She leads one of the largest public employee unions in Oregon with intention and purpose, but Reed Scott-Schwalbach ’98 started as an “accidental organizer.”
Her journey to union work began in an education class at 鶹Ӱ, where a guest speaker presented about a local organization looking to improve conditions for farm workers. A Spanish major, Scott-Schwalbach spent the next few months volunteering at farms and migrant camps, helping workers learn how to advocate for better wages, work and living conditions.
She didn’t know it at the time, but that was the start of a long career of advocacy and organization that led her to two terms as president of the .
“The word ‘union’ was never used,” she remembered. “But later in life, I started thinking about that activity as classic community organizing, classic union organizing. I always thought it was funny that I did that work without thinking of it in terms of union organizing, and then later I got very involved in the union.”
Scott-Schwalbach will discuss her experiences in union work and education, and why teachers are natural leaders, at the 2025 STAR Educator Reception on Wednesday, March 12, on Pacific’s Forest Grove Campus.
She believes that if you work in education, you are an advocate, and students and schools thrive when everyone brings their perspective to the table.
“A school is an ecosystem,” she said, “and an ecosystem means that all of us have to work together to make it better. If one of us sits back and decides not to share our perspective on how things could improve, we lose out as a community and the school becomes a less rich ecosystem.”
Now in her second term as president of the OEA, Scott-Schwalbach advocates for over 42,000 educators working in pre-kindergarten through high school and at Oregon’s community colleges. Her 25-plus years of involvement with the union began as a Spanish teacher in the Centennial School District in Gresham, where she was involved with the district’s union. Her presidential term ends in July 2025.
Prior to her election as president, she served four years as vice president, served on both the OEA and National Education Association boards of directors, and held appointments to several state committees, including the Oregon Educators Benefit Board.
Scott-Schwalbach is the third consecutive OEA president with Pacific ties. Hanna Vaandering ’87 served as president from 2013 to 2017. John Larson, president from 2017 to 2021, saw his son Jon Larson ’14 earn a music education degree from Pacific.
Scott-Schwalbach was elected OEA president in 2021 as educators grappled with the realities of providing instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those challenges hammered home to her the importance of having people who work in schools at the same table with state decision-makers.
“Our primary job is to elevate worker voices in those decision-making spaces, whether with the legislature, whether that be with a school board or school administrators with contract negotiations, or with community members,” Scott-Schwalbach said. “We talk about the reality of public education, the hopes we have for improvements, and we clarify perceptions about what students need when they come into our spaces to learn and grow with us.”
The passion to bring together as many voices as possible has led to some of Scott-Schwalbach’s pinnacle moments leading the OEA. During her tenure, the organization has strengthened relationships that have helped secure additional supports for funding and structures in public education, such as the educator apprenticeship program. The OEA also leveraged its membership to develop five-year strategic metrics for legislative agendas and advocacy priorities.
Scott-Schwalbach also established NEON, a leadership development program for new educators, and established a summer leadership development program for newly elected local leaders. The OEA also realized a 25% increase in new hires joining the union over her four years.
In the OEA’s offices in Tigard, she also oversaw a project to develop and install a museum-style timeline detailing key moments in the organization’s history dating back to 1858. The timeline also chronicles moments in state and federal educational history, providing an eye-opening look into the evolution of the profession.
Like any good leader and advocate, Scott-Schwalbach has learned some valuable lessons of her own along the way. That creating change is a slow process, despite the desire to make change quick and immediate. That anyone can be a leader and to help build leadership skills in others. To take the time to over-communicate. Clarity is critical.
They are lessons she started learning at Pacific and in those camps and farm fields. And as her presidential term expires, those lessons inform her thinking about what might come next.
“Sometimes we look at certain jobs and we think, ‘I could never do that. I could never be a legislator. I could never be a state leader or a local leader.’ I see people every day doing amazing work who come from a huge variety of backgrounds,” she said. “It has reminded me that any of us can do really amazing things in any role that we’re in.
“It’s not that I have some sort of magical powers or magical skillset. I’ve learned from the teams that I have worked with. And this job is giving me a chance to deepen skills that I never thought that I would develop.”