Who’s Running for Seattle School Board?
As of May 17th at 3 pm, it’s pretty sparse.
For Eden Mack’s seat in District 4, only interim director Erin Dury has filed.
For Zachary DeWolf’s seat in District 5, no one has filed. DeWolf declined to run again which was probably wise as he would have lost.
For Betty Patu’s seat in District 7, only interim director Brandon Hersey has filed to run.
Per this story from the South Seattle Emerald, Michelle Sarju announced her candidacy for the District 5 seat but it appears she has not yet filed with King County Elections. She is endorsed by Zachary DeWolf which normally I would consider a bad thing but as I said the last time she filed (and then withdrew), she’s an intriguing candidate who I believe would be her own person.
I feel sure that there will be challengers to Hersey and at least one will probably be Emijah Smith who lost to him during the appointment process for that District 7 seat.
And I hope there are other candidates than Dury for District 4 because 1) I think every race should have two people in it and 2) Dury should have to fight for that seat.
The final day for filing is May 21st. Updates to follow.
Comments
Dury foolishly voted to raise the threshold for district expenditures. Hersey mysteriously was absent for this very important vote. As well, Hersey voted to eliminate the only HC pathway in the poorest section of town and voted to essentially privatize Washington Middle School.
The horrifying science adoption, saddling our kids with Amplify, was a dereliction of duty, and we had a couple of half decent folks then. Lesley voted for Amplify... so that telegraphed she’d given up the ghost. Even Rick Burke joined in on terrible votes. So really, what’s the point?
And now the board is all about depriving education from our education system, which is so sad because it is not an “either or” they seem to make it so . Kids are capable of studying institutionalized racism while also studing calculus. But it seems to some that if all kids aren’t capable or desirous of studying calculus, then no kid should be allowed to ever study calculus, at least that’s the synthesis of where California is landing, and I can’t imagine Seattle is too far behind.
By depriving students of takiing Biology in 8th grade, for example, they are very much depriving kids of garnering multiple AP sciences under their belt before they head off to college. Costing them time and money, as well as competitiveness for college entrance and the joy of learning. What’s the education pedagogy behind that removal of Bio and the derailing of learning? Deprivation is not a pedagogy. To be clear, the biology didn’t cost anymore, and there were no kids failing or being inadequately educated. This was purely about politics of deprivation.
That’s but one example. Depriving kids of algebra in sixth grade, another example. Again, didn’t cost anymore, and every single kid flew through that no problem.
However it’s not politically acceptable to challenge this and push back in Seattle public schools at this point, Sps seems incapable of holding two things at the same time, they seem to feel offering remedial math and high-level math is inherently racist so therefore let’s eliminate the high math. That’s my take away, anyway. Of course it’s very unproductive to do that, and eliminating higher courses merely creates a constituency who is now looking at non-SPS alternatives. It’s almost as if the Sps staff and board are working in cahoots with charter schools.
Anyway, that’s why I think nobody is getting hot and bothered about running for board, compared to previous cycles. There’s no there there. Why bother showing up when the answer is a foregone conclusion.
The saddest part of all is the kids are the losers. No kid is getting good science anymore until perhaps higher level high school courses. And of course the most vulnerable, those furthest away from educational justice, they’re really getting the worst of it, because you can’t have a thriving school system if those in power are willing to single out and destroy educational opportunities for any particular type of learner. Because today, “X” learners might be who’s in disfavor, but tomorrow, who knows, it could be “Y” learners who are disfavored. We’ve been there, and it’s bad.
So nobody’s running for board because there’s no point. Can’t affect positive change by focusing on the meat in the sandwich, instead you’re gonna have to endure staff who insisted grades them selves are racist. Can’t affect positive change by focusing on the meat in the sandwich, instead you’re going to have to endure staff who insist that grades them selves are racist. And also, the BIG elephant in the room: anybody smart enough to think they might run for board, they’re going to smell the gigantic deficit that’s looming, A huge mess to clean up, which is probably why no decent superintendent would come anywhere near Seattle. One look at the books and they know what’s next school closures .
So yes, there’s a paucity of folks running for the board. See the 2017 satirical/comedy/horror movie, “The Death of Stalin”: we can’t find any doctors to come to us because we’ve shot all the doctors...
Blue Bus
PS - watch this comment get attack as whining or racist or both... it’s about LEARNING, nurturing kids, not about the adults in the room....
Dog Days