June 2007
Fall School Board Races Matter
When polled last fall, an overwhelming percentage of voters – 73 percent of them – gave the Seattle School Board bad grades.
Seattle School Board Job Rating
ALL VOTERS
22% Positive
73% Negative
5% Unsure
Parents of Seattle public school children had even more negative views
about the school board. Only 16 percent of parents gave the Seattle School
Board a positive job approval rating; the other 84 percent gave them thumbs
down. There was no gray area – every single parent polled had an
opinion about school board quality.
Seattle School Board Job Rating
PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS
16% Positive
84% Negative
The same research confirmed that the closer to the classroom you get, the more people approve of what’s going on. An impressive 73 percent of Seattle voters give our teachers high marks. That support rises for public school parents: A whopping 90 percent give Seattle’s teachers positive job approval ratings.
Job the Seattle Teachers are Doing
ALL VOTERS
71% Positive
21% Negative
8% Unsure
Job the Seattle Teachers are Doing
PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS
90% Positive
7% Negative
3% Unsure
The fact that the Seattle School Board has low job approval
ratings is not news.
If you have gone to a school board meeting or watched one on cable access
TV, or if you know people who have done so, or if you read a newspaper,
or if you are listening on the playground or in coffee shops, you know
that the Seattle School Board has had a tough go of it. Schools First,
the citizens’ group that works to pass levy and bond measures for
the Seattle School District, recently released research that confirmed
the obvious.
If our seven school board members had lifetime appointments, or if our teachers were not doing a good job, we would be in trouble. But school board members are elected to four-year terms, and Seattle loves its teachers. And four (a majority) of the school directors are up for re-election this November.
DISTRICT 1 (North Seattle): Peter Maier (www.petermaierforschoolboard.com) is running against the incumbent, Sally Soriano (www.sallysoriano.org).
DISTRICT 2 (Green Lake): Two candidates, Sherry Carr (www.carr4kids.com) and Lisa Stuebing (www.stuebingforschools.org), have filed in this race. Darlene Flynn, the incumbent, has not announced whether she will seek another term.
DISTRICT 3 (North Capitol Hill, downtown, northeast Seattle): Harium Martin-Morris (www.harium2007.com) is a declared candidate. The incumbent, Brita Butler-Wall, has announced that she will not seek re-election.
DISTRICT 6 (West Seattle): Steve Sundquist
(www.sundquist4schools.com)
is a declared candidate. The incumbent, Irene Stewart, is not seeking
re-election.
Here is what you need to know about the school board elections:
- They matter. PAY ATTENTION!
- You have to be registered to vote in order to participate. Go to www.metrokc.gov/elections/register.htm#register and download a voter registration form if you have moved. Consider becoming an absentee voter, because that is where we are headed.
- Each of the seven school board members represents a certain part of the city. Check www.seattleschools.org/area/board/districts.xml to see which neighborhoods and which schools are in which board of director district.
By June 8 we will know which candidates are running for which seats. But the press is not likely to pay much attention until the fall, by which point the contestants will be narrowed down to two in each race. There are two important details about the August primary election:
- It is three weeks earlier this year (Aug 26). We used to vote in September. Absentee ballots will be mailed the first week of August.
- In the primary, you will only be able to vote for a candidate if you live in his or her board of director district. If you live in one of the parts of town that just elected its school board member (e.g., Southeast Seattle) and you have opinions about the upcoming school board elections, don’t panic when your primary ballot does not have any school board races on it. When it comes to the general election in November, everyone gets to make a choice in all four of the races.
Please do your homework and research the candidates and their skills. Check their Web sites and see what the candidates stand for, what they have accomplished, and who is supporting them. The newspapers and many civic groups will make endorsement recommendations after interviewing the candidates and examining their records.
We have a tremendous opportunity with Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson, our new superintendent, coming on board, and these school board elections, to rally behind a new, positive direction. We can – and we must -– regain the confidence in our schools that has been compromised largely because of the school board.
So please pay attention. This is a democracy. These are our public schools. Who governs them matters.
Lisa Macfarlane is a past president of Schools First. She has volunteered on the last seven levy/bond campaigns for the Seattle School District. Macfarlane is also active on the statewide education advocacy scene through her work with the League of Education Voters. For 13 years, she was a proud Seattle School District parent.
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