Seattle's Pendulum Problem

Charlie Mas:

District leadership style has swung back and forth between two extremes. It needs to be stopped and held at the center.

The Seattle School Board of 2000 - 2003 contributed to the financial fiasco that toppled the Olchefske administration. It was not just their misplaced trust, but the blindness of their trust that allowed things in the district - not just the financial reporting - to spiral down. They could have found the budget problem in the numbers reported to them (Director Bass did find it), but the majority of them lacked the necessary skepticism to look for it.

In response, the voters replaced them with a more activist board. It started with Director Bass elected in 2001. The four board directors elected in 2003 formed a much more hands-on and skeptical board majority - perhaps too much. They found a District that was poorly managed. They found all kinds of problems that had grown over the years and they were blunt and public about exposing it. I won't say that they were wrong, but they were perhaps impatient. Culture doesn't change overnight. This Board was accused of micro-managing the district and they were accused of being dysfunctional.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 24, 2012 2:02 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas