A Message from Ben Shuldiner_3/1/26

Dear Seattle Public Schools Community,

I hope this newsletter finds you well, and that you were able to get some rest, relaxation, and recuperation during Mid-Winter Break. It is always important to find time to be with friends, family, and even alone, without the constant specter of work. We all need to be at our best when we are focusing on helping our students and making Seattle Public Schools the best urban district in America.

To that end, two seminal events occurred this week that I am incredibly proud of.

First, on Thursday, Feb. 26, more than 100 people attended our initial community meeting. A big thank you to our gracious hosts at Bailey Gatzert Elementary, and a round of applause to the tens of district staff that showed up to not only put on the event, but also to be at every table to listen, learn, take notes, and engage with our families. And of course, the biggest thanks go to every community member who attended.

During this event, we heard from so many people. We had initial remarks from district staff and the wonderful leader of Bailey Gatzert, Principal Ronnie Belle, but then we went to work. People broke up into groups to try to answer three important questions:

1. What is working well at SPS?
2. What is not working well?
3. What are some tangible ideas for improvement?

Then groups shared out. There was no sugarcoating or whitewashing. We wanted authentic community voice so that we can actually address the community's needs.

What we heard over and over was that our families love so much about our schools, especially their teachers and principals. We also heard common refrains on the negative side of the ledger: dealing with the district is difficult, confusing, and convoluted. Communication is mediocre at best and highly problematic at worst. There was a feeling that the district will make decisions with little to no warning or explanation. There was also a clarion call to give students options for better engagement and the opportunity to do more challenging work, even if this meant skipping a grade in specific subjects. There was also a feeling that the district could do better in treating families with respect.

There's more discussion to come, and we hope you will join us at a future meeting.

View the list of upcoming community engagement meetings

The second incredibly important event that occurred to help us move the district forward was a four-hour meeting with over 50 district leaders and community members on Friday. Though we couldn't invite everyone, we had teachers and principals, parents and community members, labor, management, and board members all working together, trying to create an entirely new organization chart for the district so that we can better serve students and families.

I do want to mention that students were not at this specific meeting but are part of the conversation in separate meetings where I hope they will be more comfortable to share their honest thoughts.

It was great to see teachers leading a discussion at a table filled with senior district leadership. It was wonderful to see Union leaders working side-by-side with assistant superintendents. Everyone had an equal voice and equal power at the tables.

Though this was the first of many meetings, some very clear ideas percolated to the top: as a district, we need to have clarity around the org chart; schools need to have cogent support and know who to go to for assistance; and perhaps most importantly, there needs to be a clearer way to help families, staff, and students.

There was almost universal agreement that we needed a strong academic department and a strong operations side of the house. We have pages and pages of notes, ideas, and diagrams. One team even cut and pasted the current org chart to create a new, better one. Though I appreciate it is much more important to focus on instruction in our schools, if we don't have a thoughtful district structure, we won't be able to best support our schools. I can't wait for us to finally have an org chart that makes sense.

These two events, a community meeting, where we truly listen to our families, and a restructuring meeting, where we think critically about a fresh start building a better district, will hopefully help us move forward together in a more thoughtful, understanding and ultimately greater way for our children and district.

Thank you for your support of Seattle Public Schools.

Ben

Watch the video in the district's top five languages:

Amharic | Simplified Chinese | Somali | Spanish | Vietnamese