secured a contract that genuinely improves the lives of teachers and the learning conditions of our students. I was proud to represent PAT on the picket lines and in these local and national news stories about the strike.

We have all experienced so many emotions this month, from joy at seeing thousands of families and kids out on the streets to show support, to frustration at the back-and-forth email blasts and competing narratives, to extreme fatigue at figuring out what our kids were going to do from one day to the next. I’m a PPS educator and a proud PAT member, but I’m a parent before anything else–a PPS parent. My family was also holding the anxiety and stress and uncertainty that accompanies any transformative labor action, but especially one that involves our precious kids. There is a lot of emotion to process around this strike, beyond the excitement of negotiating a great contract and the relief of returning to school.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow educators and the families we serve was the honor of a lifetime. Now, as we move forward with a contract in place, we create the blueprint for how to take the wins of the strike and turn them into more wins, more investment in our schools and our city and our people. That’s the promise that I am making as your candidate for Portland City Council in District 3.

This month I prioritized standing with my PAT family on the picket lines over campaigning. I’m feeling so much joy at being back in my classroom with my students, and so much conviction about getting to work on the next phase of my campaign as we enter 2024. Can we count on you to become a sustaining donor and chip in $20 per month?

Thank you for all your support.

Love and solidarity,

Teacher Tiffany

You may have heard the news: Yesterday, 99% of Portland teachers voted to authorize a strike. For me, this is an incredibly proud and personal moment, the culmination of years of organizing to advocate for better conditions in our schools. Kids and families in our community deserve better, and it’s been so inspiring to watch teachers, parents, kids and fellow school professionals in my community stand up to fight for it.  

Last week, hundreds of teachers and school personnel gathered with parents, students, and other community supporters at a school board meeting in show of community solidarity for strike-ready teachers.

Last week, the Portland Mercury published a great feature on what teachers are asking for, which discusses one of the issues I am most passionate about—the fact that many Portland teachers, especially those just starting out, can no longer afford to live in the communities where they teach. This is a problem that extends far beyond education, but it hits especially close to home right now. “Workforce housing”—housing that is affordable for middle-income workers like police officers, firefighters, teachers, health care workers, and retail clerks—is something I plan to focus on if elected to City Council. 

I have been amazed and overwhelmed by the community support for the issues that the union has centered in their bargaining platform—from improved teacher pay to help teachers live where they work and help schools attract and retain amazing educators; to smaller class sizes and healthier buildings that center kids’ learning; to enhanced behavioral health supports for students in crisis. 

“The core thing is that this is about the kids. We can’t afford not to center them and invest in them.” —Tiffany Koyama Lane, Portland Mercury

Read the full Portland Mercury article.  

There is still time for the district to offer a contract that addresses our most important demands, and I hope they will. But if they don’t, we are ready.