Just To Be Clear on Director Brandon Hersey and His Relationship to the HYA Rep

Recently, I found out that Director Brandon Hersey knows the HYA lead guiding the Board's search for finding a new superintendent. That lead's name is Micah Ali. 

In April, there were a couple of Superintendent Search meetings that the Board had to do the work. At one of them, Director Hersey told his fellow board members that he knew a colleague who worked as a consultant at HYA. This is fine.

However, I didn't know at the time how much deeper the relationship between Hersey and Ali is. Hersey told the Board that Ali was a "colleague" but Hersey has described Ali on Instagram as his "mentor." That's very different from just a colleague. 

Two things. 

One, I think that Hersey should have stated this relationship when he voted for HYA to get the contract. THAT was the time, not in some meeting that very few people would know about. The public has a right to know about that relationship because, of course, it may color how Hersey thinking on finding a new superintendent. If Ali tells Hersey (and only Hersey) that Candidate A is really better than Candidate B, will Hersey push for that candidate without telling the rest of the board why?

Two, I suspect that HYA has many consultants. And, it was good that Hersey DID say he knew one of them. 

But it is fascinating that for all those consultants, the one that HE mentions is the exact person who was called on to oversee the work for the Seattle School Board's superintendent search.