SARAH clark said no to
closing seattle schools
Sarah Clark is your District 2 advocate neighbor who stands up for our students. Sarah is here to make Seattle Schools better.
MEET SARAH.
Meet Sarah Clark - she grew up in Seattle, went through Seattle Public Schools herself, and now serves on the school board where she's fighting to keep our neighborhood schools strong. Sarah knows schools aren't just buildings - they're the heart of our communities. When others pushed for school closures, Sarah stood up and said we need better solutions. She listens to families, looks at the evidence, and focuses on what actually works for Seattle's kids. Instead of rushing into closures, she's all about finding creative ways to keep our schools open and make them better for every student, no matter their background or needs. She's not afraid to challenge the status quo, especially when it comes to keeping our neighborhood schools alive and thriving.
DEEP SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOL ROOTS
Sarah Clark is a product of Seattle Public Schools, having attended from kindergarten through graduation. Her journey through APP (now HCC) and involvement in sports, arts, and music gave her firsthand experience with both the district's strengths and areas needing improvement. As an aunt to students currently in Seattle schools and a neighbor to many SPS families, she understands how today's students and families experience our education system.
POLICY EXPERTISE THAT MATTERS
With a master's degree in education policy from the University of Washington and experience leading the Early Learning Action Alliance, Sarah brings deep policy knowledge to the board. She has successfully navigated complex educational policy challenges, including helping pass House Bill 2568, which created alternative pathways for experienced childcare providers to meet education requirements. Her background enables her to analyze proposals thoroughly and ensure decisions are grounded in evidence.
PROVEN COALITION BUILDER
Sarah's strength lies in bringing people together to achieve real results. She worked with families, community leaders, and board members to stop the mass school closure plan in 2024. As the leader of the Early Learning Action Alliance, she transformed a deadlocked coalition into a unified force by meeting individually with stakeholders, understanding their needs, and crafting solutions that worked for everyone. She applies this same collaborative approach to her school board service, working across differences to address crucial issues like budget challenges and school safety while ensuring community voices are heard in every decision.
MORE ABOUT SARAH
Appointed: as Seattle School Board Director in April 2024
Education: Master’s in Education Policy, University of Washington
Seattle Public Schools Attended: West Woodland Elementary, Madrona Elementary, Washington Middle School, Garfield High School
Favorite Activities as an SPS Student: Orchestra (Violin), Basketball, Cross Country, Mountaineers’ Club
Dog’s Name: Edna Mae
SARAH’S VISION FOR SEATTLE SCHOOLS
Sarah Clark ran to be appointed in District 2’s vacant School Board seat in Spring 2024 because she saw a void in common sense leadership and felt called to improve education for Seattle’s children. Here’s what she considers primary priorities for Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle School Board:
SEATTLE SCHOOL BOARD MUST RESTORE FISCAL OVERSIGHT
I’m committed to providing strong fiscal oversight, increasing budget transparency, and bringing more resources to the classroom through better management, not by rushing to close schools or cancel programs.
I’m chairing the first budget committee in nearly 3 years to examine the details, ensure wise management, provide smart recommendations, and eliminate wasteful spending. I am using recent data to realign our budgeting systems and timelines, identify efficiencies, and areas that need more analysis.
If I am elected to serve a full term, I will fight to have the budget and finance committee officially reinstated, increase community engagement and transparency into SPS’s annual budgeting process, and reduce the deficit while reinvesting dollars where they are needed most—in classrooms.
SEATTLE SCHOOLS MUST PROMOTE ACADEMIC RIGOR
I worked to prevent the closure of the highly capable cohort, including working directly with former Supt. Brent Jones to ensure the cohort was extended for another three years. I will fight to keep the cohort open for the long-term. I also support expanding the highly capable cohort to more schools and fundamentally changing the testing and enrollment procedures that have cut off access for underserved communities for decades. I also support creating viable pathways in neighborhood schools so families don't have to choose between advanced learning and their community, and scaffold pathways for twice-exceptional students. We need to pilot and test strategies that serve all students who need academic challenge.
District-wide, we need to restore academic rigor. We must reinstate Walk to Math and the advanced grade-level opportunities that were eliminated. We should also expand popular programs like Dual Language and Expeditionary Learning, increase tutoring for students needing support, and strengthen community partnerships through the FEPP levy.
We also need to diversify and expand workforce development, college readiness, career connected learning, and internship opportunities for our high school students—and the necessary support to prepare them for life beyond SPS. The ‘high school and beyond plan’ is not enough—I am committed to working with our local colleges and universities (go huskies!), union and labor partners, local businesses, and elected officials to ensure SPS graduates have options.
As someone who overcame significant barriers in SPS, I believe we must expand academic opportunity beyond a two-tiered system, not by attacking the cohort system, but by providing more offerings so that the cohort is not the only guarantee of advanced learning. I'm committed to working with families to create pathways to advanced learning while ensuring every student has access to instruction that meets them where they are and helps them grow.
SEATTLE SCHOOLS MUST BE SAFER FOR STUDENTS
Seattle Public Schools must be safer for students. Students can’t succeed while threatened with physical and sexual violence; the Seattle School Board must prioritize short- and long-term ways to improve student safety in schools. But these efforts can’t ignore a student’s social and emotional safety. Seattle Public Schools need to invest in common sense opportunities, like increasing social worker presence and returning student access to programs that are emotional safe havens, like music and the arts.
All our solutions must include community-informed best practices and center student voice, especially those most impacted by policing.
SEATTLE SCHOOLS MUST CONTINUE PROTECTING OUR LGBTQIA+ STUDENTS
One of the main reasons I decided to seek a position on the school board is my commitment to improve safety for all our students, including our LGBTQIA+ students.
During the last 19 months I’ve served on the school board, I’ve stood for and with students fighting to keep their rights, including earlier this spring at Whittier Elementary School when right-wing protestors threatened the school's annual Drag Queen story time event (where the photo above was taken).
The current efforts to collect signatures for two more initiatives to the state legislature is appalling. As long as I’m on the board, Seattle schools will do everything in our legal power to oppose right-wing attacks that threaten LGBTQIA+ students, and advocate against those initiatives in our conversations with legislators and community members.
If I am elected to serve a full term, I’m committed to redesigning the board’s advocacy program, at all levels of government, to empower board directors to do more to protect our students. We must also rebuild relationships with our intergovernmental partners at the City of Seattle and King County to address intersectional issues on behalf of our kids. I’m committed to reconvening regular public meetings with council members and collaborating with regional leaders, including the Seattle Police Department, to create community based solutions to our students safety concerns, regardless of their identity. Hate has no place in Seattle Public Schools.
SEATTLE SCHOOLS MUST REACH FOR REAL EQUITY
Since before Covid, Seattle’s entrenched School Board has centered their decisions on a narrowly defined version of equity, using it to push school closure plans and end programs like highly capable cohort schools. But achieving equity for our students farther from educational justice includes recognizing (and advocating) for student groups whose commonalities are beyond race.
Students with different learning needs, like special education students (with IEPs or 504s), highly capable and advanced learning students, and English language learners, are all under resourced and often ignored by the School Board’s typical policy.
In 19 months on the board, Sarah hasn’t seen SPS actually center equity or students in their decisions. Sarah’s running to break that cycle.
SEATTLE SCHOOLS MUST BE MORE TRANSPARENT
During 2024’s school closure debacle, both Seattle Public Schools and some of the Seattle School Board demonstrated an unfathomable lack of transparency with its families and the greater public. Sarah opposed that closure plan, and opposes current efforts by other board members to revive it.
That closure plan also showed that both the School Board and district must rebuild trust with families and the public. That can happen by offering more access to their activities, by seeking more opportunities for two-way communication, and by demonstrating what the feedback they hear is valued.
SEATTLE SCHOOLS MUST PROTECT JEWISH STUDENTS
As a school board director, I am committed to ensuring our schools remain safe and welcoming places for all students, including Jewish students, families, and staff who deserve to thrive without fear. The recent lawsuit filed by a former Nathan Hale High School student alleging months of antisemitic harassment is a wake up call that we must do better to protect Jewish students in our schools.
As a former SPS student who was bullied and discriminated against for twelve years, and punished for trying to protect myself, I have personal experience with the trauma and challenges that arise when our schools aren’t welcoming and safe —and when adults don’t have the training to recognize problems and intervene.
Antisemitism—whether directed at individuals, Jewish student organizations, or the Jewish community's collective identity—has no place in our schools, and I will actively work to combat it. I pledge to speak out clearly and publicly against antisemitic incidents and rhetoric in our schools and broader community.
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