The Stranger Endorses Jen LaVallee for School Board
They retained all their other nods - Kathleen Smith in District 2 (and apparently they did revisit both candidates), Joe Mizrahi in District 4, and Vivian Song in District 5.
Given how close the vote was in the primary for Smith vs Clark, it will be interesting to see what happens in the General.
Ditto for District 7 where this was The Stranger's first opportunity to compare the two candidates, Jen LaVallee and Carol Rava.
Here's what they said:
This is an election between a senior UX designer at Amazon and a Gates Foundation alum. We don’t love either candidate, but we’ve got a binary choice here, and we’ve chosen Jen LaVallee.
LaVallee is an organizer who pushed back against the woebegone school closure plan. She helped orchestrate the “Billion Dollar Bake Sale” protest in Olympia to put the legislature on blast for their consistent failure to live up to their constitutional obligation to fully fund public education. The organizers wanted an additional $4 billion a year for education. Their point was this couldn’t be baked into existence, and districts couldn’t stuff this gaping budget wound with tax levies, or suture it with cut programs, forever. Real legislative solutions are needed.
In these financial conditions, a school district needs to be held accountable for managing its resources and connected to what the community actually wants. LaVallee is a conduit for parents, she cares about equity, and, like her opponent Carol Rava, is for stricter budget auditing.
Rava beats LaVallee on experience. She’s been in the education policy game for 25 years. She’s not a zealot for the Gates Foundation. When we asked for the foundation’s single worst education policy, she gave us an honest bushel. There’s an argument her arcane knowledge could set this district straight.
Experience is one thing, outlook is another. Rava was too soft on School Resource Officers (SRO) and dodged our question about whether the teachers’ union was a “reliable partner” or “encumbrance to education.” Meanwhile, when we asked LaVallee if she would choose enrollment or serving the students in the district, she recognized that the district doesn’t have to choose. We trust LaVallee to think through these questions without limiting the district’s options for sheer lack of imagination. Vote LaVallee.
LaVallee is an organizer who pushed back against the woebegone school closure plan. She helped orchestrate the “Billion Dollar Bake Sale” protest in Olympia to put the legislature on blast for their consistent failure to live up to their constitutional obligation to fully fund public education. The organizers wanted an additional $4 billion a year for education. Their point was this couldn’t be baked into existence, and districts couldn’t stuff this gaping budget wound with tax levies, or suture it with cut programs, forever. Real legislative solutions are needed.
In these financial conditions, a school district needs to be held accountable for managing its resources and connected to what the community actually wants. LaVallee is a conduit for parents, she cares about equity, and, like her opponent Carol Rava, is for stricter budget auditing.
Rava beats LaVallee on experience. She’s been in the education policy game for 25 years. She’s not a zealot for the Gates Foundation. When we asked for the foundation’s single worst education policy, she gave us an honest bushel. There’s an argument her arcane knowledge could set this district straight.
Experience is one thing, outlook is another. Rava was too soft on School Resource Officers (SRO) and dodged our question about whether the teachers’ union was a “reliable partner” or “encumbrance to education.” Meanwhile, when we asked LaVallee if she would choose enrollment or serving the students in the district, she recognized that the district doesn’t have to choose. We trust LaVallee to think through these questions without limiting the district’s options for sheer lack of imagination. Vote LaVallee.
I sure wish I knew what "an honest bushel" that Rava gave The Stranger Board was. Then I could see if hers matched mine.
And what a mistake to dodge any Stranger question.
Vote LaVallee.
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