The Seattle Times editorial board recommends: Christina Posten for Seattle Public Schools District 2

Being a school board member requires the ability to hold accountable people who are experts — educators, budget-writers, security and construction professionals — in subjects where you likely are not. That’s not easy to do, and plenty of trustees shrink from it.

In the case of Seattle Public Schools, board members oversee a gargantuan $1.2 billion budget, so they must be prepared to ask hard questions, demand accurate accounting and challenge the direction of district leaders — especially when student outcomes suggest all is not well.

For these reasons, the editorial board endorses Christina Posten, a former principal, for District 2, on the Seattle Board of Education. The incumbent, Lisa Rivera Smith, made it clear in an interview that she does not believe it is her role to get deep in the weeds of budget-scrutinizing, contract-negotiating or much else beyond broad policy oversight.

“We really rely on our staff to make judgments that are sound,” she said.

Current results warrant a more aggressive approach.

The recent teachers’ contract, which Rivera Smith endorsed, helped to put the district in a $100 million hole, and closing that gap will undoubtedly affect students. In addition, four years after the district opened its Office of African American Male Achievement, scores for Black youth are worse than they were before. The most perplexing thing about Rivera Smith is her apparent lack of outrage at these things.

Posten, by contrast, bristles with urgency, eager to have some “hard conversations” with SPS leaders. “We hear lots of beautiful words,” she said. “We need to see action.”

In the face of Seattle’s gaping budget hole, every board member is surely bracing for the blowback from parents when anticipated school closures are announced after the election. Asked what she would protect at any cost, Rivera Smith said property. “I will not sell any buildings.”

Posten, a career educator, said she would safeguard anything connected to curriculum, teaching and learning. She advocates trimming salaries and staff at district headquarters instead.

That won’t do much to close a $100 million hole. But Posten, a former principal at Whitman Middle School, conveys real passion about bridging the gap between conversations that take place in the abstract, at school board meetings, and the ways those decisions play out on the ground with actual kids.

Rivera Smith said one of her proudest accomplishments is the passage of a clean energy resolution that will “get the district off fossil fuels” within 20 years. For that, she should be commended. But under the current board, there’s no reason to believe this admirable goal will ever be reached.