Stephan Blanford’s questions a perfect example of all that is wrong with SPS.

I am at Block Table to see the new superintendent do a q and a with local politico Sandeep Kaushik!

How much money will it cost to send a school board director to the policy/legislative conference and is it a smart use of SPS's limited funding? How will it benefit SPS students?

NEW: At a recent work session spread out over two meetings, SPS board directors learned a lot about the district's finances -- and how new Superintendent Ben Shuldiner intends to lead. Article by @janedemel.bsky.social:

None of us avid School Board watchers will be at the board retreat, because none of us can go be in person all day, and the board/district has chosen to not provide remote access in this year of our gourd 2026. They will be discussing board governance, the board work plan, and strategic planning.

Direct quote from Rocky: “It begs the question: What are we doing?” Maybe he will tell us one day.

NEW: Big changes are coming to highly capable programs in Seattle Public Schools — including new cohorts in West and South Seattle. Julie Letchner recaps the board meeting HC update:

I had missed that the SATP was going to be intro and action at the same meeting. That's extremely disappointing. I hope staff will get the materials up on the website well before the meeting. I would love to see the board put some guardrails around when intro and action at the same meeting was used.

I automatically like a 1) teacher who 2) does a PRR for his public comments

SPS Board Meeting plan for tonight: I have to pick up big kid at 4:15pm so might be a tad late. I will skeet until some time between 6 and 7. @janedemel.bsky.social will take over for a bit on the @thebulletinsea.org account while I get a break. Trying to make it a bit more tenable!

The Stranger got one endorsement really wrong this year. As @lisarivera.bsky.social points out, they should have endorsed Sarah Clark for school board. Rivera, herself endorsed by the Stranger when she was on the board and a 2020 delegate for Bernie Sanders to the DNC, makes an excellent case:

Sarah Clark, Joe Mizrahi, and Vivian Song lead in their Seattle School Board races, while Carol Rava and Jen LaVallee are tied Though many voters are still undecided about their 2025 choices to oversee the state's largest school district, three of the candidates have leads in their respective…

Sarah Clark is leading by 6 points in the Seattle School Board race, and for good reason. She has a proven track record that Seattle needs right now. 🧵

We’re up by 6 points! Thank you to @nwprogressive.org for polling the school board races and showing we’re leading going into Election Day. But many voters are still undecided. Please give me your vote - and get your ballots to a dropbox by 8PM on Tuesday! www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2025/...

You could read a lot of recommendations from various sources, and some of them might even be right. But you should trust the parents who were in the fight, who know this district inside and out, who know all the stories the media never covered...and vote for Clark, Mizrahi, Song, and LaVallee.

The Stranger hasn’t really covered SPS in years. They don’t regularly come to school board meetings or interview caregivers or follow the impactful issues affecting Seattle kids and families. Vote for Sarah Clark for School board!!! She’s *ON THE BOARD NOW* and doing great for students and our city!

I guess this means the Stranger prefers a Microsoft employee over an employee of the Chamber of Commerce? Let's remember which employer spent millions lobbying against the wealth tax. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

We need the Stranger to be good on public education. We need them to understand it, care about it, cover it, and make sensible, trusted recommendations about it. Right now, they don't. Vote for Clark, Mizrahi, Song, and LaVallee. And urge the Stranger to start taking SPS seriously. /end

FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS VOTE EXCLUSIVELY THE STRANGER BALLOT. Vote for Clark over Smith for School Board. Clark has stuck her neck out over and over again publicly in a way that has over and over changed SPS policy. She knows the issues, has an excellent head start, and is a former SPS student.

@thebethocracy.bsky.social Here's a spreadsheet that show every high school already has 30-minute lunch. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

All the high schools ALREADY had 30 minute lunches when they had one lunch. No change. This is an obnoxious red herring.

I stand in support of students and families walking out today in protest. District administrators need to stop the split lunch proposal. Major operational changes like these need community discussion and board approval. 1/

Seattle Public Schools gives the same runaround for public record requests.

We could reject austerity and double down on the winnable fight for a wealth tax in Olympia to fund our schools and other priorities. Or, we could wave the white flag as Liza Rankin proposes, and embrace austerity in public schools. I explain the situation here:

I was pretty darned close.

School board: Sarah Clark, Joe Mizrahi, and Vivian Song all lead in their races.

I'm going to try and communicate with my Republican colleagues in a new way.

Here's an old map to visualize by area. Blue circles represent building capacity, the smaller orange circles inside them represent April 2024 enrollment. This is just elementary, I'd have to pull new data for middle/high, and I don't have access to my school account currently.

*opens Bluesky* OK so let me see if I've gotten this correct: the 43rd LD Democrats have voted to remove Curby's endorsement of a school board candidate because one mayor wants to ban left turns while the other is at SCOTUS overturning rights from Ted Cruz.

Excellent thread! I support Vivian Song for Seattle school board in case anyone wonders. She is kind, progressive, practical, informed and brilliant. She also support the more progressive policy for school board—avoiding closures and Walmartification of schools.

Wow. This explains how 5 intersecting policies combine to have intersectional harm, sometimes doing the exact opposite of the policy's objective. Recent SPS advocacy pushed lot sof broad "magic bullet policy" which can backfire badly. Folks in SPS should read this for background. Good job Rebekah.

This is an excellent, damning criticism of Student Outcomes Focused Governance, the Gates Foundation-backed system rolled out in blue cities that's designed to strip school boards of their oversight and decision-making over schools. Progressives across America have been fighting this for years. 🧵

This has been the experience we’ve had as well. Usually it’s because they wait until the last minute to update enrollment, so recall a displaced teacher right before school starts, leaving the new school that hired them in the lurch.

That's Carlos del Valle. He is great, but I think the tech intern guardrail should be student-focused: how many students have operational computers on any given day. At my kid's middle school, you can only swap out for a new computer two hours a week (one hour each on Tuesdays and Thursdays).

More excuses from Sarah Prichett.

SPS's utmost HR goal is to hire no additional school staff after June. They prefer to wait until October and then move teachers around to different schools as needed, without making any additional hires districtwide. That's why 17 schools today are understaffed by at least 1 teacher.

Thanks for the correction, Beth. Was definitely not me. And you're right to Hmm. This is not okay behavior. SPS has a policy to prioritize STUDENT speakers; not students' parents, using their children to subvert the intention and spirit of that policy. Adults need to get in line.

This is great news. We need Vivian Song back on the school board to help provide fiscal oversight, restore public trust in SPS, stop closures, and provide high quality learning for all kids.

So thrilled to support Vivian Song for school board! She has the financial expertise, knowledge of SPS, interest in collaborating to solve difficult problems, and belief that families and communities deserve honesty and transparency—this is all very needed to help oversee Seattle Public Schools!

If only the @wadems.org had to power to fund these programs?

In our latest op-ed, South End parent and advocate Tammy Morales argues that Seattle Public Schools' decision to freeze school choice waitlists — without community input — undermines equity and trust. Read the full op-ed here: soseaem.org/3EHZi85 #Seattle #SPS

The goal is to amply fund public education as the state constitution requires. If the percentage spent on K-12 goes up because overall state spending went down, that’s an accounting trick. We’ll look carefully at this budget too.

Was the percentage actually increased? I would like to see this math.

While it is not true that I have autism, it is true that I pay no taxes. by Elon Musk

Wait, you don’t have to pay taxes if you’re autistic? What the fuck have I been doing each year then?

What a dumb fuck.

So Gov. Ferguson threatened to veto the budget the legislature are working on based on progressive revenue package proposed, are the people ready to ask him how he plan to keep schools open?!

Sarju was mistaken when she said that Northshore School District has already selected it's superintendent for next year. That's actually happening in mid-may. @joemiz.bsky.social

Similar story from me, except I had even less influence. Frank Chopp knew my grandmother back in the day. They both fought Seattle freeways from being built in the early 1970s (when Frank was a college student). I showed up in Seattle a few years ago and met Frank at a freeway-fighting event.

Hey, that's me!