On Wednesday, March 13th, the Board Will Select Candidates to Move Forward in Appointment Process

 Update 3:

I am looking for confirmation on these four applicants that appear to be the Board's top choices for the District 2 spot. They are: Carol Thompson, Sarah Clark, Shawn Sullivan and Danielle Gahl. 

I had picked Thompson and Clark but didn't think Sullivan and Gahl would make the cut. 

As previously stated, the candidates from District 4 - all four of them - will go on in the selection process. They are: Gabby Gonzalez, Joe Mizrahi, Rachelle C. Olden and Laura Marie Rivera. 

Next up in the process is the public forum on March 27th at Lincoln High School. Details as they become available. 

end of update

Update 2:

The Board started their Special Meeting to decide on the 4 candidates out of 11 for the District 2 vacancy (while the 4 candidates for District 4 will move on).  It was mentioned that the meeting is being recorded.

President Rankin mentioned the news of a shooting across the street from Garfield High that happened around 4:15 pm where a female student was shot in the leg while waiting at a bus stop. SPD said no one else was injured and the victim was transported to Harborview Medical with a non-life-threatening injury.

The Board was about to go into Executive Session to discuss the D2 candidates and Legal Counsel Greg Narver said it could be a "robust discussion" but no actions/decisions/votes could be taken. Rankin said the vote would come around 5:15pm. 

I will not be able to stay until then but when I am back, I'll review the votes and give you an update. 

One other bit of news - former director Vivian Song's husband was in a ski accident with serious injuries but appearing to be doing well with a long recovery ahead of him. (This was on Twitter.)

end of update

Update:

I neglected to add the info to listen in on the Wednesday meeting:

Remote access:
By Microsoft Teams
By Teleconference: +1 206-800-4125 (Conference ID: 874 281 265#) 

I also neglected to point out that in all this talk at the Work Session, there was no mention of how families or community can give input. I'm hoping to see that by the end of the meeting. Directors did mention reaching out to some communities but it was not clear who or how many. No matter, members of the public should be able to give input on the selection. 

End of update

I finished going through the Work Session at the last Board meeting where directors discussed the process to narrow down the selection of applicants to fill Board seats in District 2 and District 4. 

The Board will meet on Wednesday, March 13th at 4:30pm at JSCEE to decide on 4 candidates for each position.  The Board will vote on D4 first since they have four candidates and therefore are moving all them forward. The meeting will then have an executive session where directors will talk about their highest ranked candidates for D2. Finally, the Board will vote for the final four for D2.

(After the vote, the Board will have a Work Session for two hours on public engagement.)

Here are the basics on the selection.

- They were looking to get to. 3-4 candidates for each position. They settled on four because D4 actually has only four candidates so all four will move forward. They are Gabriela Gonzalez, Joe Mizrahi,
Rachelle C. Olden and Laura Marie Rivera.

- It was noted that they were aware that sometimes candidates do drop out so there may be some attrition happening before the meeting. 

- For D2, they talked about criteria and the upcoming forum on March 27th at Lincoln High School where the final 4 candidates for each position will be quizzed by the board directors including student board directors. 

- There is a rubric that directors will be using before the Wednesday vote with key criteria to assess each candidate's application. There was quite the wordsmithing on this document because the starting point is aligning with the Strategic Plan and the use of targeted universalism to create racial equity. What wasn't stated is that the district is in year 5 of the Strategic Plan so it's unclear if the assumption is that not much will change in the plan.

-  Each director will use the rubric on their own and directors will not be discussing their thoughts to each other. There was some discussion about using an executive session so the directors can freely speak but they cannot do any voting. 

Director Evan Briggs, a newbie, said she felt unhappy with the idea of publicly discussing or voting for candidates "it's like being the last picked for kickball." She said it was "inappropriate and wrong" to discuss candidates in public. Briggs seemed to think that Bellevue SD - also replacing a director - had voted in executive session but both Rankin and Legal Counsel told her that SPS had to follow the law. Legal Counsel Garver stated that "these are people who have chosen to put their hat into the ring."

- Back in 2019 when Director Brandon Hersey was selected during the process to fill an empty seat, here's how the voting process went (and what was agreed to for this time).

Each director gets four picks for D2. Anyone not nominated is out. 

There is then a second round of voting but, this time, directors only pick three candidates. This will further narrow the number. Whoever comes out in the top four will be eligible for the post in D2.

The meeting was tedious for several reasons.

One, it felt like President Liza Rankin came prepared but somehow there was a need for many clarifications which dragged the meeting on. 

Two, the discussion for the criteria for D2 (and eventually D4) seemed disjointed. But the final criteria are these:

- Lived and professional experience - demonstrates diverse experience that will help the Board’s ability to advance student outcomes

- Connection to director district - demonstrates connection via active engagement via organizations, schools, etc

- Understanding of role of board member - demonstrates understand of governance as opposed to management in a manner that advances student outcomes. Evidence of the understanding of the role of the Board director, understanding what the Board currently does an responsibilities. (Editor's note: slightly edited due to a typing error on my part).

- Demonstrates racial equity understanding- demonstrates articulation of targeted universalism and why that is important to student outcomes in a manner that advances student outcomes. Applicant demonstrates understanding of Strategic Plan.

-Collaborative skillset - demonstrates ability to communicate clearly and rationally in a manner that supports the function of the Board in the advancement student outcomes.

Rankin said that in each category they could be looking for "does not, approaching, meeting and mastering." It was never quite delineated how each person could meet each level. 

Briggs brought up that maybe each criteria shouldn't be equally weighted. She said racial equity was her biggest priority. Rankin called for a "shared understanding of what we are looking for." 

In terms of understanding the director role, it was pointed out that it is board governance versus representative governance. Meaning, the role of a City Council member is not the same as the role of a school board director. It was mentioned that they would look for what applicants say on this topic and if they speak about individual work rather than board work. 

Three, it was interesting that student board member Lola van der Neut actually had several great suggestions as acknowledged by President Rankin and others. 

- What does the Board has the power to change or control and power and responsibility. (Added b/c of proofreading error on my part.)

- She said that candidates need to be able to speak clearly and rationally "because when people get defensive and speak in a hostile manner, it is hard to communicate."

- She also said that candidates needed to be "adaptable." 

- She also said something that I laughed out loud at (but the directors chose to mostly ignore). "Do they  (candidates) have to live in their district or is that just a suggestion?" I'm guessing no one told her why Song and Rivera left.

Four, Director Michelle Sarju continues to march to her own drummer. She prefers to stand for Work Sessions (which is fine, maybe she has a back issue). What is not good is that she will make comments off-mic and other directors will answer. Meanwhile the public has no idea what she said. I was quite surprised that Rankin didn't once direct her to use the mic.

She also stated that some people may have a problem articulating an answer quickly and that issue needed to be built in somehow at the forum. Rankin offered that they could ask candidates if there were any such issues present. 

Sarju also tried to make a statement about one criteria and stated, "I should put on my glasses but I won't. It's something about connection." She is a director speaking about a serious job at hand and wouldn't put on her glasses to read something so other directors understand what she is saying?  

She also said she had not read through all the applications yet. 

Five, a bit weird that Superintendent Jones was interjecting ideas. This is absolutely not his role at all. It certainly isn't when candidates are running. I didn't find his comments helpful. 

 

Forum on March 27th at Lincoln High School. Time TBA.

Candidates will give an opening statement of 2 minutes. For questions, they will be limited to 90-second answers with a one-minute closing. Moderators have prompts to cut off speakers. They will rotate who gets asked questions first.

Student board members Aayush Muthuswamy and Lola van der Neut have invited other student members to help plan the forum on March 27th for the finalists from each district. Director Hersey is involved because he is th estudent liaison. He suggested they ask students from the NAACP group and/or the Student Union. Murhtuswamy is to be a co-host but it is unclear who with. The other student member Luna Crone-Barón may not be able to be there.