Deian Salazar was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He graduated from David Douglas High School. His career experience includes working as a community activist, policy advisor, and as a member of the Executive Board of the Multnomah County Democrats.[1][2]
General election for Portland City Council District 1
The ranked-choice voting election was won by Candace Avalos in round 13 , Jamie Dunphy in round 16 , and Loretta Smith in round 16 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.
Undeclared Write-insUndeclared write-in candidates may advance past the first round in some ranked-choice elections. If the official source reports write-in votes by candidate name, Ballotpedia displays them alongside the ballot-qualified candidates. However, if write-in votes are reported without a name, they will instead be included in the total write-in votes figure in Round 1. Please consult the official elections source for more details about unnamed write-in candidate vote totals past Round 1.
0.6
277
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There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source
Total votes: 42,871
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Salazar in this election.
Deian Salazar completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Salazar's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
I'm a proud David Douglas graduate, former foster youth, and lifelong advocate for youth and the downtrodden. I'm running for school board because our kids deserve better—and I have the lived experience and policy know-how to deliver. As someone who grew up in East Portland, attended David Douglas schools, and now serves as a policy advocate and community leader, I've seen firsthand the gaps in our system.
I’m a multi-ethnic descendant of undocumented immigrant farmworkers with Pueblo and Latino roots and a single mother. So I understand firsthand the struggles our diverse communities are experiencing.
As a policy advocate, I have experience developing and implementing effective solutions to complex problems. I have worked with community members, organizations, and government agencies to develop and implement policies that support student success and well-being, including policies related to education, healthcare, and social services.
I’ve advised on and fought for over 60 million dollars, to invest in youth on the Portland Children’s Levy, worked to expand economic opportunities for diverse youth on the Governor's Child Foster Care Advisory Commission on Oregon Commission on Autism(including social services co-chair), and served as policy advisor for popular community leaders.
I'm ready to help ensure all our diverse youth succeed, just as I've done my entire career.
Investing in Education: I believe that every child deserves access to quality education, regardless of their background or circumstances. As a school board member, I will prioritize early childhood education, supporting teachers, and reducing class sizes to ensure that our students receive the best possible education.
Empowering Youth Engagement: I am committed to providing our youth with the skills and opportunities they need to succeed in today's fast-changing world. This includes career development training, trade skills, and STEM education, as well as partnerships with local businesses and organizations to provide our students with real-world experience and job opportunities.
Representing the Community: As a unique candidate with a diverse background and experience, I am committed to representing the diverse needs and perspectives of our community. I will work tirelessly to ensure that every student, parent, and community member has a voice and is heard, and that our school district has better outcomes for every single one of our students.
As I reflect on my personal passions, I am drawn to areas of public policy that promote cultural preservation, education, and youth empowerment. I believe that our diverse cultures, traditions, foods, languages, and people are the fabric of our community, and it is essential to preserve and celebrate them. As someone who has lived with autism, ADHD, and asthma, and come from a family with Latino and Pueblo Indigenous roots, I understand the importance of fair policies that support all members of our community.
Too many that are not accessible to the average audience, at least in how I perceive and interpret their messages and implications. I would encourage people to look to individuals for more understandable ideas of how I would act as an individual in office. Individuals such as former Senator Bobby Kennedy show the high standards I hold myself to as a school board member-such conduct is applicable to leadership in any position one finds themselves in.
Integrity: One must place the people above their own interests or dreams. Corruption has no place in society. Those who partake must be held accountable and bear responsibility for placing profit over people. Elected leadership is a privilege, not a right.
Staying Engaged: Leadership must remain in touch with the needs and issues of the people they represent. If they stray too far out of touch with the problems of their constituents, they have a much harder time being effective for their constituents. They should always strive to remain informed and avoid the culture of insulation of perspective elected office tends to reinforce.
Interconnected framework: Every system is part of a much larger system that all effects things beyond our control and comprehension. We must always keep this in mind, and be prepared to consider the consequences of our decisions, because we cannot go back, and can only learn from our mistakes. It is thus imperative that we are prepared to deal with the consequences, and look at policy as a holistic system where we must consider all potential effects. It is through that we can better prepare to tackle the issues of today and tomorrow.
Oversight: Our job is to facilitate the best outcomes with minimal resource expended for our diverse working families in our district. We must work tirelessly with a focus on fairness and quality outcomes for all, and scrutinize every dollar spent as if it were the last. For the public has entrusted us with their money, and therefore we must be responsible in spending it smart and responsibly.
Student Success: As said before, our job is to facilitate the best outcomes for all in the district. That means ensuring all our students get adequate resources, supports, and have a diverse menu of options for where they want to go in life and how they get there. That means providing them alternative learning methods, tools, and quality instruction. The success rate of our students reflects our success as a district.
Safety: Our schools are where children spend half their lives before adulthood. That means we have a responsibility to ensure that every student receives adequate attention, support, and are emotionally, mentally, and moral guidance so that they become the best, happiest adults they can be. This requires significant attention to their socioemotional health needs, teaching them how to be ethical and treat others, and how they are going to interact with society so they can thrive. We must reward good role models to set an example for others to aspire to while being themselves and not someone they act. Through all of this and more such as protecting our mental healthcare programs, we can keep our kids safe for all students, and begin to solve these historic mental health and school safety crises our world is experiencing.
We are elected to help guide the district in ensuring all our youth are receiving quality education, receive equitable and fair outcomes for all, and are provided the resources, they need to succeed-in life and in the workforce. This is one of the biggest responsibilities society can put on one's shoulders, and it requires people with the utmost readiness to bear these responsibilities.
Most people don't know what school boards do, and what they can or can not do. This makes effective communication, community engagement, and commitment to students vital to be successful. As a long time advocate for the needs of diverse youth and communities, I am prepared on day one to start solving problems in this difficult time.
Students, parents, community stakeholders such as Unions and local Businesses, and working families. We are the ones who set up the future workforce and influence the future of how the community is designed, structured, and succeeds. This requires an all hands on deck approach so that we can set up our whole community for success.
Right now, we face a stark budget deficit, made worse by the likely freezing of federal funds to the state's school districts. This means that we must be creative to help cut that gap down to size. Sharing resources across districts to eliminate administrative redundancy and improve service delivery, reforming our bidding processes to invest in the best of our partners' and contractors' local programs, and investing in more community involvement are all crucial steps we must take to solve this support crisis.
I've already been actively involved with stakeholders as a member of the Portland Children's Levy Community Advisory Council and other positions on which I've served. My focus will be on expanding our partnerships with local Unions and Businesses, Community Organizations such as IRCO, and bringing in long neglected organizations providing services to crucial populations to build a true coalition providing real collaboration with our school district.
We already have a career and technical education center, and I am pleased and eager to further build on this program to provide diverse career options for our diverse students. This means working closer with Unions, Businesses and other organizations and stakeholders to provide valuable opportunities for our students.
State Representative Travis Nelson
Multnomah County Commissioner Vince Jones-Dixon
Portland City Councilor Loretta Smith
Portland City Councilor Dan Ryan
Portland City Councilor Jamie Dunphy
Former Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran
Port of Vancouver Commissioner Eric LaBrant
Reynolds School Board Member Cayle Tern
Centennial School Board Chair & Centennial Community Association Chair David Linn
Former David Douglas School Board Member Aaron Barrow
APANO Action Fund
Latino Network Action Fund
Hands on, back and forth, active and conversational. It is an environment where the students learn as much from each other as they do from staff, where they are forging lifetime social relationships setting them up for long term socioemotional, academic, mental and career success through forging lifetime connections. And where they grow academically, ethically, and as people through every class. The bond between teacher and student is sacred, beautiful and requires the utmost standards to ensuring the students are safe, supported and successful.
I will aim to attend community events, listen to feedback and concerns, and work to establish easier processes for parents to provide input to the board.
I believe we should prioritize hiring teachers with Master's degrees across diverse communities that have a stake in the district. We should be ensuring we provide quality pay and benefits to staff, and modernize our administrative processes to more effectively service our comunity.
Our responsibilities are sound fiscal stewardship and rewarding the public's trust.
This means that we are to act in a manner befitting public servants, and ensure we are using our resources the most effectively and fairly we can for our community. We should abide by our personal codes of ethics that we were elected supporting. Furthermore, we should ensure that our budgets are accessible to the public for input and alternative options.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Deian Salazar completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Salazar's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
I am the Disabled son of a LatinX Working Class Mother, and Community Activist.
I am an advocate for Low-Income Working Class Americans, Youth, and our BIPOC Communities. I am a David Douglas Graduate who is proud of my community and dedicated to making our Education more equitable, and providing crucial services to all. Reform is badly needed, as we are a fantastic district with an aging structure. More Diversity and reimagining Education will allow us to give our students a fighting chance while ensuring everyone is respected, and their needs are met.
My experience as a Latino Youth with Autism and a member of the Multnomah County Democrats Executive Committee equips me with a unique perspective and experience, that has me prepared to lead.
Martin Luther King Jr. inspires me as a person fighting a unjust society for my rights and the rights of all. He was a relentless advocate for justice for the disadvantaged. It is thanks to him and other Activists of Color that we have come one step closer to his dream.
Yet it is not finished. His dream of racial justice was also economic, and to this day we are still fighting for his goals. Universal Basic Income. Minimum Wage as a Living Wage. Universal Health Care. Reparations for African-Americans. And so much more left unaccomplished.
I am a dedicated fighter for change who seeks to get things done. We must continue to fight for a more equitable world, where racial justice and economic justice is achieved. We must pick up where MLK left off. That, is my firm belief, of what we all must do, if we call ourselves Americans.
The New Testament of the Bible. The Persona 5 Animation. Ace Attorney the Anime. All odd choices indeed, but the themes they carry are timeless and impactful. Fiction is evolving, and it is time we take the new wave seriously. I am a person with diverse influences, but those are good places to start if you don't want to track down a wide variety of tangentially related media.
I believe that anyone who lacks integrity simply will do more harm than good. Drive is needed to be constantly motivated to push bold, innovative changes. And communication is the key to passing policy that keeps a community unified.
A open mind, and Progressive worldview is key to succeeding.
I am a disabled, young person of color with leadership experience as a elected official. I possess the values, the experience, and the temperament to fight for the needs of our students.
Regular Communication with Students, Staff, Teachers, and the Community is a must. Active participation is also crucial, as that is your job. You must also be willing to fight whoever you need to in order to secure the resources your district needs.
A school system that is more just, more equitable, and is raising the next generation of leaders, where every student lives a life with a incredible job.
I love many books. LOTR, King Arthur, so many Mangas. So I am going to cheat here and recommend a phenomenal film instead, though it's a classic: "The Princess Bride". It's such a wonderful tale that I never tire of watching.
As an Autistic, I can occasionally struggle with close relationships, admittedly. Social Awkwardness, restraint, lack of reading situations, or poor phrasing can be an issue in very specific situations. Albeit, that is in my personal life, not my political one. It has though, caused myself some pain.
They are the best prepared to listen to the needs of their communities on a regular, if not daily, basis. School Board Members also have far more power than most believe they have. We can provide for Low-Income Families in the district, cutting their expenses and allowing them to have more to spare, thereby increasing our own income, creating a healthy cycle where we give to the community and they give back.
We raise the next generation of Workers, Writers, and Politicians. This is an excellent opportunity to teach them who has their back so they can fight for their needs and the needs of others. Students deserve a Fair Education that equips every single one of them with the tools to succeed. They deserve to be taught about Unions, have a school system that gives them opportunity to pursue their dream, and to be treated with respect and dignity.
The primary job of a School Board Member, in that case, is to fight for the needs of the students, district residents, staff, and parents. If we all fight for each other and the underrepresented communities i.e. communities of color, we can deliver a truly incredible future to the next generation.
Communities of Color, Immigrants, Refugees, Low-Income Families, and people with disabilities provide the bulk of our community. The Middle Class is an important part, and deserves to have a equal voice at the table along with all the others. I will fight for the rights of every underrepresented community in our school system, until we reach a truly equitable structure and curriculum.
We need to both change the culture of Douglas to be more inclusive, as well as hire many more BIPOC and Female Teachers and Staff in the years to come. Many older teachers and Staff are older, white males, and while there is nothing wrong with that, this is an opportunity to make the school system more representative of the communities they represent with many retirements coming up.
We also need to overhaul how we treat students of varying abilities and from different communities. Every disabled student, immigrant, refugee, and student of color deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, as well as given the tools they need to succeed.
We will teach less Eurocentric Literature Classes, diversify our Curriculum, and allow more teacher flexibility. This will ensure that every student has an education tailored to their needs and passions.
I am a fighter for communities of color, Low-Income Families, Teachers, and Unions.
Therefore I will definitely reach out to many local organizations for input on developing Policy. They will all have a seat at our table.
We have many students who go into the workforce. Therefore, it stands to reason they must know Unions have their back. Low-Income Families desperately need more support, as the current Board Communication Strategy has lacked transparency and communication.
Teachers have been neglected in our District for far too long, and we can change that by giving them a seat at the table and advocating for pay rises and healthcare. We can pass a resolution advocating for Medicare For All, putting pressure on Public Officials to support our community.
Communities of color are hugely important, especially in our District. We need to reach out to them and ask them what their needs and concerns are. They must have the opportunity to help craft district policy, facilitating greater public say in our system-which is the root of Democracy itself.
Yes. Many older staff are retiring, and this gives us the excellent opportunity to recruit without pushing anyone out of a job. We can focus on giving many BIPOC Applicants the fair shake they deserve, and ensure that our staff is more representative of our community. No community will be underrepresented. We will change the culture to be more inclusive and tolerant, and fight to improve their working conditions, as well as have a Zero Tolerance Policy for Workplace Harassment of any kind.
We have a Education System that is old. We need to modernize many teaching methods, allow more teacher flexibility, and end outdated methods such as Standardized Testing, and modern homework, both of which promote memorization instead of learning.
We need to provide greater access to more materials for students that speak different languages, and ensure that students with disabilities have the tools they need to succeed.
We will regularly take surveys to determine both student satisfaction, and judge effectiveness of the teaching methods. We will have staff that can provide constructive criticism and offer new, innovative solutions to staff struggling to maintain both student satisfaction, and solid achievement levels. Student happiness and abilities are both paramount to our system and should be top priority.
I think apprenticeships for students and advanced technical training are wonderful ideas that must be handled in ways that take into account student interest, as well as ensure a safe, healthy environment for the students that sets them up for success.
We can do lots of things, like host community strikes, hold community events, head to Salem, etc. We can and will fight like hell. We can fight budget cuts tooth and nail.
I saw a disturbing amount of bullying and harassment at Douglas. I believe that everyone deserves a safer, more welcoming community that gives them the ability to succeed. It's just that simple.
We need to expand our Mental Health Programs and ensure that it is equitable distributed to ensure communities of color, disabilities, and all genders have access to them.
We will ensure that every student has adequate mental healthcare. As someone with Autism, I am fully aware of the intense need for equitable mental health.
Hybrid role. We can adopt a system that works best for each individual student. In addition, we can work on improving our current video-classes to ensure that in the future, every student has the support they need to succeed. Technology should not be a barrier to success, but an asset. We can develop educational programs that engage and reward students for learning. We must fight for Free Internet For All.
We must ensure that every student has adequate safety, and then we can start socially distanced, outdoor classes that can allow greater socialization and communication in a safe, effective way.
I will arrange many local events where I will be available to meet parents and discuss the needs of their students. I will keep in touch and discuss with them to make sure they have a say in our district's work.
I will facilitate more transparency and communication than my peers, to ensure that many parents have a direct line of communication and regular correspondence with me personally.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
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