Mizrahi

Joe Mizrahi

Pronouns: He/Him

Director District 4

Video Statement

Statement of Interest

Candidates were asked to submit a letter of interest describing why they wish to serve and should be selected for appointment.

I am excited and grateful for the opportunity to apply and be considered for the open District 4 position on the Seattle School Board. I have spent my career and personal life, living my values of fighting for equity and opportunity for all. I believe that the school system at its best has the potential to be the greatest leveler of disparities in our society. However, when school systems fall short, they can exacerbate these same inequities.

I wanted to share a bit about how my personal background drives my commitment to education and equity. I grew up in a San Diego suburb as a first generation American from a refuge family and person of color. Both my parents were educators, in the same district where I attended school. My parents taught special education and helped build programs at their respective schools built around inclusion and access for all students.

As a student, my school district left a lot to be desired. I was the only student of my ethnic background in any of my classes. The district was heavily tracked and had many barriers to entry for the highly rigorous classes. Of course, I didn’t have the language to describe these problems, but I knew even then that it was a broken system. I was lucky enough to have parents who helped me navigate my education, but thinking back, it is staggering just how many students must have fallen through the cracks without my same resources. Even with the advantages I had, I still faced racist encounters with fellow students and teachers throughout my education.

This duality of experiencing both adversity and privilege helped me see the benefits and the problems within public education. This perspective only grew being married to an educator. My wife, Liz, is an elementary school principal at a Title-1, Dual Language and inclusion school in the Bellevue School District. Before becoming a principal, she began her career as an AVID teacher and later AVID District Director, promoting this program district-wide to support and empower students of color not only to attend college, but thrive and achieve their college dreams.

Growing up with educator parents and being married to one means that the conversations around the dinner table have always been about education. Whether it’s discussing behavior interventions that don’t feed the school to prison pipeline, or the latest draft of my wife’s School Improvement Plan—my proximity to educators has given me familiarity and perspective.

Lastly, I bring the perspective of a parent of three children, currently navigating the Seattle Public School system. As a parent of a first, fourth, and sixth grader, I have been impressed with the teachers, curriculum, and overall care our children have received in Seattle Public Schools. We have also seen the cracks in the system and know that our experience is not shared across the district. While I offer the perspective of a parent, I know the importance of not basing my decisions on the small sample size of my three kids. This perspective will inform, but never drive my thought process.

Fifteen years ago, after attending law school, I began working for a union, United Food and Commercial Workers 3000 which represents workers across Washington in the grocery, retail, and health care industries. I am not exaggerating when I say that I talk with low wage workers every day. I work closely with about 10,000 workers in the Seattle community. I have seen the impacts our school system can have on low-income families. Our schools have the potential to be not just where kids go between certain hours of the day, but a central hub, imbedded in every community. They can be a place for those who need access to dental care, vaccines, immigration information, or mental health services. Our schools can be a whole community school, a desperately needed role in our city. This is what I have seen in my daily work with the community members I serve, and work I hope to continue on Seattle School Board.

Resume / Summary of Related Experience

Tell us about your experience, including any Board or other leadership experience.

Education:

Juris Doctor, 2007
University of San Diego

BA, Political Science and History, 2004
Brandeis University

Professional Experience:

Secretary- Treasurer (Co-Executive Director)/ 2019 – Present
UFCW 3000 (Formerly UFCW 21)

Elected Officer/ Co-Lead of largest union in Washington State and largest UFCW local in the USA, represented retail, healthcare, and processing workers
Manage annual budget of over $32 million and an over $50 million in total assets
Lead and coach team of department directors to manage and oversee their projects and ensure success
Build systems to track overall goals and planning of entire organization
Oversee policies, practices, growth, and accountability for staff of over 120
Chief spokesperson for Grocery contract negotiations of 30,000 member that sets standard for the grocery industry in the Pacific Northwest

Staff Director/ Leadership Development Director / 2016 – 2019
UFCW 21/ Washington State

Oversaw the development and accountability of a staff of over 120, with offices spread out around Washington State
Led efforts to build racial and gender equity practices in hiring and leadership development
Collaborated with teams to set goals and metrics for measurable success and follow through to ensure plans are being met
Led membership development and education program for entire staff as well as 4,800 members
Planned, implemented, and led regional conferences and national trainings

Political Director / 2011 – 2016
UFCW 21/ Washington State

Led the passage of groundbreaking labor standards and human rights legislation in the country including, Marriage Equality (2012), Paid Sick Leave (2012), $15 Minimum Wage (2014), Paid Family Leave (2017)
Represented organization at various tables, and worked to build coalitions with a broad array of elected officials and community groups
Led electoral work for statewide and local elections, including building data system to track success of program

Board Experience:

Elected Trustee of the King County Labor Council
Co-Chair of Sound Health Wellness Trust (Healthcare System with over 60,000 participants
Co-Chair of Sound Retirement Trust (Multi-Billion Dollar Pension)
Co-Chair of Sound WeTrain Trust (Workforce Development Trust)
Founding Commissioner of the Seattle Labor Standards Advisory Commission

Professional Licenses & Training:

Inactive Member of California Bar Association 2008-Present
Inactive Member of Washington State Bar Association 2008-Present
Trustee Training- IFEBP 2017-Present
Licensed Mediator 2007

Application questions

What is your connection to the Director District 2 or 4 community, schools, families, and students? How do you foresee growing or expanding on those connections and relationships in your role as a School Board Director?

My primary interest in joining the Seattle School Board is based on my time and experience working with members of the community. I have lived in North Seattle for the past 15 years. Professionally, I feel like my job is, at its core, all about community organizing. I know that true community engagement is built around two simple, yet critical components: Time and Listening. As I stated in my letter of interest, my work has given me deep roots in the Seattle community where we represent close about 10,000 workers. The majority of our membership are low -wage workers, women, and people of color. These workers are all too often overlooked by the systems that they are forced to operate in. All too often these systems don’t serve them, they impact them. Frankly, this is often most true in areas like District 4, where systems might work just fine for those with ample privilege, but absolutely steamroll over everyone else. I have spent years with these workers fighting for stable work schedules, affordable housing and childcare, decent pay, dependable healthcare, paid sick leave, and the list could go on and on. In fact, my current role at UFCW 3000 is actually an elected position, where I am grateful to be serving in my third term representing these workers. I know how deeply important it is that the school system work for these families and that the vital role that a school site can play in their communities. Not only do I hope to help bring their perspective to the school board, but also bring the community organizing skills that I have gained to this role. In my work we have a robust community department which has allowed me the opportunity to engage with hundreds of community organizations in Seattle. These community groups are usually those most aligned with my organization’s mission of building economic and social justice. I have run campaigns alongside the Faith Action Network, Transit Riders Union, Equal Rights Washington, Tenants Union, Got Green, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, One America, just to name a few. As I mentioned I am also a parent in the district. My three daughters are currently enrolled in Seattle Public Schools in the first, fourth, and sixth grade. This has given me perspective as a parent myself and a deep connection to the parent community. As a School Board Director, I would immensely look forward to building upon these existing relationships and building new ones with parent groups, education advocates, and student organizations. To do so, I would use the same skills I have built over the last decade and a half building similar community—utilizing the two most critical components of community engagement, spending time with these groups, and listening to what matters to them.

What is your understanding of the role and responsibilities of a School Board Director and the Seattle School Board? How do you foresee working with your fellow Directors, the Superintendent, staff, and the public?

While I have done many jobs at the local, for the past five years, I have been the Secretary-Treasurer, which means that I co-run the union, the largest union in Washington State. I also, am primarily responsible for our finances with an annual operating budget of around 30 million, and as a fiduciary co-chair of our pension fund with assets in excess of $5 billion and our health plan which covers more than 40,000 lives. This work gives me a unique advantage that I will bring to the School Board. I am a very seasoned and experienced member of a board. Having served on several boards myself, and having helped many candidates serve on school boards, port commissions, or hospital boards I have seen the challenges with serving as a part-time board member. In my experience, the mistake many first-time board members make is that they treat the work as too part time—not devoting the time and energy necessary to bring value to the board, and basically having over rely on staff. A board member who fails to properly engage, or who is using the board as a springboard to higher ambitions is not really adequately representing the community they are there to serve. On the other hand, I have seen board member err in the opposite direction, treating their own, often anecdotal, experience as the only experience that matters and railroading full-time staff and being overly combative with fellow board members. This can have equally negative impacts as board members must rely on the expertise of full-time trained professionals to run operations. This is even harder on boards that are subject to public meeting rules as there is often not space to build connections with fellow board members. A successful board member both knows when to listen and differ, and when to ask questions and push back. A good board member is one who can stay rooted in the mission, goals, and strategic plan of an organization and can ask questions to keep the staff accountable to that vision. I can share one firsthand experience with this type of governance. As the co-chair of the Sound Retirement Trust, we get quarterly reports from our investment consultants. These are billions of dollars of workers’ pension money that must be managed properly. On one hand, if I were to not ask any questions and simply take whatever the investments told us at face value, I would not be a good fiduciary. On the other hand, they are professionals at the top of their field, an area where I am not at all an expert. What I’ve learned over the years, is that the best way to act as a good Trustee is to keep our goals and strategic plan at the forefront of my questions. If we are off of our goal, I will push back and ask the consulting professionals, why we aren’t hitting our metrics. If we exceed our goals, I will press on how we did better and how we can replicate that success. I’ve also learned to not be afraid to ask consultants to explain things in layperson’s terms, because it is my job to understand them. In the end, being a good Board Director is all about balancing listening with questioning. We are always doing our job at our best when we are rooted in our mission, strategic plan, and short and long-term goals.

Describe the areas of strength you bring to collaboration and building positive working relationships with fellow Board directors.

I believe the strengths that I bring that will be most beneficial to collaboration with fellow board members are 1) my high level of professionalism and 2) the importance I place on long-term relationships. I believe this collaboration is most apparent not when we all agree, but when we disagree—not when things are easy, but when things are hard. I will once again look to my experiences on the boards on which I currently illustrate how I bring these strengths. On the various pension trusts and health trusts on which I serve the other board members are the very employers that we bargain against. I am the co-chair of these trusts and my fellow co-chair is an employer side representative. We aren’t talking about public sector employers here. These are representatives of some of the largest companies in the world, like Kroger. One would think that given our respective roles, that we would be in constant conflict. In fact, this could not be further from the truth. We are able to work together very well and accomplish very ambitious work on our trusts. Firstly, I bring strong professionalism to my role, disagreements occur, but they are never personal. Moreover, I over prepare for any trust meeting. Even though this is a part-time role, I will spend hours identifying areas of potential conflict and working through those topics internally and individually with fellow board members. I approach every issue this way. Secondly, I value the long-term relationship I hold with my fellow board members. Even though we are at times on opposite sides of an issue. I always want to treat them with respect and consideration, I always listen to their perspective and remain open to changing my mind and finding compromise. The primary reason for this is that we have an ongoing relationship with each other. If my fellow board members feel passionately about an issue, I hear them out and listen, because when I feel passionately about something I want them to hear me out and listen. By brining my professionalism and value for long term relationships to this role, I believe I will bring strong collaboration to the Seattle Public School Board.

Please give an example of how you have addressed conflict and overcame it to build alignment as a member of a group decision-making body.

It likely won’t be surprising that fighting for low-wage workers, bargaining against Fortune- 50 companies, and running a staff of over 150 people puts me in a constant state of conflict. To some extent this is true, but as an organizer, I believe it is our job, when presented with conflict, to continue to organize around the issue, build support, listen, and move others. I have served as a board member and elected trustee of the King County Labor Council for the last four years. In that time, I have developed a consistent track record as one of the leading voices for the anti-racist work that must happen within labor. One very sticky conflict that came up early in my time on the board was this issue of removing the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild (SPOG) from the labor council. This was during the height of the protests following George Floyd’s murder and SPOG had been a consistent bad actor who hid behind their status as a labor organization to justify their lack of accountability, specifically on the topic of racial equity. SPOG’s continued presence in the labor council was a major problem for our members of color, the communities we worked with, and for me personally. This stance put us at odds with many within the council and across labor. In addition to this internal strife, there was significant pressure from the National Labor Federation to not do anything to remove police unions from labor bodies. Our organization was ready to move and many of our allies were impatient. In addition, as the largest affiliate of the labor council, we could have just bullied our way into a yes vote. But it felt important to ongoing relationships and to the broader reform movement to build a larger coalition around the Police Guild removal vote. With that in mind, instead of taking an immediate vote, we set up a one-month limited process where we would hear from the Police Guild, and they could share their response to our issues. Additionally, we would hear from the communities of color that were most impacted and interested in holding the Police Guild Accountable on policies around racial equity and accountability. Over the next month these listening sessions were incredibly impactful, and perhaps unsurprisingly SPOG refused to even commit to becoming an anti-racist organization. In the end, even with the month delay, we were the first, but not last, labor council to remove the Police Guild from our ranks. And the resolution we passed was stronger and had much broader support thanks to the organizing work I had done.

School Board Policy No, 0030, Ensuring Educational and Racial Equity, includes the following commitment:

The Seattle School Board is committed to the success of every student in each of our schools and to achieving our mission of ensuring that all students graduate ready for college, career and life. We believe that the responsibility for student success is broadly shared by District Staff, administrators, instructors, communities and families. We are focused on closing the opportunity gap and creating learning communities that provide support and academic enrichment programs for all students. Additionally, we believe that it is the right of every student to have an equitable educational experience within the Seattle Public School District.

What does this statement mean to you?

As I stated in my letter of interest, I believe that the school system at its best has the potential to be the greatest leveler of disparities in our society. However, when school systems fall short, they can exacerbate these same inequities. It is because of the School Board’s Commitment to racial equity that I am interested in joining the School Board in the first place. And it is because there is still so much work to be done to close the opportunity gap that I believe my perspective can be an asset. When we talk about what this statement means to me there are two truths that immediately come to mind. The first is recognizing that there are significant barriers in place within any educational system that prevent all students from obtaining and equitable education. Whether these barriers are school funding, or food or housing insecurity, or school discipline policies, it is our job to identify these barriers and remove them so every student can achieve, what I believe, is their truly limitless potential. The second is recognizing that there are communities in our district that have been historically marginalized, that have not had a seat at the table, and have not been served by the education system. These are primarily the BIPOC communities, particularly our Black and Hispanic community, but also our neurodivergent, low-income and students who speak language other than English and the intersectionality within these communities. We must recognize that those barriers are now and historically have been far more present for these groups than for other groups. It is our job to do more than just recognize these historical inequities, but to remove barriers for these groups. We must acknowledge that historically schools have been built to serve white, neurotypical, monolingual students and it is our job to build our schools to serve those communities that have been most impacted by inequities. We must orbit around those that are most marginalized and, in turn, focus on those most impacted, those who have been historically pushed to the margins to center and guide our decision making. For me, racial equity and closing the opportunity gap is at the core of my lived experience. I grew up as a POC student in a highly segregated district, fraught with barriers to accessing everything from college preparatory classes to inconsistent AP course offerings to regressive discipline practices that perpetrated tracking students by the color of their skin and the neighborhood they lived in. I watched my parents spend a career fighting for inclusion and access for neurodivergent students. I spend everyday talking with my wife about her commitment to centering her building leadership in principles of racial equity and inclusion. And I spend my career fighting alongside low-wage predominantly POC workers fighting to raise their families in a more livable Seattle. For me, equity is more than jargon, it is at the core of what I do and who I am.

The Seattle School Board has set three goals for student outcomes with accompanying metrics that serve as broader indicators of the school system’s performance. Provide your insights into how setting goals and monitoring progress influences student success.

I am a huge proponent of Outcomes Focused Governance. In my work as the co-director of a large mission driven non-profit organization, we have similar challenges to a large school district. Without strategic planning and measurable goal setting, our work can become ephemeral and ill-defined. Are we successful? Are we moving the needle? That is why when I became one of the top officers in 2019, we quickly shifted to long-term strategic planning adopting both a 2-year plan and then later a 5-year plan. This plan was developed with staff, members, unorganized workers, and community allies. This plan was then broken down into concrete, time specific, measurable goals which were used as accountability measures to determine whether were hitting our benchmarks, allocating resources properly, and accomplishing our strategic plan. The goals, guardrails, and progress monitoring wonderfully serve this purpose. As a data-driven purpose whose love language is excel and good dashboard, I can appreciate the work that went into translating a big picture strategic plan into accountable metrics. This progress monitoring, of course, is the best way to move past the anecdotal experiences that cloud all of our judgments and use data to ensure we are properly serving the students who most need it. I believe it is the role of the Board to use the student outcome goals and guardrails as a touchstone by which we base our decision making. It is also an important part of our work to ensure that district staff and leadership stay rooted in these goals even when the reactive work of running massive school district invariably pulls at their time and attention. Lastly, in my answer above, I discussed the importance of orbiting our decisions making around those most impacted by historic and ongoing inequities in our system. I believe that focusing our Student Outcome Goals and Progress Monitoring on those most historically marginalized by our school system, specifically Black boys. By focusing our measures on those most impacted, we are doing just that and really taking the opportunity gap head on.

Please share your knowledge and/or thoughts on an ongoing educational issue that is a high priority for you. How do you see the Board’s role in this issue?

One of the highest priorities I can think of, and how I can be of service to the Seattle Public School Board, is dealing with the ongoing budget challenges facing our education system as a whole and our district specifically. I believe the true test of any organization’s values comes not when times are easy, but when times are hard. The reality is that the budget issues Seattle, and so many other districts face, are not going away any time soon. The demographics of our city may shift over time, but in the immediate future we will be faced with ongoing hard decisions. I believe our role as a Board is threefold; One is to do whatever we can to advocate for more funding. I have previously spent several years of my career as a registered lobbyist in Olympia and Seattle and would work as a Board member with OSPI, Parent, Teacher and Student Groups, and Other Districts to fight for more and more equitable funding streams as well as finding City and County partnerships for programs that can bring more resources into our schools. The second role I would like to play on the Board is examining inequities in our current funding across the district in the form of PTA funding. The ability for some schools to fundraise for additional front-line support staff while other school communities cannot, only exacerbates the already deep inequities amongst our neighborhood schools. I won’t claim to have a ready-made answer for this deep inequity, but it is an issue I am very interested in delving into on the Board. The third, and most important, role the school Board must play in addressing the budget issues, is ensuring that when tough decisions are made, they are rooted in our values, our student outcome goals about equity, and our strategic plan. I can share personal experience about a time I have had to take on this sort of challenge. In 2016, our pension plan was deep in the redzone, meaning that on its current trajectory, it would not have been solvent over the next 30 years. In order to save the plan, it was clear that benefit cuts were needed. I was part of a team that had to discuss and explain to members what cuts were equitable and fair. In this case, we rooted ourselves in the overall goal of our pension—to provide a secure retirement for workers when they reached retirement age. Grounded in this goal, we were able to identify some early retirement benefits that, if cut, could save the entire plan. These decisions were hard. And there were devastating conversations with impacted people who were rightfully upset that the early retirement that they had thought was available to them was no longer possible. However, by staying true to our goal of a secure retirement age benefit, we were able to not only communicate these cuts with integrity, but also, along with many other years of work, able to move our plan into fully-funded status. Similarly, I know that there may be hard decisions to come for the Board and for District Leadership and Staff. I believe that if we stay truly rooted in our values and goals, we can continue to School District that builds a more equitable future and closes the opportunity gap for all students.