The Board must ensure that we have a good balance between the input from “the folks on the ground” and decisions based on data, best practices, and tangible outcomes. Make use of the comments from the many customer satisfaction surveys that list Communication as something that needs improvement – review and apply some of the recommendations that people have sent to the District. As a Board we have requested and supported the use of interpreters and translated materials, and devices for the hearing impaired. Many important documents are being translated into the largest language groups. Privately, partners have emerged from the Special Education, Advanced Learning and Bilingual Education areas. We have other partners too: Seattle Council PTSA, CPPS who we can work with to engage families in the decision making process. Other partners include the Alliance for Education, Schools First, and the League of Education Voters, to name but a few.

For eight years, I have held community meetings in my district --- sometimes twice a month when topics are very controversial or complex and people need time to unravel information to see how it affects them and their child's education. When needed, district staff attends these meetings to answer technical questions. Currently, three other Board members are also holding community meetings as inspired by my effort.

I was the first Board member to institute breaks at School Board meetings so that Board members can engage attendees and answer questions. As Board President, I was the first to direct and institute Superintendent response from the dais on concerns raised during pubic testimony at Board meetings. Many times when incredible ideas have arisen from the rich discussions at my communities meetings and I give credit at Board meetings. I pushed the District to publicly disclose the budget fiasco that ensued, accountability and equity become part of our lexicon, and parents from diverse parts of Seattle have come together to work to-wards similar goals e.g. CPPS. I have continually encouraged openness, honesty and de-manded the district respond when questions are raised. I have made strides toward moving the district from a calcified bureaucracy toward a more democratic, collaborative system. We still have much work to do.

I want to continue holding myself, fellow board members, and the Superintendent account-able to the public. One way to ensure this accountability is by frequently making ourselves available to the public either at community meetings or at forums. I want to hold more meetings in schools – including our legislative meetings as we did at Rainier Beach High School.

For the past 16 years, and intensely in the past 6 months, I have actively sought out the input from Central area principals, teachers, administrators and hundreds of parents in the Central Area to be sure I had a grasp of what was happening on the ground prior to throwing my hat in the race. The conclusion I came to was clear. We need a definitive culture change in our district. Our community has lost confidence in our board. Board members should be the ambassadors of the school district. At their core, the current Seattle School Board of Directors are dedicated and intelligent citizens who have made some excellent decisions in the past 2 years. But the perception of the board is quite different. I believe that my communication and marketing skills would compliment their strengths. My ability to create excitement, enthusiasm and passion for educating our children would enhance our relevance as a board and further the mission of the highest level of excellence in education.

I would work to create an aggressive not passive communications strategy. We have to make our district client centric. We can use current technology to reach out to parents with internet access and also create pathways through community and family centers (with organized outreach) to glean the feedback we need from parents and community that do not have internet access. Parents should be the best “marketers” of the district, running the Kindergarten open house, showing the positives of local or site based programs that serve as district models.

We should have an ongoing strategy so our Kindergarten teachers engage in community outreach to new students and pre-school parents and their children, with the support of parent volunteers. We need to bring expectant mothers and new parent INTO our schools for parenting classes and once comfortable in our schools (which should be palaces) they immediately become our clients.

As a board, we should hold STUDENT meetings with various populations regularly. If you want to know what is wrong – ask the children – they will tell you. WE MUST focus on hearing their voice. If we are to truly serve the client, then we have to solicit regular feedback in roundtable discussions that have give and take.

Regular board meetings should be less about “surprise” and more about validating parent concerns. If we reach out to parents and community members with our agenda topics for upcoming meetings (those who have indicated they want to contribute) PRIOR to voting meetings, collate the feedback into 10 most cited concerns and 10 best new ideas - then TAKE the body of feedback into our work sessions, board members will make decisions based on community concerns and ideas. We also need to demand professional presentations of all policy proposals in a manner that is easily understood and complete with the facts and figures in a manner that gets to the heart of any policy and how it affects students every day.

The most important duty is to set policy or review proposed policy that focuses on achieving these goals. We need to hone our skills not only as communicators, but as decision makers as a part of a collaborative unit. Rigorous debate is an important part of the process, but we need to relieve parents from feeling like they have to be “watch dogs” – and create a successful collaboration that leads to best practices and the confidence that comes from knowing the best idea is what is driving our district. I want to be very clear here, MOST feel like we have talked the issues to death. What we need now is change informed by all the input we have and will have ongoing. I am a change agent and I hear this message. Which is why the many key legislators have endorsed me from the districts within position 5 and beyond, including Skip Priest, State Education Chair, Jamie Pederson, 43rd State Representative (soon to have children in our schools), Mary Lou Dickerson, 36th State Representative and Ruth Kagi, Early Learning chair for our State.

I have worked extensively with parents, principals, teachers, staff, and students primarily at the elementary level and some at the middle school level.  Some of the strategies employed were direct engagement and communication at open events and meetings.  On a broader level, involving ELL staff in identifying key community members to disseminate information.  At Kimball there is a pilot grant for targeting specific cultural groups for inclusion into the school process.  If successful at increasing under-represented groups, the pilot could be expanded to other school communities.

Another strategy for engaging community groups is to hold Board meetings outside of the Stanford center in different schools throughout the district.

There is a saying that people perish for lack of knowledge and as your Seattle School Board member; I will keep our parents, students & communities informed and educated about our policies, collective ways to be involved during the process and fostering community partnerships for gathering and distributing ideas and resolutions for effective change in our public education system. It is vital to provide several avenues of communication for our parents, students, teachers, principals and communities. The first is for each School Board member to be accessible by maintaining an office base in one of the schools of the clusters we serve no longer being housed in the John Stanford building. This move would build an alliance among the people we serve and keep us well informed of the concerns of our schools firsthand as we collectively come together to resolve issues District-wide. Secondly, there needs to be a protocol in place to addressing the needs and complaints of our parents, students, and communities within a specified timeline. Third, we need to identify individuals or groups to create a steering committee of representatives that may serve as a voice for each of our schools and be able to educate our cohorts on cultural competency, community engagement, academic empowerment.

My experience as an involved parent brought me to Board service and I consider the broad parent community (parents, guardians, students, community and education advocacy groups) to be a critical constituency whose involvement and confidence is crucial to success. Authentic and well organized opportunities for engagement on District goals, strategies and decisions is necessary and important. Integrating community engagement into every decision pathway is a current project of the Executive Committee (which I chair). Visiting schools and being available for community meetings are also important and I do both to the extent that time allows. I hold monthly District coffee hours, read e-mails, regular mail, blogs, local media and consult regularly with Seattle Council PTSA leadership. I speak regularly with principals, teachers and students though these relationships are sometimes constrained by legal, management and contractual relationships in various ways. Listening broadly does not always produce clear viewpoints or opinions- Seattle is a diverse city and many different theories for excellence in education are present as well as perceptions of community interest. There is also tension between the urgency to reform a complex, change resistant organization and improve educational outcomes and the time, energy and resources required for productive engagement. This requires a strong commitment to transparency and sound public process in all Board decisions with special attention and a longer, more deliberative decision pathway for major issues.