The race between Carol Rava and Jen LaVallee to signify South Seattle on the Seattle Faculty Board is a contest of nuance.
Each candidates are riveted on higher oversight of the college district’s price range. Each have eloquently articulated new approaches to bettering college security. And each have a demonstrated dedication to Seattle Public Colleges, although of very differing kinds: LaVallee is a mom-turned-activist. She co-founded the grassroots group All Collectively for Seattle Colleges, and has a good concentrate on regenerating belief between SPS and oldsters.
Rava, who previously labored at district headquarters, is extra of a brass-tacks pragmatist. Her eye is on setting efficiency objectives, figuring out the right way to meet them, and utilizing knowledge to make higher choices.
Both can be a worthy voice for households in District 7, which stretches from Rainier Seaside to Beacon Hill. However Rava has the skilled experience — in schooling coverage, expertise, finance and administration — to hit the bottom operating, so she wins The Occasions editorial board’s endorsement. In a district with challenges the scale of Seattle’s, there isn’t a time to navigate a studying curve.
Probably the most urgent downside is SPS’ price range, which has been roughly $100 million within the pink for 3 years operating. Darkening the image are latest analyses that counsel the Seattle Faculty Board has did not scrutinize some 31% of its spending, largely at district headquarters.
A serious cause for this lack of oversight is the present board’s choice to remain out of cash issues beneath its new administration method, generally known as “Pupil Outcomes Targeted Governance.” SOFG, which comes with rigid rules and hefty charges for required coaching, deems college spending to be past the board’s purview as a result of funds are usually not a scholar final result.
“I believe that’s extremely problematic,” stated Rava, noting state legislation explicitly assigns fiduciary duty to high school board administrators. LaVallee additionally opposes the SOFG mannequin, which, bizarrely, discourages board members from assembly usually with their constituents. Whoever is elected, it’s probably the subsequent college board can have sufficient votes to finish its contract with SOFG. Hallelujah.
But, in her endorsement interview, LaVallee was squishy about how she’d vote on labor contracts the district can’t afford, such because the one at the moment in place with academics. Regardless of understanding its salaries went nicely past what Seattle might cowl, LaVallee stated she “would have actually struggled” to vote no. It’s tough to sq. this place together with her outrage on the present board for abdicating its fiscal tasks.
For some, Rava’s historical past could elevate questions of a unique variety. She labored on schooling on the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis, a significant power behind the state’s controversial constitution college legislation, although Rava says she doesn’t assist charters. In 2008, she left that job to hitch former Seattle Public Colleges Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson at district headquarters, a interval when the district ill-advisedly closed 11 faculties (solely to reopen them a couple of years later) and have become embroiled in financial scandal.
Rava, who had no involvement in these crimes, says the expertise made clear the hazards of getting a chief govt blinded by allegiance to previous pals.
On a extra private stage, Rava has seen 5 kids via Seattle faculties and put in time to stand up to hurry on Okay-12 finance via a certificates course at Georgetown College’s well-known Edunomics Lab.
She has a clear-eyed view for what’s essential to take SPS into the long run, and the skilled chops to make that imaginative and prescient actual.
