New board fails to quell disharmony over schools

Four Seattle School Board members elected last November rode in on a wave of voter frustration over the district's financial problems, a perceived lack of openness and concerns about academic achievement. Nearly a year later, there's growing frustration with the new board, which is viewed by some as a boatload of seven paddling furiously in different directions, making waves yet little progress.

Board members insist they share a focus, even if they each have their own priorities. They've spent the better part of a year, they say, developing a common vision and goals — perhaps so much so that some think they've neglected key policy decisions.

The most visible example occurred last month when the board did not vote on extending Superintendent Raj Manhas' contract but let it automatically renew until next summer.

The board, which reportedly is split 4-3 in favor of retaining Manhas, had 10 months to decide whether it would back him or search for a new superintendent. Some say that by defaulting on that decision, the board has left the district without a clear sense of direction.

"I get more calls on a daily basis saying we've got to find candidates to run against these board members," said James Kelly, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle. "My advice to [the board] is, like we say, to keep your eyes on the prize and not get distracted on a lot of other stuff that goes on."

The board deserves credit, Kelly and others say, for an unprecedented level of public engagement, developing a five-year work plan and bringing passion to what can be a thankless volunteer job.

Some credit the new board members for removing June Rimmer, former chief academic officer who had many critics, as well as making principal selection and budget writing more open and having the district's entire senior staff undergo anti-racism training.

"These are people who really get it," said Sili Manao-Savusa, a member of the district's disproportionality task force. "I really feel like this is a wonderful opportunity to really build a foundation upon which change can happen in the district. It's going to take time, but I feel really hopeful with the leadership that's on the board."

But others fault the board for trying to reinvent the wheel, and offering up platitudes rather than practical policies. The five-year plan, with five goals such as "eliminate the achievement gap," contains more than 100 strategies to achieve them.

"It's now time for the board to synthesize all that into a tighter list of priorities because you can't work on everything all at once," board member Dick Lilly said.

Rewriting policies

When candidates Brita Butler-Wall, Sally Soriano, Irene Stewart and Darlene Flynn locked arms and declared victory last November, the four agreed on three themes: accountability, transparency and responsiveness to under-served communities.

"We didn't run as a slate, but a slate has organically emerged," Butler-Wall told the jubilant crowd that night.

They all saluted incumbent member Mary Bass, who quickly went from being the board's lone dissident to its president.

Since then, each new board member has pushed for policy changes they advocated on the campaign trail.

Butler-Wall helped rewrite school nutrition policies, banning junk-food sales, although it was left to Manhas to figure out how to replace lost revenues that schools had come to depend on.

Soriano has made reducing lead levels in drinking water a top priority.

Flynn was instrumental in having the board publicly affirm its opposition to institutional racism.

And Stewart steered through what she termed a "groundbreaking" resolution requiring schools to better involve students' families. A new five-page policy replaces one that was two lines long.

Butler-Wall says the board's most important accomplishment has been "strong advocacy for public schools" — taking a stand against charter schools and calling for changes in the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

To Flynn, such actions "are small victories, small but incredibly symbolic."

In Kelly's view, nutrition and water-quality policies, while important, have been allowed to become expensive, time-consuming distractions from academic and budget matters.

"The concern I hear is," Kelly said, "because of the previous administration and the whole need to re-establish fiscal integrity, that this board now has crossed over into the area of micromanaging."

Board members now sit on hiring panels, with Flynn helping interview candidates for the director of equity and race relations, and Stewart for the district's communications manager.

"I strongly disagree with that," said board member Lilly. "If we are involved in the selection of an employee, how can we hold the superintendent responsible for that employee's performance?"

A stream of proposed new policies, combined with the board's extensive demands for research reports and its tendency to disparage staff work in public, has disillusioned some long-time district employees.

"To just in some cases wholesale say, 'Everything you've done is bad and stupid,' is not a good way to lead an organization," said one employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Still, other employees say the board has potential.

"They are setting into motion a very aggressive but targeted agenda," said grants manager Jay Iman. "This board is a very intelligent board and asks what I think are critical questions that demand response."

But some of the toughest decisions haven't been tackled yet, such as whether the district must close underenrolled schools.

"If they can get those small schools closed, that'll be a great thing," said Van Asselt Elementary Principal Hajara Rahim. "We've been talking about this small-school syndrome since I've been in Seattle, which has been 25 or better years, and no one has been able to do anything about it."

Lack of cohesion

The more than two-dozen people interviewed for this story see the board's biggest problem now as an inability to work together.

The latest example came at a work session last week: Bass, against the wishes of her colleagues and the district's chief operating officer, used her position as president to speak out against the district's appeal of a federal-court ruling invalidating its racial tiebreaker for school assignments.

The tiebreaker, now on hold, isn't "worth the cost, time and heartache that it conjures up when you use race," Bass said.

Her six fellow board members, three of whom had urged her to keep discussions of the litigation confined to closed-door sessions, sat stony faced and silent.

Parent Jane Fellner, who was in the audience, says that Bass and the four newest board members need to be conscious of the public perception such behavior creates.

"Now that they're insiders, there has to be some balance between being a constructive change agent and accepting that you're a part of the system and you have to work with the system, and that you can't undermine the people you're working with," Fellner said.

Jan Kumasaka, the board's only two-term incumbent, says the group is getting better at working together. The four new members, like anyone new to a job, had a steep learning curve, she said.

Kumasaka observed that while the board spends hundreds of hours discussing district business in committees, community forums and public hearings, its members need more time to get to know each other personally.

Paul Hill, director of the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, says the board's disarray shouldn't surprise anyone.

"People generally expect a board ... after some kind of disaster, like the budget, to include a lot of people who have been in the opposition a long time," Hill said. "That board will have a hard time pulling it together. It's one thing to unite against something. It's another thing to unite on a specific course of action."

Sanjay Bhatt: 206-464-3103 or sbhatt@seattletimes.com