Seattle School Board Elections 2017: District VII
Please note this thread where I outline my guidelines for the interviews.
District VII
Currently Director Betty Patu represents this region. She is running to retain her seat and has two challengers.
- Tony Hemphill. He is a chiropractor who also has an MBA and graduated from Garfield in 1991.
- Chelsea Byers. From her work bio:
She spent several years as a Teach For America math teacher in Oakland, CA. After that, she went to England to earn a masters in quantitative analysis from the London School of Economics, where she also helped to train teachers and develop curriculum for a flagship outreach program at University College London. She then followed this line of work to Hong Kong and Italy. Now at General Assembly, Chelsea manages training and development for instructors and leads a team of instructional coaches.
She currently works for a local company, Galvanize, which provides tech training services.
Only Patu and Byers are registered at the PDC; neither has any contributions to date. I only interviewed Patu and Byers. I did have a phone interview set up with Hemphill but he was not available and did not contact me back as to why he was not available.
This is the Board race with the fewest candidates and so I believe it is Patu and Byers who are the favorites to move forward out of the primary (unless Hemphill decides to have more of a presence in the race and soon).
I am endorsing Betty Patu to keep her seat in District VII.
Patu is the blunt sage we need. She continues to show energy and zest for the work despite eight long years on the Board (which should be enough to wear anyone down but not her). Her dedication to the region is legend.
Not only has she shown dedication to the work, she has the institutional memory that is so important in a district that has frequent JSCEE staff movement. (And her memory is great - I cannot believe the things she can readily date and then bring out in discussions). The district will already have Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle School Board Elections 2017: District VII:
