A Message from Ben Shuldiner

Dear Seattle Public Schools Community,

As I look out my window, while I type this newsletter today, I am struck by the beauty of Seattle. As a New Yorker, who has lived in Michigan and California, Massachusetts and England, this new landscape is stunning to me. Hopefully, it will never get old.

I see the snow still sitting on parts of roofs and mountain tops. The firs and cedars standing tall across the Pacific Northwest, swaying slightly in the light eastern wind. This week we saw Seattle's snowiest day in March in 37 years. A rare chance to play outdoors in the falling, fluffy precipitation, rather than walk quickly through the usual rain that drops from the sky at this time of the year.

I hope that all of you were able to take a moment or two to frolic or at least experience the snowflakes landing on your coat or hand or tongue. There will be weeks where I will use this space to write about tragedies and triumphs. Most of the time this newsletter will discuss deep and structural changes to the district for us to become solvent or better teach our children. Often, I will write about difficult subjects like budget cuts or programmatical failings.

But today, I want to just pause and ask you all to think about playing in the snow, spending time with friends and family, and getting ready for the coming week. Sometimes it's good to pivot from the serious and the severe, to gain perspective on where we are and where we are going, and to recognize the rare event like three inches of snow on Friday making it the snowiest March 13th ever recorded in Seattle. How cool is that?

Thank you for your support of Seattle Public Schools.

Ben