Rainy Day Recess Episode 53 - 

Summer Recap & Big Changes Ahead

[00:00:03] Introduction and Summer Updates

Christie Robertson: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, a podcast about Seattle Public Schools. I'm Christie Robertson.

Cherylynne Crowther: I am Cherylynne Crowther.

Jasmine Pulido: And I'm Jasmine Pulido.

Christie Robertson: In this episode, we are going to 

- do a quick summary of what we've all been up to

- cover SPS news

- and then we'll have news about a big change here at Rainy Day Recess. 

So if you wanna know what's going to become of us, stay tuned until the end. 

Jasmine Pulido: . Yeah, so lots of updates. So, what have you been doing this summer Christie? I haven't seen you!

Christie Robertson: I know! I've mostly been spending lots of time with family and friends, and it's been really great and rejuvenating. I also wrote an article that's going to be published in Alexander Russo's publication, The Grade, with reflections back on my last two years of doing hyperlocal education news. And that was really interesting to think through, so I hope that we get a chance to talk about some of that here as well. 

Cherylynne Crowther: And now that I've been introduced to The Grade, I will be adding that into my reading list. I think it's really great to see someone focusing on media coverage of education. This is an area that is completely dropped by almost every local media across the board. 

Jasmine Pulido: Christie also introduced me to The Grade and yeah, I would recommend everyone check that out as well.

Christie Robertson: What about you, Cherylynne? What have you been up to?

Cherylynne Crowther: A couple of big road trips with my youngest, which were fun. That's my guy who's got some developmental disabilities, who happens to be a great travel companion. College graduation for my oldest. And then reading a lot of wonky education news and research on parent advocacy. 

Christie Robertson: Did you wanna say something about Liberate Disability? 

Cherylynne Crowther: Yes. So my business is Liberate Disability, an Education Advocacy Agency. And I will be holding a workshop in early October, looking at the research on parent advocacy, where they've identified four different styles of advocates. We're going to explain how each person's style can have great strengths, and can sometimes have those strengths turned to weaknesses. 

Jasmine Pulido: And I hope you'll include a link, Cherylynne, because that sounds like really cool stuff. 

Cherylynne Crowther: Thanks. Appreciate it. 

Jazz, what about you? What have you been doing this summer?

Jasmine Pulido: I graduated in May... 

Cherylynne Crowther: Yay. 

Christie Robertson: Yay. 

Jasmine Pulido: ...from my master's program. And then I finished a creative project as part of my masters, which was a limited series podcast called Transit in Transition. And it's about transportation justice in Washington State. And I can certainly link to that in the show notes if anyone's interested in that.

And of course I did a lot of family time. 

And as all those things have just ended, I am now looking for writing contracts. So that's where I am. 

Christie Robertson: Yeah, so if you are looking for an excellent writer, you can email... 

Jasmine Pulido: People could reach me at jasminewrotethis@gmail.com. 

Cherylynne Crowther: I'm just going to also put a plug in for Jazz on her storytelling and social justice combo. So she's a power punch in terms of the writing. And also fun to work with.

Christie Robertson: Yes.

[00:03:16] Seattle Public Schools: Recent Developments

So, updates on the school district, what is going on there? 

Jasmine Pulido: So Fred Podesta is now the interim superintendent. And there were a few summer community engagement meetings. Did anyone go to any of those?

Cherylynne Crowther: I went to one. It was a virtual one. It had a pretty good turnout. I did see that the Seattle Times has done a pretty good writeup about all of the work that the hiring agency, the Hazard Young Attea and Associates (HYA) has put together. I think they said 30 meetings and then online surveys. We'll see. I'm most interested in who steps forward

Christie Robertson: Yes, that's going to be the big tell. And so, we'll also link to that Seattle Times article where you can see a summary of the results. 

The other thing that there was engagement about this summer was the possibility of a pilot program bringing a police officer into. Garfield High School.

 Jasmine Pulido: And I'll just mention that the August school board meeting was all about safety. A lot of public testimony was about that. And they haven't made any official votes yet, but they're certainly talking about a pilot program.

Christie Robertson: The other couple of things that happened since we last talked were that 1) the budget was approved, and 2) a temporary, one year contract between SPS and their largest teacher union, SEA, was signed.

Cherylynne Crowther: With a small update around safety and discipline?

Christie Robertson: Yeah, I saw an article in the Seattle Times about this too. I'll link to that. But it's going to be easier for teachers to remove kids from classrooms.

Jasmine Pulido: I can definitely tell you just like a couple of things about the August meeting. Is that ok?

Christie Robertson: Yeah. Yes.

Jasmine Pulido: For one, which I thought was a big development, is they hired an Executive Director of Safety – José Curiel Morelos. And that's the first ever Executive Director of Safety we've had.

Of course they said farewell to Superintendent Jones, gave remarks on that. Fred Podesta is going to be interim for 10 months, or whenever they find a superintendent.

They broke down the rollout of safety measures. And I think the one thing I wanted to mention is they're going to start a new safety tip line and that actually should be available now that the school year has started. 

Christie Robertson: Families in the district got an email from Fred Podesta about safety improvements. There's going to be more central control of lockdowns and things like that possible. And panic buttons. I will link to that in the show notes as well.

Jasmine Pulido: for sure. I would definitely check out that email. If you're interested in safety, I would definitely check out that school board meeting. 

In regards to police officer presence at schools, they are looking for more community input on that. So certainly if you took the summer off like I did on education, that's where you would wanna go for safety information.

Christie Robertson: Yes, especially, I hope that students will chime in on that.

Jasmine Pulido: And then last thing, they approved the five year calendar for progress monitoring.

Christie Robertson: And one other official thing that happened over the summer was approval of the move of Bridges and Interagency from Roxhill Annex to Chief Sealth. 

Last SPS update, let's talk about the school board primary election that happened in August. So the last time you heard from us was with the release of 12 interviews with all of the school board candidates that were going into the primary. And since then, the primary has happened, and narrowed down to two candidates for each of the four school board director districts that are up for election this year.

Cherylynne Crowther: And we will have those interviews still available as people are looking  at the general. That was really an interesting experience, getting a chance to talk to each candidate. 

Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. It looks like it's just the top two make it to the next round. Is that right?

Cherylynne Crowther: Yep.

Jasmine Pulido: So for Director District 2, Sarah Clark, who is currently holding the seat won 42% of the vote, and then Kathleen Smith won 48% of the vote. So that's really interesting.

And then for Director District 4, Joe Mizrahi, who is also currently in the seat, had 70% of the vote. And Laura Marie Rivera, who came in second, is 17.2%.

And then in District 5, with 74% of the vote, Vivian Song. And then Janis White with 15.2% of the vote.

And then who's District 7? 

Christie Robertson: Jen Lavallee and Carol Rava.

Cherylynne Crowther: Also, just one thing that's interesting is that the two candidates Sarah Clark and Joe Mizrahi, this is their first election, because they were both appointed after Vivian Song stepped down. And then Vivian is looking to return.

Christie Robertson: There was an article in the Seattle Times that talked a little bit more about what influenced those outcomes. We'll link to that as well.

Jasmine Pulido: Cool. I'll read that.

Cherylynne Crowther: Yeah, I hadn't seen that one.

Jasmine Pulido: So we did personal updates...

Christie Robertson: School updates...

[00:08:31] Podcast Update

Christie Robertson: All right, podcast updates! With the school year starting, we didn't wanna leave you hanging as to what's happening with the podcast. And the news that we wanna share with you is that Rainy Day Recess is wrapping up.

Jasmine Pulido: This wasn't an easy decision. The past two years have been full of lessons about what it takes to do this work.

Cherylynne Crowther: We're all engaged in other things and we don't have the long-term infrastructure to sustain the podcast at the level we would want. 

Christie Robertson: It takes a huge amount of, time and volunteer effort and takes money and all kinds of other infrastructure needed to support the podcast.

Cherylynne Crowther: Rainy Day Recess is a very unique non-traditional podcast on education. The only other thing like it is out of Boston and supported by philanthropy. So a foundation is backing that. 

And, as all of us know, sitting through a school board meeting really is a commitment to time and wonkiness. And you really have to keep going all the time because you can't just pick it up. Going forward, it's a disservice if we can't quite put the time into it.

Jasmine Pulido: Education in Seattle needs a whole team. A lot of the resources we have are all volunteer parents, and it takes a huge amount of effort. And there's just so much burnout. 

And so, I guess the other thing about that, we are the largest district in the state. And we don't just follow the school board meetings, but we follow all the issues attached to school board meetings and all the complexities and nuances and trying to discuss that is a huge endeavor. And it's really only possible if we have full-time funding to do that in a more sustainable structure.

Christie Robertson: Yeah, and or other infrastructure around it, such as editors – like writing editors, and audio editors, and other people. 

So that's some of the stuff that has been really interesting to think about as well in that article that I wrote for The Grade. 

Cherylynne Crowther: But before we go, we still have a few episodes left to share.

Jasmine Pulido: Yes, an episode I've been wanting to do for a long time is School Board 101, which breaks down what the board is and how it functions. And that will be coming to you soon, especially as a primer for the next election. 

And then we also recorded a long conversation with Vivian Van Gelder about her Left to Chance report, which looks at the history of the district for the last 35 years.

Cherylynne Crowther: And then there are still two school board candidate interviews to go, because the District 7 race wasn't included in the primary. 

Christie Robertson: For now, we just wanna say we are really proud of what we've been able to accomplish. Your feedback has meant so much to us. We've gotten to hear from parents and teachers and students and community members who told us that the podcast helped them feel less isolated and more informed and more able to take action.

Cherylynne Crowther: Fore able to take action, and that would be a great lead for anybody in local news to take on this reporting. School board coverage matters because schools matter. A lot of the things that we ask schools to fix are large, community issues. And why we're not covering it better is a real question to me.

So we want to especially thank all of our guests, the parents, the teachers, students, advocates, and community leaders who shared their time and stories with us. This podcast was only possible because of you. 

Jasmine Pulido: And we also want to thank our generous donors who contributed monthly to cover our software costs. That support really helped keep the podcast going.

Christie Robertson: And finally, a special thanks to two of our collaborators – Dawson Nichols, for his amazing video explainers that broke down some really complex issues. And Megan Larkin for bringing her legislative expertise to our deep dives into Olympia.

Cherylynne Crowther: We're grateful to everyone who listened, shared episodes, came on as guests, or supported the project in big and small ways.

Jasmine Pulido: Even though Rainy Day Recess is wrapping up, the need for community voice and accountability continues. And we hope you'll keep showing up for Seattle's kids and schools.

Christie Robertson: And that's it for this episode of Rainy Day Recess. 

Jasmine Pulido: Do you have any thoughts, or impressions, or suggestions, or comments, or questions about Rainy Day Recess and what we've covered so far? Send us an email to hello@rainydayrecess.org. 

 I'm Jasmine Pulido.

Christie Robertson: I'm Christie Robertson.

Cherylynne Crowther: I'm Cherylynne Crowther.

Jasmine Pulido: Thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess.