Parents file recall petition against Seattle School Board president

A group of parents launched a petition to recall the Seattle School Board president amid lingering dissatisfaction over the district’s school closure plans and concerns about ongoing multiyear budget shortfalls.

The five parents allege that Liza Rankin oversaw a rushed and improper school closure process and failed to engage communities or be transparent about critical district decisions. The parents also charge that Rankin did not perform the level of oversight expected of a school board director and has not held the district accountable for improving student academic outcomes. Seattle Public Schools has not met the math and English language arts targets it set for Black male students.

“Each of these repeated failures not only rise to the level of misfeasance, malfeasance, and/or violation of oath of office,” the petition read. “They endanger the future of Seattle Public Schools, they hinder and undermine the education of Seattle’s children, and they do damage to the public’s trust in a foundational civic institution.” The parents filed the petition in King County Superior Court on Friday.

A Superior Court judge dismissed a 2021 petition that sought to recall six of the seven School Board members, including Rankin. The parents who filed that petition accused the School Board of failing to adequately plan for students’ return to classes during the pandemic.  

A judge will decide whether the petitioners can collect signatures to put the measure on a ballot. They’ll need the valid signatures of legal voters equal to 25% of all votes cast for Rankin’s seat the last time it was on the ballot — or 48,659 signatures. Rankin was reelected last year.

“Ultimately, the buck stops with Liza [Rankin] when it comes to district accountability,” said Nancy Bacon, a nonprofit governance consultant whose children are SPS graduates.

“She’s responsible for determining pretty much everything that happens with the Seattle School Board: How it holds itself accountable to the community, what it decides, how it decides to govern itself, etcetera. She has chosen the most narrow form of governance possible, and it’s clearly not working.”

Rankin said Tuesday afternoon that she’d just received the petition. Legally, she said, she bears no more responsibility for the School Board’s actions than other directors do.

“My vote has no more weight than any other board member,” she said. “As board president, my job is to run the meeting.”

If residents disagree, they could elect someone else the next time around, Rankin said.

“Typically, the recourse for an elected official whose votes you disagree with is to not vote for them again,” she said. “I don’t believe that there will be findings of malfeasance or misfeasance.”

The petitioners point to the school closure process, which has been beset with delays and changing cost-savings estimates since a May 8 School Board vote gave Superintendent Brent Jones permission to draw up a preliminary plan. The resolution was introduced and approved at the same meeting. The petitioners also objected to the vote, during which Director Joe Mizrahi voted by text message from the airport.  

The petitions also say the board stepped back district oversight when it removed key committees, including Audit & Finance, in 2023. Doing so eliminated oversight of consequential administrative decisions, and the fallout has shown up in many ways, including in cost overruns on major construction projects, they said.  

The parents also accuse the board under Rankin’s leadership of reducing opportunities for public participation by halving the number of monthly public meetings and making it harder for residents to participate.

“We trusted the School Board and the superintendent to lead us on a path of success,” Janai Ray, a parent of three SPS students who signed the petition, said. “I feel like they let our trust down. Therefore, as a community, we have to let them know we are displeased, and the most legal and effective way is a recall at this time.”

Rankin disputed the charges on closures, saying that the board has not voted to close schools, and the timeline shifted because the board did not get the information and analyses it had requested from the administration.

The delays were “based on not having the level of community engagement that we directed, not having the level of analysis that we directed,” she said. Rankin said she sought advice from the district’s attorney on whether Mizrahi could vote via text. Further, the resolution passed unanimously and Mizrahi’s vote didn’t determine the outcome, she said.

The other petitioners include Ben Gitenstein, a 2023 School Board candidate and parent; Annie Becker, the co-advocacy chair at Sacagawea Elementary School and parent of four SPS students; and Rebekah Binns, a former SPS teacher and parent at Graham Hill Elementary School.  

Binns said she signed the petition because Southeast Seattle has often felt neglected and ignored by the School Board and she wanted the region’s schools to have a voice.

She’s been critical of the district’s community engagement efforts on school closures, which she likened to a check-the-box exercise. None of the sessions over the summer was held in South Seattle, Binns said.  

“My hope is that because the district seems to listen to lawsuits, they’ll actually listen,” Binns said. “It’s a shame it takes taxpayers’ money for them to listen, as opposed to engaging. I don’t understand why it’s so hard to engage with people, talk to people, visit them and ask them what they need.”