Off-color post is unbecoming of Seattle’s school board president

When observing public figures, there’s danger in scrutinizing off-the-cuff remarks, policing conversation like a schoolmarm. But sometimes, a casual comment can be unintentionally revealing.

That’s why it’s worth considering the hashtag posted online by Seattle Board of Education President Brandon Hersey on election night. “#F—aroundandfindout,” he typed across a picture of him with his arms around victorious incumbent Liza Rankin, who crushed her challenger, and Evan Briggs, a candidate hand-picked by Hersey, who also won.

The implication was that those who lost got the drubbing they deserved. It reads as a cavalier shrug to concerns expressed by those challengers that some constituents view the school board as out of touch and unresponsive.

Questioned about the wisdom of this post, which is no longer visible, Hersey immediately owned his mistake. “I got carried away on election night,” he said. “It is never my intent to ostracize or diminish.”

The comment was merely “a millennial hashtag,” he continued. Anyone offended by it had misunderstood, laboring under “generational and cultural differences.”

True, conventions change. Communication is ever evolving. And the candidates who won were not those endorsed by this editorial board. But those who ran unsuccessfully could be forgiven for seeing Hersey’s quip as a personal attack. It conveys a cliquey, clubby feeling that does not suggest openness to those who voice alternative views.

Rather, the message is: If you don’t like it, lump it. Or more colorful words to that effect.

Happily for Hersey, he does not work for Seattle Public Schools. A staffer or teachers union official making such a remark would be excoriated. The school district’s own policies suggest employees can be disciplined for using that kind of language in a public forum.

Setting aside the judgment of a school board president openly picking favorites among candidates, Hersey’s hashtag was at the very least juvenile, modeling behavior the opposite of what most classroom teachers strive to instill in their students.

“Could I have communicated better? One hundred percent,” Hersey said, conceding that his comment was cocky, but at heart, just an expression of excitement that a majority of voters have validated the board’s work.

No one is suggesting a hashtag containing an expletive is some sort of high crime. But it does betray a troubling lack of seriousness for a person overseeing a billion-dollar budget while facing $100 million deficits amid sagging student performance and a new plan to cut staff while increasing class sizes.

In Seattle Public Schools, this is no time for jokes.