E44 - Bill Campbell - D4 Seattle School Board Candidate

 [00:00:03] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. This is our 2025 Seattle School Board candidate series ahead of the August 5th primary. Each conversation is short and focused. We start with a lightning round, then ask the same two minute questions to each candidate. We know the candidates are doing lots of interviews. At Rainy Day Recess, we decided to focus on the role of the school board in leadership and governance. And what is the real impact these candidates believe the school board can have on Seattle Public Schools? 

Today we're releasing all of the interviews with District 4 candidates, which is roughly central Seattle. This week, we're also releasing our interviews with D2 and D5 school board candidates. And we'll cover D7 after the primary, since there's no primary race in that district. Transcripts are at rainydayrecess.org. 

This is our interview with Bill Campbell. Be sure to listen to our interviews with Joe Mizrahi and Laura Marie Rivera, which are also in your feed. We'll give a quick preview of those interviews at the end of this episode. Harsimran Kaur and Gloria Menchaca did not respond to interview requests. 

I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:01:18] Cherylynne Crowther: I'm Cherylynne Crowther.

[00:01:20] Christie Robertson: And we are here with Bill Campbell. 

[00:01:22] Lightning Round

[00:01:22] Christie Robertson: Let's start with a quick lightning round. We are going to ask you a few questions, and just give us your first response. So this is just a way for listeners to get to know you a little bit before we launch into the bigger questions. 

All right, so how do you pronounce your name?

[00:01:39] Bill Campbell: Yes, first, thank you for having me, and thank you to your listeners. And I do go by Bill Campbell, so kind of like the soup, the cam and then bull. And Bill is usually fairly easy and I use he/him pronouns.

[00:01:52] Christie Robertson: And how do you describe, quote, what you do?

[00:01:56] Bill Campbell: I am a small business owner here in Seattle. My husband is a teacher and I teach collegially and work part-time with the Department of Defense.

[00:02:07] Christie Robertson: Great. And what director district are you running for?

[00:02:11] Bill Campbell: I am running for the Seattle school board District 4, one of our most unique districts in the school system.

[00:02:19] Christie Robertson: What neighborhoods are in that district?

[00:02:21] Bill Campbell: That's what kind of makes us unique. We are mostly the downtown core section of Seattle where we actually have a smaller amount of schools. We work our way up to the Queen Anne area, as you'll pass schools like the Center Wchool, Hay, McClure, Cascade. And you'll cross the water a little bit and make your way into that Fremont area.  We do make up a section of Fremont, but not necessarily all of it. It's a very weirdly drawn district.

[00:02:47] Cherylynne Crowther: Have you attended a school board meeting?

[00:02:49] Bill Campbell: Yes, I have attended school board meetings. 

[00:02:51] Cherylynne Crowther: Have you testified at a board meeting?

[00:02:55] Bill Campbell: Not in Seattle. I have at other board meetings in a different district.

[00:03:00] Cherylynne Crowther: Have you testified at the state legislature?

[00:03:04] Bill Campbell: I have previously testified at the state legislature and in front of the US Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

[00:03:12] Cherylynne Crowther: Where did you go to school as a child?

[00:03:15] Bill Campbell: I went to eight different public schools, most of them here in the state of Washington. I had a family that moved around a lot. Then I went to 13 different community colleges and universities through the totality of my education.

[00:03:28] Christie Robertson: And do you, or have you had kids in Seattle Public Schools?

[00:03:32] Bill Campbell: I have had nieces and nephews in Seattle system. I do not have my own kids in the district. I don't have kids. Yet.

[00:03:40] Christie Robertson: You don't have kids, so not outside of public schools either.

[00:03:43] Bill Campbell: Yes.

[00:03:44] Christie Robertson: Have you worked in education?

[00:03:47] Bill Campbell: Yes. I teach collegially, and then I have coached athletics in districts around the state for over 15 years. I substitute in the district at least two weeks a year, just to keep up with everything that's going on.

[00:04:08] Christie Robertson: Have you been in a union?

[00:04:10] Bill Campbell: I have been in the union. Yes.

[00:04:12] Christie Robertson: Have you been on a board?

[00:04:14] Bill Campbell: I've been on a few boards. Yes.

[00:04:16] Christie Robertson: Have you worked with a large budget?

[00:04:19] Bill Campbell: I've worked with budgets eclipsing nine figures. So yes, some of the largest budgets in the country actually.

[00:04:27] Cherylynne Crowther: And this is Cherylynne again. Quick Takes. Who is an educational leader you admire?

[00:04:35] Bill Campbell: I admire our day to day teachers. My husband is a teacher in middle school and he has a lot of hard days. As do a lot of the other teachers in that school and particularly the Title I schools. And those are my hometown educational heroes.

[00:04:50] Cherylynne Crowther: Who is a school board director you're looking forward to working with?

[00:04:54] Bill Campbell: I am looking forward to working with a lot of the new board members. I think everybody goes into the educational system with good intentions.  I think our board has lost trust, and needs a reset. And I think we need to rebuild that with a new slate.

[00:05:12] Cherylynne Crowther: What is one education policy you strongly support?

[00:05:17] Bill Campbell: I strongly support great funding for our schools. I strongly support well-paid teachers. I strongly support transparency from our school district. I strongly support the public being involved. So lots of things I support.

[00:05:32] Cherylynne Crowther: And what's one thing you'd change about the school board immediately?

[00:05:36] Bill Campbell: Oh, I will fire the Texas consultants.

[00:05:40] Christie Robertson: Okay. And this is Christie. Last lightning round question. What's one lightning round question you would add for other candidates?

[00:05:48] Bill Campbell: Number one thing you can do to increase transparency from the district.

[00:05:52] Christie Robertson: And how would you answer that question?

[00:05:54] Bill Campbell, D4: My plan in the first 90 days of being on the school board is to return the board to two public traditional meetings a month, to create and found a citizens budget review committee so that the public can review, audit, and make recommendations on the annual budgets and control what goes out for the levies, and then to fire the Texas consultants who are currently telling Seattleites how to teach our kids.

[00:06:22] 2-minute questions

[00:06:22] Christie Robertson: All right, thank you. So our next set of questions, we will be asking you five questions that you will have two minutes to answer each. And these are institutional change questions. Feel free to speak to whatever aspect of the question strikes you the most.

[00:06:40] Cherylynne Crowther: And this is Cherylynne. What is the actual role and power of a school board director to impact how the district functions?

[00:06:48] Bill Campbell: Thank you for that question.  I  really appreciate being able to be here. I appreciate that you and Christie are taking your time out of what I'm assuming is a busy day and schedule to talk to candidates like myself. I appreciate that you are concerned for our schools, that you want public schools to be the best that it can be, to function in a way that parents feel proud about the schools that they send their kids to, that kids are happy to be in schools, that kids feel safe in schools. And so just again, thank you very much. 

What is the actual power and role of a school board director? We have to represent the needs, wants, and desires of the community. We are there to be the doers of what the community wants. We have to be zealously connected to the communities in which we live. That means going out and hearing the legitimate concerns of our parents and families, of our educators, of our kids, of all the people who are stakeholders in the largest school district in the state of Washington. 

Right now I am deeply disappointed with how the school board has chosen to connect with our stakeholders. We have eliminated a number of climate surveys. We have reduced traditional board meetings from two a month to one a month. We have eliminated the vast majority of committees that used to meet in the district. And for me, that's not acceptable. 

I think a lot of parents out there are deeply frustrated because they feel like they can't properly get involved in the schools that they're sending their kids to. They can't communicate with the district. They don't feel the district is being transparent. 

And so to fix those things, I want to return the school board to two traditional public meetings a month. to launch the Citizens Budget Review Committee for members to come on and yearly make recommendations on the budgets for the school system, and, again, to fire the Texas consultants that the district currently has on contract who have implemented many of these problems with transparency. 

[00:08:14] Christie Robertson: And, following up on that, Bill, do you see the school board role more as a trustee with a duty to the institution or as an elected representative role accountable to voters?

[00:08:55] Bill Campbell: Ah, a school board director is first and foremost responsible to the people who put us there in that office, to the people who cast that vote, to the parents, the families, and the students who are stakeholders in our district. 

We have a responsibility to make sure that our students feel comfortable coming to school, that our students are challenged when they get there... I am not afraid to say, "Hey. We might have really great graduation rates if we lower our standards, but we should be raising our standards.” It's important to look at a community, and what kind of school does this community need? What do the parents want in this community?

It's okay to have options. It's okay to have schools that are unique. We don't need to have only massive monolithic schools that fit one particular type of student and then try to stretch that fit to all the other students in the system. 

And so for me, it's not just about a trustee to keeping around SPS in its current form, it's about making sure that we are proactively standing up for and protecting what parents want and need for their kids, so that our kids, our students, our scholars, can be as successful as they possibly can be.

[00:10:20] Cherylynne Crowther: This is Cherylynne. What is the right balance between centralized control versus school-based control?

[00:10:28] Bill Campbell: For me, I really think that the administration side should be as scaled back as possible, to allow for local school communities to make good decisions about what's best for their school, what's best for the current students that they have in their school population, and what parents in that local community want and desire.

Right now, there's a 2025/2026 recommended budget. That includes 70% of the total budget for teaching related activities. Traditionally, teaching related activities make up around 83 to 84% of the school districtwide budget. We now have a 10% plus budget deficit. And guess what? We have seen the administration's portion of the budget grow by 10 to 14%.

I come from a Hispanic family. First generation American immigrants on both sides. My husband immigrated from the Philippines when he was 16 years old. My husband and I have also experienced homelessness. I myself grew up extremely poor with my mom working three jobs, making $2.15 an hour. We have experienced racism. We have experienced issues with us being queer, even in Seattle Public Schools actually. And so equity is a deep, major concern for us. My husband has only ever worked in plans to only work in the Title I schools, typically in South Seattle, so we can help represent and be there for students that are living the same type of life that he has previously lived. 

So we want the central administration, to balance equity, to make sure that we are placing resources in such a way that they serve our students who are in special education, our multilingual learners. But aside from that, I want also really good school-based control so we can meet what parents and students want and need.

[00:12:14] Christie Robertson: Thank you Bill. This is Christie. What should the school board do when the district is not meeting the goals or priorities that have been set for student outcomes?

[00:13:28] Bill Campbell: I'm a business person. I am an accountant and an educator, and a data analyst. I went to eight different public schools and 13 different community colleges and universities, including I believe five community colleges here in the state of Washington. I did that on my way to 8-1/2 degrees, covering 12 different subjects. And I also have a variant of leukemia that kind of necessitated stepping back from work a little bit, and I was able to do a lot of learning during that time.

What these experiences have taught me is that when we fail to meet specific goals, we really need to do a proper job of reflecting on the type of goals that we have, and then the strategies we have in place to help make sure they are successful, and review any roadblocks that are in place from preventing those goals from coming to reality. 

For me, that comes back to, in a school district, going back to our community to make sure that we're actually setting good proper goals. That we are doing what we can to put our resources in an optimal way towards these goals. 

For instance, one of the large priorities of the Seattle Public School system is to focus on students who are farthest from educational justice, who right now in our district is typically black males. And so almost every school has a sort of a mandate to try to work on making sure that these students who are farthest from educational justice have opportunities to graduate. 

The problem is is that over the last five years that has been accomplished primarily by reducing and lowering the standards required for these students to graduate, instead of improving their learning ability and learning outcomes. 

And so it's that reflection that work with the community to help us set good goals that we want, properly align our resources, and work together to make sure that we are making progress on those goals. 

[00:14:17] Cherylynne Crowther: This is Cherylynne. How should the board respond when community concerns suggest the district isn't meeting community expectations?

[00:14:51] Bill Campbell: Thank you again Cherylynne, for what I believe is our last question. And I just wanna say thank you to both of you. Thank you to everybody who works with your organization at Rainy Day Recess. Thank you for the work that you folks have done in education around Seattle and for our community and country over these last few years. Again, I really appreciate it, and I appreciate, again, this opportunity to be able to make my voice heard a little bit, because I'm all about reaching out to the community as much as possible. 

And so how should the board respond when, you, know the community has concerns and raises concerns? Hopefully we want the board to respond by actually trying to listen to and work with the community. 

If we look out at concerns the community has had over just the last year alone, right? The board had the audacity to say, “Hello citizens of Seattle. We want to close 21 of your schools. And then at the same time we want to add money to our capital levy and build a new one.” And to do both of those things just really lacked any foresight or any empathy into what the parents of our community and students of our community were feeling at that time and are still feeling today, at this very moment. 

I think it was really inappropriate for the board to fail to listen to what the community expectations were for Seattle Public Schools. And so when we hear that we're not meeting community's expectations, the board needs to really sit and say, “Hey, why is that?”

When the community says, “you're not being transparent enough.” When the community says, “I have a public records request that has sat for nine months.” When the community says that “we don't have opportunities to interact with you more.” We need to respond to those and say, “Hey, those are things that are actually very easily fixable.” 

It is actually fairly simple to return the board to two public meetings a month. It is fairly simple to reinvigorate our committee process. It is fairly simple to provide parents more opportunities to directly interact with the board. And I want to respond to the community when they ask us to in those positive ways.

So thank you again for your time.

[00:17:33] Christie Robertson: Thank you Bill, for being with us here today. We appreciate you taking the time to speak with us and to share your thoughts with us and with Seattle voters.

Be sure to listen to our other D4 candidates, Joe Mizrahi 

[00:17:47] Joe Mizrahi: I think that it's important to also talk about what the role of the board isn't. I'm not someone who wants to go in and tell these lifelong educators how to do their jobs. I have enough educators in my family, I've worked with educators long enough to have too much respect for the work that they do to go in and say this is how you should do this.

And, what we do is we hire experts, we set goals, we hold them to a community standard and then we let them do the work to figure it out. It's my job to carry the community concerns and then give them feedback on that.

[00:18:15] Christie Robertson: and Laura Marie Rivera 

[00:18:17] Laura Marie Rivera: The school board directors have a very important, incredible, and often overlooked role. Our current board has set a goal of removing themselves from the day-to-day activities and working only on the policy level. Which is an interesting goal to have, but it doesn't translate to what is happening in our schools, what is happening in our students' live, and even with the educators and staff.

[00:18:49] Christie Robertson: Ballots will be mailed Friday, July 18th, and the primary election is Tuesday, August 5. As always, stay curious, stay cozy, and thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess.