Candidate Interviews - District 1
Editor's note: I am not interviewing the sitting board member in this district, Liza Rankin. I know her and I know her work so I'm not going to waste her time or mine. I will talk about each sitting director when I put up my endorsements but spoiler alert! I think the Board could use a reset.
Also, in my interviews, I asked every challenger about the new governance model, Student Outcome Focused Governance (SOFG). Most of them barely knew anything and know what? That's not on them; that's on the current Board. The current Board talks about "community values and vision" but doesn't ask community what that means to them. They have publicly acknowledged how big a change this is to the district and yet haven't really done any kind of public outreach. A post at the SPS website is NOT outreach.
So if you go to a candidate forum and you see puzzled looks on the faces of challengers when this comes up, don't write them off. Ask yourself why this Board hasn't done better.
Liza Rankin's interview with the 36th Dems. I will write about this when I do my endorsements.
Here's an earlier write-up I did of candidates with more background info.
District 1 Candidates
Debbie Carlsen - I reached out several times to Ms. Carlsen and received no answer. Here is her campaign website. From the 36th Dems interview and her website, here's what I gleaned:
- 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."
- She is an SPS parent of a trans child at Olympic Hills which is a Title One school. She said her school was losing teachers, a summer program for Sped students and that Jump Start is being eliminated.
-She wants to make sure schools are "safe, welcoming and inclusive." Parents need to know in any given school, how to advocate for their child.
- Several times she stressed her background in "collaboration and coalition building." And she believes solutions "need to be community led." This was a big theme for her.
- She's not the first and won't be the last but when asked about being on the Board, she stressed the lack of transparency in decision-making. She said she wanted to "demystify" the system.
- On the SPS budget and school closures, she said that it is a tough year for all in SPS. She said it would be helpful if the district talked about where enrollment is down, what programs are popular, etc. so that parents could understand better as decisions are made.
Blaine Parse - I had an interview with Ms Parse today and found her open and relaxed. She said she tries to be an optimistic person. She has two children at Licton Springs K-8. She is Native American.
I asked her why she wanted to run. She said that she has a long history in the district and believed there has been much upheaval of families and communities.
I asked her - beyond the legal duties of a Board director - what she thought the role of a director should be. She said, "Community engagement" with both parents and voters.
I asked her about the new governance - SOFG - that the current Board is bringing to life. She said she had heard bits about it but really didn't know a lot.
She said the three things she would want to focus on are transparency, community engagement and the thinking around closing schools.
She has not met the Superintendent but she did wonder why the Board didn't vet him and send him out into the public to talk to communities before they installed him.
She believes every school is unique so in asking her about what she thought a "well-resourced school" is, she said it would be tough to have a blanket answer.
On safety, she has a nephew at Ingraham High so she is aware of the issues there. She said she wasn't sure that the principal at Ingraham - Martin Floe - "has everything he needs" to address the situation there.
I also asked about police officers in schools. She said that it would be hard to just send in officers but that some kids would didn't feel they could go to staff, might turn to a resource officer. She mentioned a program that she had seen where there were retired military resource officers in a school.
She feels the Native American program in SPS hadn't changed the members of its Advisory Committee in a long time and felt they were "set in their ways." The Committee recently got new members and she was glad for that. She said she had been surprised - since she was an active person in the community - that Director Chandra Hampson had never reached out to her.
Michael Christophersen - He ran in the 2015 election. You are welcome to put his name into the search function at this blog to understand why I have no interest in interviewing him and why he's not a serious candidate.
Comments
Given all that we have learned regarding the Whitman/ Ingraham incident, expulsion and re-entry policies need to be looked at to assure student safety. Rankin's total lack of community engagement over the last 3 years alone should be reason enough to not vote for her.
I agree with previous commenter. anyone would be better than Liza Rankin. Rankin appears to disagree with the board majority, but votes are consistent with board majority. Rankin seems focused on a future higher up political potion or perhaps a lobbyist job.
Liza I'm sorry I trusted you. Once elected you turned your back on us. You refused to meet with us and you had zero community meetings. It seems like you have larger ambitions like working in Olympia.
Not honest
Here's is part of Reader Wildcat's statement:
"@sps administrator Why does the color of your skin matter in your endorsement?
"Hello Whitman Community,
I have been informed that our readerboard advertising our Winter concert has been edited. As I have not seen it for myself, I'd like to take an immediate opportunity to address what I am hearing. I have been told that the N in winter has been removed. As my hope is that this is a mistake and there is a letter N on the ground by the sign, my fear is that this was a prank that I will respond to as an intentional act of racism.
At Whitman Middle School we will rise above and denounce any act of hate. Regardless of the intention, an impact is felt by all. We teach our students to honor, celebrate, and love each and every member of our community and the world around them. I would appreciate an opportunity to meet with any individuals involved to begin the education and conversation about such acts.
If you have any information, please respond. I will keep your information anonymous. Our youth deserve to witness a community that puts a stop to this type of behavior.
We will have a thoughtful discussion in our advisory classes on Monday. If you are in the area and see that it has not yet been fixed, please help us out. You can stack the letters by the front office door. I apologize for my inability to clean this up myself.
Thank you for responding and speaking with your students about their value and worth and how we should treat one another.
Sincerely,
Christina Posten"
Reader claims that Posten overreacted on this incident which Posten does acknowledge could have been a prank and not an overt act.
Here's what I can print (and I do this in the interest of not trying to stack the deck either way with comments).
"I worked with Posten for two years and had friends who worked there her entire tenure and are still working there."
" In the time she was our principal there was massive staff turnover."
"She is really good at listening to peoples concerns but very rarely follows through with action steps. Lucy talked about how Posten was an advocate for students with IEPs, which was accurate to a degree. There was a focus on specific types of kids not all of the students with highest needs were considered."
"She brought Mr. Hernandez from her former school site in the Highline district to Whitman mid year her first year as principal he started as a special education IA. That summer the position for student home advocate (the title and position was changed several times and landed at student interventionist) opened and he got the job."
On top of that Christina never recused herself from either interview even though she knew him and it was later learned they are quite close friends. She later was present for and pushed for hiring a former student of hers as the attendance secretary even when the hiring committee did not agree."
" All of this to say that the staff wasn’t taken aback by her work and focus on an equity lens but how it was being used. It didn’t feel like true learning and adjustment of ways but instead as a tool to attack anyone who questioned her and her choices. In the interview she also talked about her use of restorative practices. When staff inquired about the restorative practices we were only told that it was circles but we were never trained on restorative practices or explained the process."
"Maybe Posten would actually follow through with her campaign promises but if it’s anything like her tenure as principal she will over promise and underdeliver again and again. She is a good listener and knows all the right things to say but underneath that the staff at WMS who did not agree with her felt attacked and the culture of the staff hasn’t fully recovered.
"