Date: Friday, October 20, 2006

Resource: Daily Herald

Seattle school tensions boil over
Anger explodes at meeting called to discuss plan for closures

Though the Seattle School Board has indefinitely postponed closing three more school buildings, it isn't likely to completely defuse the anger, frustration and resentment felt by many in the community.

"What you saw was ... absolute pure unmitigated frustration with the whole process," said Penny Lemke, 51, a reading tutor at Cooper Elementary, who described the scene at Wednesday's raucous meeting as "unscripted reality TV."


Mike Urban / P-I
Schools Superintendent Raj Manhas listens to public testimony.
"When you feel like you're not being heard, you start yelling," she said.

There was much more than yelling; for the first time, the long-simmering tensions in the district boiled over. Before the evening ended, racial epithets were tossed at Superintendent Raj Manhas and board member Cheryl Chow, and a 34-year-old Seattle man was arrested for trespassing and harassment for threatening a woman.

Some were still appalled Thursday at how badly adults had behaved at the meeting.

Many who spoke had pent-up anger at the board for various reasons, and were rallying around the issue of school closures, Chow said. "But that doesn't excuse what happened," she said.

"If a parent or a School Board member walked into a school and saw a teacher who allowed chaos, insults, racial slurs, scuffling -- would that be acceptable? No," she said. "What (behavior) are we modeling? ... I feel passionate about different issues about everybody else. Loud doesn't bother me. But being disrespectful ... is not appropriate."

Some argued the district should have expected this kind of intense reaction, given the underlying racial tensions and the tenor of other recent meetings.

For many parents of students of color, there is a deep-seated, long-running frustration and suspicion that there is unequal treatment in the school district, said parent activist Sakara Remmu.


More recently, many people felt that low-income, predominantly minority schools had been targeted for closure -- and that white parents or more affluent parents had enough clout to keep their schools from being closed.

District officials have reiterated that the district's demographics are roughly 40 percent white and 60 percent students of color -- meaning that regardless of which schools were chosen for closure, a large number of minority students would be affected.

But opponents don't buy that reasoning, and have filed two lawsuits in King County Superior Court, challenging closures.

The district "says it values diversity, but it's shackling the underprivileged to less resources. We have seen this generation after generation, and we are sick and tired of it," Remmu said. "The numbers don't lie, and the numbers show clearly disproportionality in races. We're talking about a civil-rights issue."

Some of that anger finally came out Wednesday night, she said.

Manhas, who endured nearly four hours of verbal assaults from the roughly 60 parents, students and community activists who spoke, was philosophical Thursday.

"I wish all of us were behaving in a very respectful and civil way, and having these conversations in a real respectful way," he said. "At times, in a public setting, it doesn't happen. ... All each one of us can do is manage our own behavior. You can't really control other people's behavior."

Though most board members have said they still support closing some schools, Manhas said there are other areas he and his staff will focus their energy on for the time being, such as improving academics, lobbying for more education funding and coming up with ways to streamline the district's transportation costs.

"At the end of the day, it's how well our children are being educated that is the issue in front of us," he said. "I'm directing my total attention to that."

Others on Thursday said changes are needed to prevent a repeat of the last meeting.

For example, Manhas and board members often try to maintain a professional demeanor during the public testimony, even when comments directed toward them are heated.

That might be part of the problem, said Cooper parent Brian Johnson, who has spoken at the last five board meetings. The standard public testimony format doesn't allow for any give-and-take between speakers and the School Board members.

"It's just not a forum for dialogue," he said. "Humans need interplay. You need to offer that to the greater population."

Given speakers' passion and their need for some sort of reaction from district officials, it was a matter of time before people began trying whatever they could think of to provoke some sort of response.

"There's been race and class issues raised at every school meeting, and those are very touchy subjects. By not responding, you're bound to get a situation like last (Wednesday) night," Johnson said.

The board tried unsuccessfully last year to revise the public-comment format, but opposition killed that proposal. But in light of Wednesday's events, board President Brita Butler-Wall agreed it's time to revisit the issue.

"Clearly people don't feel heard ... or they feel like what they're saying isn't having any influence," she said.

"It's never acceptable to use racial slurs," she said. "But the vast majority of speakers expressed themselves strongly and did not cross that line."