Community Spotlight: Learning Together school board candidate training

Episode 30, April 3, 2025

Each person's opinion is their own.

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[00:00:00] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. Today we're doing a Community Spotlight about a new training series targeted to anybody who is running or might be considering running for school board. Our guest is Debbie Carlson, one of the training organizers. So thanks for joining us, Debbie.

[00:00:22] Debbie Carlsen: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:24] Christie Robertson: So what inspired you to initiate this series? 

[00:00:28] Debbie Carlsen: I have to preface this by: I am a former school board candidate. I ran in 2023 in District 1. I was a new parent to the Seattle School District. But I wasn't new to advocacy, to systems change and to budgeting. I was part of a candidate training and endorsement organization called the National Women's Political Caucus of Washington that really invested in, particularly, women and non-binary candidates throughout Washington State, really recognizing that representation matters and that we needed different types of voices in all areas and all levels of elected government. Currently, I'm the education and training chair of the caucus. And I was also on the executive board of the 46th Dems and really getting to know more of the local politics within my district.  

When I was asked to run, it was a very spontaneous decision. I asked my family, we had a conversation, and I decided within a week. I ended up like spending almost 40 hours a week on the campaign. 

[00:01:47] Debbie Carlsen: What's unique about a school board race is that you have to get out of the primary in your district, but then the general is all of Seattle. And there's no other elected official or candidate that has to now try to meet, or door knock, or somehow connect with a population so huge, with such... you’re down ballot. There's very little visibility. And it's hard to fundraise because of that. And in Seattle, it's very much about who gets endorsed by the two papers. And what we know is that The Stranger has more clout in Seattle than the Seattle Times, despite the fact that The Stranger doesn't really cover education. That's just the way it is. And that really is the main crux of winning.

There's a lot of real challenges. And so there's these little things that - or big things - that candidates could know about and that might have an impact on their strategy, and also on whether they want to run or not. 

And in my experience, there's not a pipeline for Seattle School Board candidates. It's a gap within our educational system here in Seattle. In other districts, it could be the Council PTSA that takes on that gap. I think every district is different, in the sense of who is actively building a pathway or a pipeline for school board directors.

The idea for Champions for Educational Empowerment really came to me about nine months ago in thinking, how can I have the most impact? I really wanted to be thoughtful and strategic about how I could have a positive impact within the community based on my own experience, helping to support and shape and advocate around high-quality school board candidates, knowing that there would be four positions available for election. There is just so much to know and learn. And really thinking through how to support people with lived experience that maybe wouldn't necessarily see themselves as a school board candidate, but their voice would be really valuable and unique on the school board.

And so what I started doing in this process is I started talking to educational leaders. Particularly I started talking to some former school board directors about: here's what I'm thinking, and here's why. Do you think this is a good idea? What do you think? What do you think would be the topics that would be helpful to a potential school board director or to a candidate?

And it took me like six months to be like, "okay, I really need to do this.” 

[00:04:50] Christie Robertson: That’s funny since you decided to run in a week...

[00:04:52] Debbie Carlsen: Yeah.

[00:04:53] Christie Robertson: ...but it took you six months to decide to do a training.

[00:04:56] Debbie Carlsen: Live and learn. But yeah. 

And not wanting to duplicate... there are abundance of really high quality candidate trainings that really are about how to run a campaign. I took some of the trainings. But it wasn't specific about school board races. It was more geared towards, probably, legislative district races or city council races - higher on the up the ballot races.

[00:05:26] Debbie Carlsen: So that was another motivation too, that I learned there was some really unique circumstances as I ran. And really, making mistakes along the way and learning and growing. And man, I was like, how can I make this easier for potential candidates? And I certainly don't have all the answers. But I have my own lived experience and the assessment of other former school board candidates, as well as directors.

I came across some people that were interested in joining me and creating this together. And that is Lisa Rivera, who is a former school board director, and also Janai Ray, who is a former school board candidate. And so I think we're a really powerful team. And we each have different insights and have given invaluable direction to where we're at now. 

We decided to name ourselves “Champions for Educational Empowerment”, and we decided to name our training “Learning Together”. And I think that's really appropriate, because it's also this recognition that there's always learning to do, no matter who you are. And that we're all coming together not with THE answers, but with answers together and building upon different voices. So the idea was to bring speakers in to share their own experiences and their own expertise. And that's what we've been doing.

[00:07:01] Christie Robertson: Yeah, I think a school board race is different because, while some people do run for school board as an entree to politics in general, it's the kind of role that a lot of people do and maybe they're never gonna hold any other office. They just... they're passionate about schools, and they want to run for school board. And so that makes it particularly daunting when you enter the arena. I think that this is a space where it makes a lot of sense to have a tailored training. 

And I wanted to note a couple of things about your training that stick out to me. One is that it's free. And another is that you focus not just on how to run for office, but how to be a good school board director once you get there. So you're training them about what's entailed in the job itself.

So that brings me to the class that I went to, I think it was your third class. 

[00:08:00] Debbie Carlsen: Yes.

[00:08:01] Christie Robertson: And it was about board roles and responsibilities. You had a couple of previous school board directors and... What were you hoping that people would take away from that session?

[00:08:13] Debbie Carlsen: Something that the three of us talked about in the creation of this training series was that being a school board director and certainly being a school board director candidate, like... it's not for everybody. Some people do see this as a stepping stone to something else, which I think is fine. But we wanted to share, like, different aspects of the role and what it means, so that people also are really thoughtful about: is this the right path for them? But also, you can use this information on the campaign trail. 

Because, for example, for myself, I ran up against an incumbent. And without actually having that experience, I was definitely at more of a loss. Which will always be the case if you run against an incumbent. But to know a little bit more about the inside perspective of what it means to be a board director, and even some strategies on how to advocate if you're on the board, and thinking through that. Are you that type of person... Are you willing to work with other colleagues? Like, you are a board, you are a collective. It's not like other positions, where you are just representing your own constituency. 

And so we really wanted to get across that complexity. Is it the right fit for you? And that you can also use all of this information that we're providing on the campaign trail. 

For example, one of our previous trainings was called District 101. We introduced candidates to different organizations and voices grounded in an equity lens, thinking about: what are communities that we think it's important that candidates know exist and that candidates should be connecting with as they run? So that they really know the district in a comprehensive way and can be better candidates and be more competitive, honestly, within their races. 

[00:10:13] Debbie Carlsen: That's also reflective of my experience, where I wasn't coming as a candidate with 10 years in the school system. I came as a candidate with over 15 years of advocacy and systems change work. There's absolutely parallels to the school system as there is to housing and economic development, which is where I came from. But I was still getting to know the players. I was still getting to know the community in different ways. This is giving candidates a leg up, introducing them to some key organizations and voices within our district.

[00:10:54] Debbie Carlsen: Each training was very strategic in that way, that all of this knowledge participants in this training, absolutely can and should be using as part of their campaign.

[00:11:05] Christie Robertson: Has anything surprised you about who's turned out for the trainings? Or the responses that you've gotten? Is it like a mixture of people who are running right now and or who might run in the future?

[00:11:16] Debbie Carlsen: Yes, it's a mixture of people who are running now and people who are considering running in the future. And we even have some participants who are from other districts. And I will say that there are people who are curious about running, some who have shared with us that, with the series, they are interested in running now, which is exciting.

We have candidates that are running now. We definitely need more running in all of the districts. Which really is a testimony to what a hard ask it is to run for school board. 

We really saw this as building the pathway for future candidates to consider. That's how we really want it to be seen. We haven't discussed if we're gonna do this again. It was also a risk. Like, we didn't know if people would be interested. And so the surprise is: I'm surprised how many people have registered and are participating. That's my surprise.

[00:12:23] Christie Robertson: That's great. If you're listening to this, there may be a place for you.

[00:12:27] Debbie Carlsen: I would say, too, if you are considering it, we have open enrollment. Participants can enroll now. We're halfway through this Learning Together training, but the last three trainings are going to be amazing. Our next training is going to be on Student Outcomes Focused Governance, and we're gonna have some former school board directors sharing their lived experience. And then Rick Maloney, who has done trainings around governance models for school boards throughout the state, and maybe nationally. 

Then next we're going to have the big one, which is speakers talking about the budget, and really breaking it down on what both directors and candidates need to know. It'll be a current school board director, a union leader who will talk about the collective bargaining perspective, and then Equity and Education Center talking about the prototypical model. It's very diverse in the different speakers and different aspects from both what are the expenses as well as the funding and allocations. 

And then lastly, we'll have a deeper conversation. Our last training is really about nuts and bolts around campaign strategies or just specifically what is unique about running for Seattle School Board. And so that's how we'll end. 

And so people are still welcome to enroll and register.

[00:13:53] Christie Robertson: The next training is April 9th, so if you register for that, you can still attend the last three trainings. And how can people find out about this training Debbie?

[00:14:06] Debbie Carlsen: If you Google Champions for Educational Empowerment, there's a registration link on our website and yeah, happy to share that. 

[00:14:16] Christie Robertson: Champions for Educational Empowerment. Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate all the work that you and your colleagues have done to put this together. 

[00:14:23] Debbie Carlsen: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. 

[00:14:34] Christie Robertson: So that was Debbie Carlson, organizer of the Learning Together school board candidate training series. And I'm Christie Robertson. 

You can visit us to see our show notes as well as the transcript at rainydayrecess.org. And thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess.