The Stranger Endorses Song Maritz and Sarju for Seattle School Board

 Today, The Stranger released its picks for races in the upcoming primary election. For Seattle School Board, they picked Vivian Song Maritz for D4 and Michelle Sarju for D5. I concur with both picks and I endorse Song Maritz. 

For Song Maritz, they like her finance background, her child of immigrants/first generation to go to college background and that having an Asian on the Board would bring more diversity.

The Stranger feels like Michelle Sarju has many talents and a firm knowledge of her region to bring to the Board. There’s also a funny story about one of her competitors who did show up for the interview. 

To note, there was a candidate forum for the D5 race this week put on by the League of Women Voters King County and Horizon House, a retirement apartment building for seniors. I’ll have a separate post on that.

In case you were wondering about the demographics of the Board and the district:

Board

2 Native Americans (Hampson and DeWolf, if elected Sarju, who is African American, would replace DeWolf)

1 Black (Brandon Hersey who is running almost unopposed for the seat he now holds as an interim)

1 Hispanic (Lisa Rivera Smith)

3 White (Leslie Harris, Liza Rankin and Erin Dury)

District (I rounded up)

Whites 46%

Hispanic 13%

Asian 13%

Black 15%

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Island - .40%

Native Americans - .42%

Comments

Anonymous said…
In addition to having someone with a background in finance, it would be nice to have someone that actually *shows up* to exercise the basic function of the board: approving a budget. Dury was notably absent for the budget vote.

Poor Attendance
7/14/21, 6:12 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, gr...
Read more

Education News Roundup

From the ever-amusing Washington Policy Center : Vouchers are Pell Grants for students under 18.  Vouchers are no different than Pell Grants or GI benefits, except the money goes to the families of students younger than age 18.  Except they are. Pell Grants were created to help needy students and that's not really the goal of the voucher program.  The Pell grant website does have a couple of great studies on why low-income students drop out before finishing their higher ed and what makes a difference.
Read more