Within the nice-work-if-you-can-get-it file: Brent Jones.
Jones led Seattle Public Faculties for 4 years, from 2021 to 2025, presiding over steady $100-million finances deficits, waning enrollment, sagging educational outcomes and growing dissatisfaction amongst dad and mom. When he left the district final spring — 5 months earlier than the tip of his contract as a result of he was on medical go away — Jones continued to gather his $390,000 annual wage. He advised the district he would quickly be departing Seattle to affix his spouse, who was working in California.
But, final week Jones stepped onto the campus of Seattle Central School, the place he will likely be interim president for the subsequent six months whereas the college searches for a everlasting chief.
You’ll be able to’t blame a man for cashing in when the chance arises. However how does Jones’ distinctly undistinguished observe report at SPS make him the only option to pilot Seattle Central although its personal important fiscal challenges?
The school’s earlier chief, Chantae Recasner, just lately outlined $18 million in cuts Seattle Central has sustained over the previous two years, a state of affairs so dire she expressed “profound concern” in regards to the college’s continued existence.
The size “is unprecedented and feels unfathomable,” Recasner wrote in a letter to the Board of Trustees this spring, imploring them to declare a monetary emergency.
Is Jones the person for this fraught second? When Bellevue School, throughout Lake Washington, was going through a time of disaster in 2020, it managed to nab former Gov. Gary Locke as an interim president and went on to realize national recognition from the Aspen Institute.
It’s troublesome to anticipate an analogous turnaround underneath Jones. True, he is aware of Seattle Central effectively, having labored there beforehand as vice chancellor, so there received’t be a lot of a studying curve. However he has hardly distinguished himself as a savvy fiscal steward. Amongst different missteps, Jones urged the Seattle College Board to approve a academics contract he knew they may not afford.
Talking with a Seattle Instances reporter about Jones’ appointment to the job, Seattle Central spokeswoman Barbara Childs hailed his “confirmed success” main the state’s largest college district. She particularly referred to as out his expertise in “searching for neighborhood voice, and aligning the wants of scholars, workforce and native organizations.”
She will need to have been referring to a unique Brent Jones, main a unique Seattle college district.
