"Those goals are ambitious," he says. "They're a stretched goal. Every one of them. In the minds of some, almost unreasonable. But I don't think they are. They're going to force us to reinvent ourselves to really pivot away from the way business and the work were doing into a new reality of education."

The Principal Recovery Network of building leaders who have experienced school shootings is pressing for several billion dollars worth of mental health and safety support for staff and students.

The district's financial crisis is particularly striking given the relatively healthy local economy and increase in education funding recently passed by the Legislature.

Funding for schools, literacy programs and special education teachers in Oregon—a state where 60% of third graders can't read at grade level—could be jeopardized by a Republican walkout that has stalled hundreds of bills and derailed the Legislature for nearly six weeks.