Who's Running for Seattle School Board? Another Incumbent Signs Up

Update 4:

It appears that we have seen the last of candidates filing for the Seattle School Board elections in November. 

District 1

Michael Christophersen

Blaine Parce

Jonathan Assink

Liza Rankin (incumbent)

Debbit Carlsen

District 2

Christina Posten

Lisa Rivera Smith (incumbent)

Janai Ray

District3

Christie Robertson

Ben Gitenstein

Evan Briggs

District 6

Rosie McCarter

Gina Topp

Maryanne Wood

How many of these people will still be there come Monday at 4:30 pm? That's the final hour to withdraw and not appear on the ballot.

One observation I have is that the number of men running has continued to drop from previous elections. This has been a pattern in the last three elections.

I have begun interviews with candidates so look for those posts to come.

end of update

Update 3: 

Well, that didn't take long.

There is now a fifth person in the District 1 (Rankin district) race. The newest candidate is Debbie Carlsen.  Here's a link to her campaign site.  

She is a self-described "non-binary working class white queer person (she/they)." "My family is neurodivergent, mixed race and LGBTQ+. My partner is mixed blood Alaskan Native, and my kiddo is South Asian." Her child is a kindergartener this year. 

"As an out LGBTQ+ person I want to champion a LGBTQ+ and racial equity lens on the school board. Representation matters in policy development and budget decisions, and it is imperative we have LGBTQ+ representation at the highest level of decision making in our school district."

She is a part-time early-learning educator and student. She also consults on pre-K issues. She taught ELL for 5 years. She is on the Olympic Hills Elementary PTA Board as well as being active in the 46th Dems. She has also served on the Special Education PTSA Board. It appears she has been an advocate to the legislature on issues like student mental health, funding, safety, inclusion and a more diverse workforce.

She has also done writing for the Real Change newspaper. She has done public speaking at the Washington STate Nonprofit Conference on Bi-POC nonprofits. 

There is also now a third person in the District 3 (Hampson district). He is Ben Gitenstein. Here's a link to his campaign website which is titled "We Deserve Better Schools." He gets right to his point:

The Seattle School Board and Superintendent are failing our kids. We should hold them accountable.

Vote for me or don’t vote for me. That’s up to you. But please, demand that your School Board actually does their job.

He is an SPS parent and is an ex-Microsoftie who is the product lead for AWS S3 Lifecycle. 

We help AWS customers manage the lifecycle of their data to save money and control their data. I work with customers, engineers, marketers, and sales folks. I own the strategy, message, pricing, and product definition for everything related to S3 Lifecycle. (Editor's note: this is with Amazon.)

He also consults for Screentime which is a great group that supports understanding of screen usage by children. It appears he is married to its founder, Emily Cherkin.

He has an intriguing higher ed background: BA in Philosophy and Religious Studies followed by an MBA from the Foster School of Business at UW.

He also says he is "annoyingly optimistic."

Here's an article he wrote for GeekWire in 2021 on "unstructured data."

 There are now three candidates for each of the four districts so there will be a primary race.  

end of update

Update 2:

I see another challenger in the seat held by Director Rankin. Her name is Blaine Parce and she  appears to be a Licton Springs K-8 parent. It appears that she is Native American. Her LinkedIn page says she has been the volunteer coordinator at Olympic View Elementary for the last 9 years. I couldn't find a lot about her.

It is now noon and I see no other filings, either at the PDC or King County Elections.

Update 1:

I'm hearing that there may be yet another challenger in the District 1 race which is Director Rankin's district. Tomorrow is the deadline to file. This could get interesting.

end of update

Director Lisa Rivera Smith has decided to run to retain her seat in District 2. This makes three in this race; Rivera Smith, Christina Posten, and Janai Ray. 

I think that Rivera Smith has weathered her time on the Board fairly well; meaning, she has listened and grown and found her voice. I wish she would push back more against the majority. Yes, I know that they could freeze her out (and I have no doubt that Hampson did that to the majority when she was Board president) but you can't be less of a director than anyone else. 

I remind readers that Rivera Smith found herself in the fortunate position last election of not having a challenger. Folks thought I had something to do with that and I didn't. I can tell you what did happen. 

She filed and a couple of days passed. I heard from some people about me running and I said I would if no one else did. Next day there was no one else and I filed. (That is the first and only time I filed to run in my long career as a district watcher.) My main concern is that I don't like anyone to just walk into office, whether I think them qualified or not.

Then came another candidate (whose name I can't recall, a woman) who looked to come from the Alliance for Education crowd and I then withdrew. Unbelievably, the next day, this woman also withdrew. And so it was that Rivera Smith had no challenger. 

To her credit, Director Rivera Smith attended all the debates and answered questions. She did not just sit back and relax.

Because she hasn't pushed back much in an obvious way on some issues so I'm not sure I know where she stands on some issues. It will be good to interview her and see her at debates. My only advice to her is that it's fine to have a quiet voice but she needs to slow down when she is speaking as it is sometimes difficult to understand what she is saying.