Our recent Highline School Board election should give us pause. We have over 80 cultures represented in our school district, and 73 percent of our students are minority. Instead of adding an additional minority board voice, we had two white candidates run unopposed, while we had two minority candidates run against each other.

We replaced Sili Savusa, a family services expert, with Tyrone Curry, a student mentor and coach who bought a new $40,000 track for our kids. We need both Sili and Mr. Curry on the board, but our district election system does not allow it.

Sili’s loss is much bigger than one election; the issue is “what level of representation should we be striving for on our school board, and in our classrooms, to make our district more reflective of our diversity?”

Social scientists confirm that one of the single most effective ways to empower kids from minority cultures to succeed is to give them examples of adults from their cultures in positions of leadership in their daily lives. When minority kids see Sili at the head of the table, or Ms. Alvarez, the other communities-of-color school board member, or Mr. Curry, or their teacher-of-color, leading the discussion, not quietly following along, children see that social equity is possible in America.

Three out of every four Highline kids are minority, yet nine out of every 10 Highline teachers are not. Bringing significantly more diversity to Highline school leadership is not just a good thing; it is our obligation to our children.

Frustrating this challenge was that several years ago, Mr. Curry won a $3 million lottery. It appears that he waited to contribute the $40,000 track only as he decided to run for the school board. His gift placed him on national and local newspaper and television. Rarely did the press coverage mention that he was an active candidate for public office when they covered his donation. God bless him, but the timing, and the press buy-in, distracted the content of our school board election, and was unfair to our community and to Sili.

School district staff compounded the conflict. As voting ballots arrived in our mail boxes, the district organized the ribbon cutting for Mr. Curry’s new track and put him on the front page AGAIN. They didn’t wait to cut the ribbon in the spring when track actually started; instead, during the election when ballots dropped. Was this intentional?

We need a better district election structure that increases minority representation on our school board. We need to hire significantly more teachers-of-color for our classes. We need to hire a new Superintendent from the national pool of effective, professional candidates-of-color, to manage our overwhelmingly minority school district. That’s the community and school district that I want to be part of.

Mark Ufkes
White Center