Seattle Schools Community Forum

Ted Van Dyk, writing about the upcoming election on Crosscut , has this to say about the school board races: The Seattle School Board:   I am voting for the incumbents on the ballot — Peter Maier, Sherry Carr,  Harium Martin-Morris, and Steve Sundquist — with the hope that they will run a tighter ship in their upcoming terms.  All are honest people dedicated to public education.  But the financial scandals unearthed by the state Auditor, the expensive closure and reopening of schools, the acceptance of a goofy math curriculum, and sometimes slack oversight of administrators cannot be repeated. I have heard others take the same view as Mr. Van Dyk. I have heard others say that they believe that the board members are sincerely contrite and will do better after the Pottergate scandal. I'm not sure what improvement Mr. Van Dyk and the others are hoping to see, but it has been seven months since the board members all promised to start doing their jobs and we haven...

Remember back in June when David Brewster of Crosscut wrote this article, An election likely to ratify strong councils ? He wrote: " Lots of fireworks, but I suspect the current board will survive, sustaining the momentum it has created. " He has now been proven wrong in the primary election in which three of the four incumbents for the school board failed to win a majority of the votes in their primary. The fourth won only a slim majority in his district, his strongest base of support, and now has to run city-wide where the sentiment appears to be anti-incumbent. I sure would like Mr. Brewster to follow up his prediction with another article in which he checks his accuracy and analyzes any bad guesses.

The candidates for school board in District VI, representing West Seattle are: Steve Sundquist Nick Esparza Marty McLaren Joy Anderson Please use this space to discuss these candidates' relative qualities, their positions on the issues, and your confidence in their ability and willingness to perform the duties of the office and perform them well.

The candidates for school board in District III, representing Northeast Seattle plus Montlake, Madison Park and Downtown are: Harium Martin-Morris Michelle Buetow John Dunn David Blomstrom Please use this space to discuss these candidates' relative qualities, their positions on the issues, and your confidence in their ability and willingness to perform the duties of the office and perform them well.

The candidates for school board in District II, representing North Seattle around Green Lake, are: Sherry Carr Kate Martin Jack Whelan Mark Weber Please use this space to discuss these candidates' relative qualities, their positions on the issues, and your confidence in their ability and willingness to perform the duties of the office and perform them well.

The candidates for school board in District I, representing North Seattle, are: Peter Maier Sharon Peaslee John Cummings Please use this space to discuss these candidates' relative qualities, their positions on the issues, and your confidence in their ability and willingness to perform the duties of the office and perform them well.

Historically Melissa and I have not made endorsements and we certainly haven't made them speaking as the blog. I think this year we will. But we are just two of the dozens of voices on the blog, so I have made this thread as a place for anyone to make themselves heard. Please take one comment to list your endorsements. I'll make additional threads for people to discuss each election individually. People have their ballots. Now is the time for endorsements.

Endorsement | School board candidates with most promise for reform The Seattle Times believes that things are getting better and that none of the challengers, except Michelle Buetow, has what it takes to serve on the Board. Perhaps they should get some five-week wonders from Teach for America to broaden the candidate pool.

Primary Endorsements from The Stranger From The Stranger: First, let us repeat the long-standing, deeply considered, and eternally unchanging opinion of the SECB as it relates to people clamoring to be let on the Seattle School Board: They are fucking crazy. District I: Sharon Peaslee District II: Kate Martin District III: John Dunn District VI: Joy Anderson You will notice that The Stranger did not endorse ANY incumbents.

Candidates for School Board have some phone banks scheduled. The King County Labor Council will be calling on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings from 5:30 to 8 PM from the Firefighters hall (great caller Id) at 517 2nd West near the counter-balance. Anyone interested really supporting candidates should contact Max Brown at max@mlkclc.org or 441-7102 Other phone banking or campaign volunteer opportunities?

The Seattle Times will announce its endorsements for the August 16 primary this week. They will announce their endorsements for School Board elections on Thursday, July 28. The Municipal League has released their ratings for school board candidates . Incumbents Carr, Martin-Morris, and Maier were rated "very good", Steve Sundquist (his name oddly mis-spelled), was rated "Outstanding". Challengers did not fair as well. Michele Buetow and John Dunn got the same "very good" rating as the incumbent, Kate Martin and Sharon Peaslee were rated as "good". The rest got either "adequate" or "not qualified" except for Joy Anderson for whom they had insufficient information. The King County Labor Council has endorsed candidates in just two school board elections, John Dunn in District #3 and Martha McLaren in District #6. The King County Democrats endorsed Kate Martin and Jack Whelan in District II, Michelle Buetow in District III...

Two more candidates have filed, Michael J. Maddux in District III and Nick Esparza in District VI. Filing closed on Friday at 5:00pm, so I believe this is a final list .

There are now a lot of folks filed as candidates for the upcoming school board elections, including the four incumbents. They will all say something about what they want to do if elected. What do YOU want them to do if elected?

There will be elections in four Director Districts. here are the candidates District I, North Seattle Peter Maier (Incumbent) District II, North Seattle Sherry Carr (Incumbent) Kate Martin District III, Northeast Seattle Harium Martin-Morris (Incumbent) Michelle Buetow District VI, West Seattle Steve Sundquist (Incumbent) Joy Anderson(?) Charita Dumas (?) Martha (Marty) McLaren (?)

Kate Martin has announced her candidacy for the School Board in District II. Sherry Carr currently occupies that seat. Ms Martin is frequent commenter on this blog. She has been following the District closely for about six years. You can read a large body of her work on Seattle schools and public education at www.theseattlejournal.com From her press release: Kate Martin would like to see the District do more of what works, less of what doesn't, and put more of its scarce resources directly in the classrooms rather than layers of administration, excessive high stakes standardized tests and other areas that do not benefit students. She would like to see the District engage proven strategies more and ideological aspirations less. She thinks that all students need and deserve a personal learning plan (Individualized Education Program) and that schools, students and their families need to build stronger relationships in order to collaborate and work from the same playbook to ens...

I'm thinking of making a web site called "Change the Board" in which I - and others - would advocate for the replacement of the school board majority elected in 2007. The site would have a general argument for replacing the board majority in general and would also have specific arguments for replacing each of the four individual board members. The web site would be just one part of a whole campaign. There would be other parts than just the web site. It would include press efforts, rallies, truth-squads (to critically examine board campaign claims), online ads, and maybe even some yard signs. I'm thinking that we could promote "Change the Board" as an independent effort separate from each of the individual challenger campaigns. I'd like to try to build some momentum behind "Change the Board" that could support all challengers. The costs on something like this could be pretty minimal. Would this add to challenger campaigns or detract from ...

Here is the campaign web site for Director Maier . He promises "the leadership we need!" He has a long list of endorsements but little reason to vote for him. I signed up for his mailing list.

Director Martin-Morris' campaign is off and running and he has a new website to prove it. There are several striking features to it.