Parents Rise Up Against Board President Liza Rankin

 From the Seattle Times:

Parents file recall petition against Seattle School Board president 

A group of parents launched a petition to recall the Seattle School Board president amid lingering dissatisfaction over the district’s school closure plans and concerns about ongoing multiyear budget shortfalls.

The five parents allege that Liza Rankin oversaw a rushed and improper school closure process and failed to engage communities or be transparent about critical district decisions. The parents also charge that Rankin did not perform the level of oversight expected of a school board director and has not held the district accountable for improving student academic outcomes. Seattle Public Schools has not met the math and English language arts targets it set for Black male students.

“Each of these repeated failures not only rise to the level of misfeasance, malfeasance, and/or violation of oath of office,” the petition read. “They endanger the future of Seattle Public Schools, they hinder and undermine the education of Seattle’s children, and they do damage to the public’s trust in a foundational civic institution.” The parents filed the petition in King County Superior Court on Friday.

The parent petitioners are:

- Ben Gittenstein, a 2023 School Board candidate and parent

- Janai Ray, a parent of three SPS students

- Annie Becker, the co-advocacy chair at Sacajawea Elementary School and parent of four SPS students;

- Rebekah Binns, a former SPS teacher and parent at Graham Hill Elementary School

To note, this petition has to get the sign-off from a judge - meeting some lawful standard - and THEN the parents can start gathering signatures.

They’ll need the valid signatures of legal voters equal to 25% of all votes cast for Rankin’s seat the last time it was on the ballot — or 48,659 signatures. Rankin was reelected last year.

According to Rankin:

Rankin said Tuesday afternoon that she’d just received the petition. Legally, she said, she bears no more responsibility for the School Board’s actions than other directors do.

“My vote has no more weight than any other board member,” she said. “As board president, my job is to run the meeting.”

Yes, her vote is the same as other directors. However, she does have power that they don't like who is on committees, what gets on the Consent Agenda, etc.

The petitions also say the board stepped back district oversight when it removed key committees, including Audit & Finance, in 2023. Doing so eliminated oversight of consequential administrative decisions, and the fallout has shown up in many ways, including in cost overruns on major construction projects, they said.  

The parents also accuse the board under Rankin’s leadership of reducing opportunities for public participation by halving the number of monthly public meetings and making it harder for residents to participate.

Honest thoughts from Ms. Binns:

Binns said she signed the petition because Southeast Seattle has often felt neglected and ignored by the School Board and she wanted the region’s schools to have a voice.

She’s been critical of the district’s community engagement efforts on school closures, which she likened to a check-the-box exercise. None of the sessions over the summer was held in South Seattle, Binns said.  

“My hope is that because the district seems to listen to lawsuits, they’ll actually listen,” Binns said. “It’s a shame it takes taxpayers’ money for them to listen, as opposed to engaging. I don’t understand why it’s so hard to engage with people, talk to people, visit them and ask them what they need.”