Primary 2025 - ATSS Recommendations

All Together for Seattle Schools is recommending Sarah Clark, Joe Mizrahi, Vivian Song, and Jen LaVallee for the school board in 2025. We believe that these four candidates have the skills and experience needed to bring the changes that SPS urgently needs.

We have a full explanation of our recommendations below, but the main reasons are:

• These leaders will fight school closures, support options and alternative programs within the public system, partner with families, and put students first.

• Sarah Clark and Joe Mizrahi led opposition to closures as board members, and pushed for transparency and equity.

• Vivian Song brings deep expertise in SPS finances and special education.

• Jen LaVallee is a proven advocate for enrollment stability and state funding.

This year’s school board election will determine the future of Seattle Public Schools for many years to come. We have an opportunity to elect four board members who will steer the district in a new and better direction. We can reject failed policies such as closing schools, taking away options, rejecting academic rigor, neglecting student safety, abandoning financial oversight, and refusing to treat families as partners in education. It is important that we vote for experienced, qualified candidates with proven track records of fighting for change at the district and centering the needs of our students.

A committee of eleven All Together for Seattle Schools volunteers led our holistic evaluation process, representing a cross section of Seattle schools (north and south of I-90, with students at neighborhood and option schools, parents with students at elementary and secondary schools).

We solicited questionnaires from candidates, reviewed their responses, considered their experiences, looked at their engagement with the community, and evaluated what we’ve seen from them in recent years. We then voted on these recommendations, which had overwhelming support from the committee. 

Below is our detailed reasoning for recommending these four outstanding leaders to serve on the school board.

How the election works

First, a word about how voting for the school board works, because it is different than for other local offices. The seven school board directors each represent seven geographic districts of equal population. These resemble the City Council districts, but are numbered differently. Each director must reside in the district they are running to represent at the time of the election. 

In the primary election, only voters registered in each district can cast a vote for the candidates in that district. The top two from each district then go on to the November ballot for the General Election in November, the school board elections are citywide: voters cast a vote for one candidate in each of the four races, regardless of where they live.

Please note that because there are only two candidates running for the School Board District 7 seat, there will not be a primary in that district. Both candidates will appear on ballots citywide in November.

School Board District 2 – Sarah Clark

Sarah Clark has been one of our most important champions and allies on the school board, and deserves election to continue doing good work for our students. Clark was appointed to the school board in April 2024. She knows Seattle Public Schools from the inside, having been a student of color in SPS from kindergarten through her graduation from Garfield High School. One of her family members is a current SPS student. 

Clark was the first school board member to speak out against the mass school closure plan last fall, and worked to convince her fellow board members and SPS administrators to abandon the plan entirely. We wouldn’t have stopped that closure plan without her help.

After leading the effort to stop the closure plan, Clark worked to help save the highly capable program (which she herself attended, in an earlier form), supported option and alternative schools, and pushed for equitable school choice by getting SPS to move its waitlists earlier this spring. She’s also shown up to protect students from outside threats. For example, this spring she demonstrated solidarity with LGBTQIA+ students and families by attending Whittier Elementary’s Drag Queen Story Time – boldly taking a stand as right-wing media outlets were attacking the school for holding the event.

Clark is also focused on improving school board operations. She is leading a new ad hoc budget committee for the board, to bring back much needed financial oversight. She has spoken out publicly against the flawed “Student Outcomes Focused Governance” (SOFG) model that has prevented the board from effectively holding district administrators accountable. We are excited at the prospect of working closely with Sarah Clark to help bring much needed change to Seattle Public Schools.

If you want to learn more about or get involved in Sarah Clark’s campaign, please click here!

District 4 – Joe Mizrahi

Joe Mizrahi was also appointed to fill a vacancy on the school board in April 2024, and since that time he has demonstrated that he has the understanding, skills, and commitment to work with ATSS and parents across the city to change the course of Seattle Public Schools for the better. We believe that he will continue to provide responsive, effective leadership if elected to a full term on the board.

Mizrahi is a parent of three kids in SPS, identifies as a first-generation American and person of color, and grew up attending public schools.

Mizrahi has a proven track record on the board of working hard to deliver on All Together for Seattle Schools’ priorities. Like Clark, Joe Mizrahi was an early and strong opponent of the mass school closure plan. He regularly meets with community members at schools in his district. He and Clark also worked to support option and alternative schools, and he is pushing SPS to develop a student assignment plan that is responsive to families and promotes our district’s goals of equity and student achievement. He demonstrated his commitment to this goal just recently when he helped make SPS move waitlists at both neighborhood and option schools, rather than inequitably prevent students from having their choices honored.

It is clear that Mizrahi is committed to rebuilding trust in SPS by delivering transparency, accountability, and results. He has shown he will work to ensure that the strategic plan and superintendent leadership reflect the values and priorities of the community, rather than the top down approach we’ve seen in recent years.

If you want to learn more about or get involved in Joe Mizrahi’s campaign, please click here!

District 5 – Vivian Song

Vivian Song has been one of our most crucial and indispensable allies since All Together for Seattle Schools was founded in October 2023. A finance professional, she brings greatly needed financial expertise to the board, and is one of the most knowledgeable people in our city about SPS finances and operations. Song has helped parents ask smart questions and offered detailed analysis of everything from SPS’s budget to its special education services to its enrollment practices. We are excited to see her seeking to return to the board to continue that important work.

Song is a first generation immigrant who attended public schools as an English language learner. It was one of her public school teachers who identified her hearing disability. She understands the needs of students receiving special education services because she was one herself. She also has kids in SPS.

In her questionnaire response, Song wrote “When I was a director, I did my homework.” That is an understatement. Song has proven she will be a key ally in helping shake up the failed status quo at the SPS central office. When she was on the board in 2023, she challenged SPS administrators to increase enrollment rather than make budget cuts or close schools. Song pushed back against a flawed financial policy that further limited board oversight over the budget. She understands the flaws of SOFG and is committed to a better governance model that partners with families to effectively oversee the district. Although SOFG had been adopted before she was elected in 2021, she did vote against eliminating the SOFG-recommended policy of eliminating board committees. 

Song offers detailed, well thought out solutions that will tackle our district’s numerous problems. She will tackle inequities in student learning and achievement. She will support a diverse set of public schools including those that serve advanced learners, special education, ethnic studies and language immersion, and career and technical education. Song will help develop a sustainable fiscal plan rooted in growing our enrollment rather than chasing families away. She will also prioritize student safety. We need Vivian Song back on the school board to help make these happen.

If you want to learn more about or get involved in Vivian Song’s campaign, please click here!

District 7 – Jen LaVallee

We are recommending Jen LaVallee for District 7 for her strong record of authentic community engagement and her proven focus on data-informed policy. She will bring an emphasis on both of those much-needed items to the school board as it brings on a new superintendent and updates its strategic plan.

As an SPS parent and advocate, LaVallee has demonstrated a strong interest in improving SPS’s broken enrollment projections and staffing plans. She fought against the hugely disruptive “October reshuffles” that separated students from teachers six weeks into the school year, after they’d already bonded and built trust. She also recognizes the flaws with SOFG and the need to fix the board’s governance model to be transparent and responsive to the public and better address student needs.

LaVallee will also work hard in Olympia to push our state government to provide the ample funding to our schools that is required by the state constitution. She helped launch the Billion Dollar Bake Sale earlier this year, a rally that brought hundreds of families and students to the State Capitol to advocate for education funding.

Because there are only two candidates for District 7, they will not appear on the August primary ballot and both will proceed directly to the November election. Also, Jen LaVallee has been a volunteer with All Together for Seattle Schools since our founding, but she was not involved in any way in this candidate recommendation process.

If you want to learn more about or get involved in Jen LaVallee’s campaign, please click here!