Is friction driving out Seattle school superintendents?
The early departure of another Seattle school superintendent has reignited debates about whether a fractious School Board is at least partially to blame for the turnover.
Seattle Times education reporter
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Just days before Seattle school Superintendent José Banda interviewed with the Sacramento School Board for its top job, he sent a blistering email to his own board members about their treatment of his staff over the selection of new elementary-school math textbooks.
Banda and his staff wanted the same textbook that a review committee had recommended. But four of the seven board members had pushed for — and ultimately got — a different math book, and it was their exchanges with Banda’s staff leading up to that choice that prompted his email, which was sent on the eve of the board’s vote.
“Over the past few weeks my staff’s professionalism and ethics have been called into question,” Banda wrote in the June 3 email. “Assertions have also been made implying the process was fixed or slanted toward a certain result. More troubling still, one senior staff person’s integrity has been called into question so consistently that I feel it borders on defamation.”
Board President Sharon Peaslee said last week that while the board was unhappy with the timeliness and quality of information the staff had provided on the math-book issue, the board by no means crossed the line into personal attacks; in fact, Banda’s email took her by surprise, she said. “We don’t even know what he’s referring to.”
Even within the board, though, there were concerns, with board member Stephan Blanford later expressing unhappiness about “the strident advocacy of some board members” over another issue where opinions run strong — changing school start times for teens to accommodate their biological clocks — and member Sherry Carr agreeing with him that it amounted to bullying.
Banda is Seattle’s fifth school chief in a decade and the third — along with former superintendents Susan Enfield and Raj Manjas — to leave Seattle for top jobs in smaller school districts.
His early departure has many district observers debating — once again — whether a School Board at times divided by conflicting views and at odds with district administrators is at least partially to Is friction driving out Seattle school superintendents? | Local News | The Seattle Times:
