Seattle Schools Community Forum

Let's start with this disclosure: I agree with Director Geary. Here's what she said at the Board meeting on January 4, 2017 during a discussion of the CSIPs and, specifically, the description of advanced learning services in those CSIPs:

District 6 Last night, the King County Labor Council voted to rescind their dual endorsement for Marty McLaren and Leslie Harris to a sole endorsement for Harris .  It appears that Jonathan Knapp played a hand in getting the dual endorsement back in May but McLaren's apparent lack of support for teachers during the strike changed minds. Letter from King County Labor Council to Marty McLaren. As well, Teamsters Joint Council 28 recently endorsed Harris.

It happens every single time there are school board races - that it is VITAL to vote and get the right people on the Board. I will admit that last time, in trying to find good candidates for a couple of races, I certainly got fooled.  I really thought that Sharon Peaslee and Marty McLaren were change agents.  They did present themselves that way even as I realized they really didn't know the district well. My vetting of them found two fired-up women ready to come in and ask hard questions.  Well, that really didn't happen (or it was piecemeal and uneven). I read everything I could find online and attended five candidates forums.   Here are my picks for School Board, some with comments and some I just decided that I will let the candidates' words speak for themselves.

The Stranger - in their madcap manner - have endorsed Leslie Harris for Position 6 (over incumbent Marty McLaren) and Jill Geary for Position 3 (over Lauren McGuire). 

A little corner of hell froze over at about 5 pm today as the Seattle Times endorsed challenger, Leslie Harris, over incumbent, Marty McLaren saying: Voters should chose (sic) Leslie Harris for Seattle School Board District 6 They go on to say - in the first sentence - "Voters should oust incumbent Marty McLaren from Seattle School Board District 6 and bring in longtime parent advocate Leslie Harris." They use words like "detail-oriented" and "analytical" and "transparency" to describe Harris. They described McLaren as "complacent" and complained that she could not give a "substantive example" of her consensus building at their editorial board meeting. They mention the third candidate in the race, Nick Esparza, as well. Swinging back the other way, they chose the candidate other than Jill Geary in the District 3 race.  I put it that way because the Times didn't even have the grace to name Geary as her oppon...

Update: make that three.  Leslie Harris , SPS parent and paralegal, is running in District VI which is Marty McLaren's seat. Also to note, the actual filing date is not until May but these people are indicating, by registering at the PDC, that they are setting up campaigns. End of update. One person running is incumbent Sharon Peaslee from District I. The other is semi-retired lawyer Jill Geary running in District III which is Harium Martin-Morris' district.   She's friends with former mayor, Mike McGinn, and has worked on Sped issues.  She has a child at Laurelhurst and has been active on their PTA Board.  She also has a child at Ingraham and one at Hamilton.  (She also has one child in private school and one in college.)  District III is also my district.  No contributions to either campaign as of yet.