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  "description": "A retired educator with deep Forest Grove, Hillside, and Gales Creek-area roots, Linda Harrington was chosen from eight applicants to fill the school board seat left vacant by Kate Grandusky's resignation.",
  "path": "/linda-harrington-appointed-to-fill-forest-grove-school-board-vacancy/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-25T18:43:51.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.newsinthegrove.com",
  "tags": [
    "resignation",
    "June 23 meeting"
  ],
  "textContent": "Linda Harrington, a retired educator who grew up in Forest Grove and spent more than four decades in Oregon schools, was appointed to the Forest Grove School District Board of Directors on Tuesday, filling the seat left open by Kate Grandusky's resignation.\n\nBoard members appointed Harrington to Position 4 by a unanimous vote after interviewing candidates at the June 23 meeting. She will serve the remainder of the unexpired term, which runs through June 30, 2027.\n\nEight people applied for the appointment after Grandusky stepped down. Each candidate who attended the meeting answered additional questions from the board before members deliberated and voted, the district said.\n\nIn a statement posted Wednesday, the district called Harrington its \"interim director\" for Position 4. \"I am honored to have been selected for this position left by Kate Grandusky's resignation,\" Harrington said. \"I know it was a tough decision for the Board, as they stated many times during the process. All of the candidates were great candidates. I am so looking forward to serving our students, their families and the greater FGSD community for the 26-27 school year ahead.\"\n\nHarrington graduated from Forest Grove High School in 1974, earned a master's degree at Pacific University in 1985 and retired from the Hillsboro School District in 2023 after 45 years as a teacher and administrator. She spent the last 13 years of that career as principal of an option school in Hillsboro that served homeschooling families. For the past three years she has worked as an administrative substitute in Forest Grove, filling in at Neil Armstrong, Harvey Clarke, Fern Hill and Tom McCall.\n\nShe moved back into her family's Forest Grove home in 2020 to help care for her father. Her roots in the area run deep: she wrote in her application that her father's family, the Clapshaw brothers, bought homesteads in the Hillside community in 1875, and her mother's family, the Oppenlanders, farmed land straddling Gales Creek. Harrington said she decided to apply after listening to Grandusky talk about her years on the board at an earlier meeting.\n\nIn her application, Harrington said her priorities include keeping students enrolled through options such as homeschool outreach, gifted programs and early college, along with supporting staff after what she called a rough year in the schools.\n\nGrandusky, a Gales Creek resident first elected to the board in 2011, announced her resignation at a board meeting in late May, more than halfway through her fourth term. She told fellow board members she was immigrating to New Zealand, where one of her children lives. Her resignation took effect June 10.\n\n## Other applicants\n\nSeven other people applied for the seat. The details below come from the written applications they submitted to the district.\n\n**Cameran Murphy** is a parent of a 13-year-old and serves on the board of Outside the Frame, a Portland nonprofit that helps homeless youth make films. She wrote that she wants the district to consider taking its own position on classroom technology and artificial intelligence, including reducing daily reliance on Chromebooks.\n\n**Celina Giron** , of Cornelius, is a registered nurse and a 1994 Forest Grove High School graduate with three children who have attended district schools. She completed Emerge Oregon's training program and is a former Echo Shaw Elementary parent club president. She wrote that she has attended board meetings since January and wants to strengthen engagement with families who are often underrepresented.\n\n**David Freas** is a librarian at the Cornelius Public Library and the parent of two district students. He wrote that he is motivated by literacy and students' social-emotional wellness, and that he would like the district to limit classroom technology shown to hurt student attention.\n\n**Juan Muñoz** , an educator who has lived in the district since 2021, began his career as a lawyer in his native Ecuador before immigrating to the United States in 2016. He has two children in the district and served on the Cornelius Design Team and in community interviews during the superintendent search. He wrote that he would bring legal, educational and immigrant perspectives to the board.\n\n**Matthew \"Mat\" Greeley** , of Cornelius, is retired and served in the U.S. Marine Corps. He grew up in Forest Grove and attended district schools from Harvey Clarke through Forest Grove High School, and his mother has worked for the district since 1990. He wrote that he favors evidence-based decisions and wants to keep class sizes small.\n\n**Nicholas Hafez** is a retired pharmacist, president of the local Kiwanis club and a past Pacific Northwest Kiwanis governor. He has served on the district's budget committee for five cycles and its equity committee. He wrote that he ran for the board last year and applied again out of a focus on students and fiscal responsibility.\n\n**Viviana Bruno** , a Forest Grove High School graduate, is the founder and creative executive director of Arte in Motion, a nonprofit that runs after-school arts programming in district schools. A former first-grade dual language teacher, she holds a master's in teaching from Pacific University. She wrote that she would focus on wrap-around services for students and the district's Portrait of a Graduate.",
  "title": "Linda Harrington appointed to fill Forest Grove school board vacancy",
  "updatedAt": "2026-06-25T18:43:51.706Z"
}