Apparently the League of Education Voters (LEV) has started a letter writing campaign to encourage the board to not have a search for the position of superintendent in the Seattle Public School system. I suppose they like Dr. Enfield because she championed Teach for America, Inc. coming to Seattle. For whatever reason, they want to circumvent the process of selecting the appropriate candidate for the job.
We do have an interim superintendent who was put into place hurriedly upon the firing of our former superintendent Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. It happened literally overnight. There has been no vetting of the interim superintendent and many parents and teachers want the opportunity to ensure that we have the right person in the critical role of determining how our children are educated.
I would suggest that if you as a parent, student, teacher or concerned citizen want to have a say in the process of selecting the right person for the role of superintendent of Seattle Public Schools, this is the time to contact the school board members and provide them with your thoughts and concerns.
To follow is a letter from a Parents Across America member and Seattle Public School teacher written to the school board:
Dear school board members:
I am writing to urge you to do your due diligence and move forward with a superintendent search. We need the best candidate for the job and the potential candidate pool should be as deep and wide as our teaching candidate pool. I do not think it an unnecessary expense to conduct a search. We are at a crucial junction in SPS with the state legislature threatening more cuts, potential charter school legislation, and a district that has made progress but still has many struggling students. If Dr. Enfield can make it through a competitive search then great, and if she is unwilling to go through that process then perhaps she is not as committed to our district as she says she is. I have heard and read comments that by having a search it is an insult to the work that Dr. Enfield has done, but I say that by conducting a search we are following the protocol that is in place for hiring within Seattle Public Schools. If you are hired as a long term substitute for a job that then comes open you must still apply for that job and go through the competitive hiring process. A job as important as the superintendent should not require any less of a process. I urge you to conduct a superintendent search to ensure that we have the best leader possible for Seattle Public Schools.
Respectfully,
India K.A. Carlson
parent and teacher for SPS
And now a letter from a representative of SEE:
On behalf of Social Equality Educators (SEE)we urge the School Board of Seattle Public Schools to initiate a search for a permanent Superintendent to lead our school district forward. The previous board promised that after a year of stabilization under an interim, a search would be initiated. To break that understanding would be wrong. We are aware of the tremendous pressure being directed at the Board by the small but monied business interests represented by the Alliance for Education, Stand for Children, the League of Education Voters, and, behind all of them, the Gates Foundation. We remind the Board that while these interests have the money to employ full-time operatives to pester the Board with emails, phone calls, and personal contacts, they are UNELECTED. They represent only a small constituency and the Board has other constituencies to whom it owes some small consideration: communities, parents, students, and teachers.
We also want the Board to understand that although you have heard one glowing opinion about the interim Superintendent from SEA leaders, this is only a personal opinion and does NOT represent the majority of SEA on this matter. Tomorrow, the SEA Representative Assembly will deliberate and vote on 3 different motions put forward by different teacher constituencies (not just us) to urge a search. Only then, we believe, will you get a decision that fairly represents the majority teacher opinion on this matter.
Eric Muhs
Seattle Education 