Sarah Wofford

Sarah Wofford is president of the Oregon School Employees Association, which represents about 24,000 classified school and college workers in 140 chapters statewide. Since 2012, Wofford has been a member of OSEA’s Rogue Community College Chapter 152, but her journey as an activist began before she was a teenager. When she was 12, she went with her sister to a Pride march in Eugene and gained her first sense of how people are stronger together.

Wofford works as an accounting specialist at Rogue Community College in Grants Pass, Ore. When she first joined OSEA, she focused on grievances and communications, and in 2015, she was elected president of her local chapter. For the next few years, she took an active part in statewide activities, serving on the state government relations committee. In 2019, she was elected to a regional seat on OSEA’s board of directors. In 2022, she was elected president of OSEA.

Wofford is a twice-elected member of the Josephine County Democratic Precinct Committee. She was elected vice chair of the AFL-CIO Southern Oregon Central Labor Chapter, making that labor table the first and only female-led CLC in Oregon.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Governors University, and she attended the Oregon Labor Candidate School in 2020-21.

Wofford likes to point out that nearly everyone can remember their favorite custodian, cafeteria worker or school secretary. To this day, she remembers her bus driver in elementary school, Mr. Reagan. He showed his young riders kindness and brought them to school and home safely every day. The daily interactions between support staff and students make a big impression because these employees play key roles in their students’ lives.

Wofford lives in Southern Oregon with her daughter, dog and cat.

August 2022