As the mother of three children in Seattle Public Schools and longtime education advocate and policy analyst, I know that our schools have great successes because of families, educators, administrators and community, in spite of chronic under funding from Olympia, crowded buildings from Seattle’s growth, and systemic racial and economic inequity.

I’m ready to serve Seattle’s schools – the center of our communities – to invest in Seattle.

Serving as legislative chair for Seattle Council of Parent, Teacher and Student Associations, I’ve engaged with diverse community members and driven policy advocacy to improve opportunity and access to great public education. I co-founded and served as founding President of Washington’s Paramount Duty, an organization dedicated to full funding for public K-12 education. I have 12+ years of professional experience with 8+ years of board service, including the Youth, Schools and Education Committee chair for Seattle City Neighborhood Council, and recently served on the SPS Capacity Management Task Force.

I’m committed to continuing to advocate for every child, especially for our historically disadvantaged. Every school needs the resources for a great education, and some schools need more. I will continue to fight for policies that support families and educators, serve students with diverse learning needs, and those that increase equity.

Despite the challenges facing our district, I will be a champion for every student across Seattle. I would be honored by your vote.

Endorsements: Seattle Times, The Stranger, Seattle Weekly, King County Democrats, International Union of Operating Engineers Local 609; Education Champions: Sebrena Burr, Rita Green, Melissa Westbrook, Heidi Bennett, Summer Stinson, and 2015 WA Teacher of the Year Lyon Terry; SPS Directors: Peters, Harris, Burke, Patu, Pinkham and Geary; Legislators: Pollet, Hasegawa, Pedersen, Macri, Tarleton, Carlyle, Farrell (former), Frame, Frockt, Maxwell (former); and King County Councilmembers Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Joe McDermott.

I am seeking your vote for our children and youth for their future as a candidate for Seattle School Board.

As a lifelong career professional educator, teacher, school principal, education consultant, ESL training manager, business owner in 11 countries worldwide(USA, Thailand, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Yemen, Iraq, U.A.E., Germany, Pakistan, and Cambodia), I have a proved successful blend of teaching, administrative, and business experience in both USA and international K-12, university, and adult educational organizations, particularly in designing & implementing ESL training programs and K-12 curriculum models.

Additionally I have organized and conducted teacher training workshops and seminars in various international educational organizations and cross-cultural venues. No other candidate in this election has my professional, personal, and academic qualifications, as our schools are not a "corporate business" long misruled and made dysfunctional by corporate politicians masquerading as "public education officials", nor a government bureaucracy, but are instead a mutual partnership among learners, teachers, and parents - the people own our schools, not corporate politicos nor schooling system bureaucrats.

A primary professional interest of mine is teacher training & re-training, and mentoring teachers in learner-interaction-based, learner-centered classroom learning environments where the learner is the active participant, not a dumbed-down passive spectator in his/her own learning discoveries and attainments.  I have extensive professional expertise and experience with learner-interaction-based instructional approaches, strategies, and methods for classroom learning environments at K-12, adult, and university levels.

The corporate 'public schooling system' has too long cheated and victimized our youth by making them into dumbed-down spectators in the classroom instead of the actual actors, participants, and doers in their own learning activities and experiences. The time is now for reform and redevelopment of our K-12 public education, and I ask your vote for our youth and our parents for their future.

Thank you.

Herb Camet, Jr.