Sullivan
Shawn Sullivan
Pronouns: He/Him
Director District 2
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.
As a parent of two elementary students in the Seattle Public School system (West Woodland Elementary), and as a product of the public education system myself (in Alabama), I am deeply passionate about the importance of public education in both the lives of families and children as well as the community at large. I know that a strong public education system doesn’t just provide children the knowledge and skills they need to build a great life; it creates a community where families of all shapes and sizes bond together, and even improves the lives of residents without children in the public school system through fostering a stronger social fabric. I have volunteered in the classroom of both of my children and have seen both the challenges and the joy of public education first-hand.
Seattle Public Schools face many challenges. Persistent budget shortfalls pose a constant challenge to SPS, making its mission of delivering quality education to students a regular, difficult balancing act. Important goals around education equity and equality are not easy to achieve yet are critical to SPS’s success within the community. Declining enrollment, caused by a variety of factors, poses another challenge, forcing the district to consider hard choices regarding how to allocate reduced resources across its schools and consider school closures. Teacher burnout is a very real presence, particularly since the pandemic. Test scores and at-grade-level student achievement remain stubbornly difficult problems, despite many efforts to improve them. Social media has led to new kinds of social pressures many parents never experienced themselves, putting schools in the role of first-line mental health support for youth feeling historically high degrees of isolation and depression. Meanwhile, preparing young people for postsecondary education or beginning their careers is only becoming harder in the face of new technology and increasing demand for STEM skills.
I am not scared of these challenges. In fact, I view them as opportunities to make a positive impact in our children’s lives. Yes, they are hard problems, and sometimes hard decisions will need to be made, but in my career as an engineer, entrepreneur, and executive, I have developed excellent skills for solving these types of problems. I am energized at the thought of being able to contribute to solving them, not just for my own children and their school, but for the Seattle community at large. I have lived in Seattle since 2007, longer than anywhere else I’ve ever lived, and this is my home. I want to give back, and I can think of no greater way to give back than to serve on the Seattle Public Schools Board of Directors.
I believe the public school system is one of the greatest public goods we can offer society. Done well, it raises up all children and prepares them to lead their best lives. It can be a force for equity and social justice, pushing back against generational biases which unfairly penalize a younger generation purely by virtue of the socioeconomic situation into which they were born. I also believe in differentiated education as a great tool for giving each student what they need to be their best selves, whether that is additional support for students catching up, individualized support for students with special needs, or — when done in an unbiased manner — challenging curriculum for advanced students. Public school should be a blessing to our children, families, and community, and it can be with the right leadership.
Disclaimer: as of November 2023, I am CTO at an educational technology company (GT School). However, we do not make products for school systems, and we have no business with SPS, nor do we plan to. Our products are supplemental home study tools for students. My interest in a position on the SPS Board of Directors is wholly in my capacity as a parent and community member.
Resume / Summary of Related Experience
Tell us about your experience, including any Board or other leadership experience.
Board & Leadership Experience:
Nov 2015-present: board member, executive, and advisory roles at Phase Genomics. I have held a variety of leadership positions at Phase Genomics since co-founding it in 2015. These positions have included responsibilities in public relations, fundraising, management, strategic leadership, decision making, managing a multi-million-dollar budget, people management, recruitment, human resources, legal issues, corporate structure, and more. In this role I have had experience with everything involved in running a business.
Oct 2022-present: chairman, Pacific Old School Magic. I am currently chairman of a hobby organization that governs a group of approximately 200 Magic: the Gathering players. While this is a hobby, the organization is governed by by-laws and conducts operations following Robert’s Rules of Order. In this role, my responsibilities include running meetings efficiently and according to the rules, managing the process of motions being brought to the floor, managing voting processes, handling disciplinary issues, and being the final arbiter on decisions as needed.
Work Experience:
Nov 2023-present: I am currently Chief Technology Officer at GT School, an education technology startup using artificial intelligence to create engaging supplemental educational materials for elementary, middle, and high school students. In this role, I lead efforts to use technology to reach students where they are, making learning not just effective but also fun. My job is to think about how to help students love learning and succeed in their educational goals through technology, and it’s something I am lucky enough to get to do every day. Note: we do not make products with school systems as a customer, nor do we plan to. Our products are supplemental educational apps similar to DuoLingo or Khan Academy.
Nov 2015-Nov 2023: I co-founded and was Chief Technology Officer of Phase Genomics, a spinout from the University of Washington which combined a novel biochemical method with advanced data analysis and machine learning to unlock new discoveries in cancer treatment, infectious disease, environmental sustainability, basic research, and more. As one of the founders, I helped build this business from the ground up; it now employs 30 people, has received significant funding from the NIH, Gates Foundation, venture capitalists, and others, and has made a multitude of important scientific contributions. I also managed a multi-million-dollar annual budget, had to regularly make difficult decisions with complex tradeoffs, and helped tell our company’s story to the public in favorable ways. I have remained at Phase Genomics as an advisor since departing my full-time role last November.
Aug 2007-Nov 2015: I worked at Microsoft as a Program Manager on Microsoft Office. My primary responsibilities in this role included coordinating large-scale projects, communicating project details both within the company and externally, defining and leading special projects, and designing software to achieve desired user experience goals. I was highly successful in this role, being promoted multiple times including into management, and receiving multiple awards for outstanding performance.
Educational Background:
I attended public schools in California (K-3rd grade) and Alabama (4th-12th grade), then attended college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science. In high school, I attended and was valedictorian at a magnet school for gifted students (Jefferson County International Baccalaureate), which emphasized an AP and IB curriculum and has been ranked among the top public high schools in America.
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?
I am the parent of two children (twins) in second grade at West Woodland Elementary. Many of our neighbors have children who attend Salmon Bay Elementary. I also live 2 blocks from Ballard High School and know several children who attend school there. These relationships give me a strong foundational connection to schools within District 2, and I foresee my relationships broadening to include all other schools in District 2 as Director.
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?
The Seattle School Board has overall legal and fiduciary responsibility for Seattle Public Schools. This means they are charged with ensuring the District meets all legal and constitutional responsibilities for public education systems in Washington, and that the educational system is both sufficiently and reasonably funded to meet those responsibilities. As a Director, particularly a new one, I would work in close partnership with fellow Directors to develop plans to meet the Board’s responsibilities. I would also work closely with the Superintendent to ensure they were bought-in to the District’s plans and empowered to implement them, and to oversee the Superintendent’s performance. I would work with staff and parents to ensure they also understood plans and answer their questions and concerns about them, even when difficult choices had to be made. Finally, I would also seek feedback from the Superintendent, staff, and the public to help inform the Board’s decision making process.
Describe the areas of strength you bring to collaboration and building positive working relationships with fellow Board directors.
I am an intelligent person with a bias to make decisions and take actions. I believe in using data to make better decisions, but also using common sense when appropriate, especially when data don’t paint a complete picture. I have extensive experience leading organizations and making hard decisions. I have a particularly strong understanding of technology, including how it should and shouldn’t be used within an educational context. I am also a generally happy person who looks for the best in people and tries to form productive personal relationships with my colleagues. I believe effective organizations start from a foundation of trust and mutual respect, and would seek to build that with my fellow Directors to foster a collaborative problem-solving environment.
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.
In my role as co-founder and CTO at Phase Genomics, one of my most important duties was to define the products that we should build for our customers. In one such case, we had to decide what kind of software product to build for cancer researchers seeking to understand causes of cancer our technology made visible for the first time. There were multiple stakeholders in this decision, with a variety of concerns including technical, financial, and strategic. I approached this problem as I usually do: first, I identified a basic set of important considerations which affected the decision we needed to make. Second, I looked for data and background info that could help me gain more context on those considerations, and in particular, understand the concerns of different stakeholders. Third, I talked to stakeholders one-on-one to have a frank but respectful conversation so I could understand their position. Fourth, I formed a recommendation based on my research and conversations. Fifth, I circled back with stakeholders one-on-one to get feedback on my proposal, and made several modifications to my plan based on their feedback. Finally, after I had established consensus one-on-one, I presented my recommendation to all stakeholders for final approval (knowing that I had already obtained individual approval from everyone, so this meeting was as much about everyone seeing each other agreeing to the plan as anything else). In the end, this process resulted in us making a good decision about an effective, affordable, achievable product we could build and give to cancer researchers.
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?
This statement means that the District’s primary mission is to ensure all students, regardless of background, receive an education that prepares them for a successful life. Further, the District is particularly interested in raising up students who may come from historically disadvantaged backgrounds and ensuring all students receive the support they need to thrive educationally. The District also emphasizes that the responsibility to achieve this mission is shared by every single person working within the District, as well as families and the community at large.
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.
Setting measurable goals is critical to driving success across a large organization. The best goals are SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. SMART goals help an organization align its energies behind an effort that has a clear benefit, is a realistic target, and can happen within a desired timeframe. They help create good pressure within that organization to focus on goals and cut out noise or irrelevant efforts. However, it’s not enough to merely set SMART goals. One must also monitor them regularly to ensure they are on track, or to identify where things might be going awry early enough to course correct before problems get too big. The Board’s Goals are SMART goals, which is excellent, and they are accompanied by Guardrails that establish basic rules-of-the-road that must be maintained while pursuing those Goals. The Goals are an excellent start to motivating an effort to improve educational equity and outcomes for Black students, which coupled with regular monitoring, should lead to success achieving the Goals.
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?
I believe the funding issues in the District, which connect to issues like declining enrollment, represent an existential crisis for the District. The District is in the difficult position of having little control over how much money it receives to deliver on its mission, and having more programs in need of its limited resources than it can satisfy. This is not an easy issue to solve, but I believe the first step is to build up the trust of the community (which is lacking), and to mobilize public sentiment to get the state to help solve the funding crisis. Without more funding, the Board will be in the unfortunate position of having to make a “Sophie’s choice:” closing schools, removing extracurricular/non-critical programs, reducing staff, shuttering services. None of these are things the public wants (and the Board certainly doesn’t want to have to be the face of telling them things they like are going away). So, if the public wants to preserve these valuable educational resources, the public must reach out to their representatives and demand solutions to pay for them. I know this is easier said than done. For example, Washington has soundly rejected income tax proposals which in part would fully fund education at least six times, as recently as 2010, and an initiative prohibiting income taxes may appear on the Nov 2024 ballot. Nonetheless, I believe it is the Board’s most pressing duty to mobilize public opinion to support measures to fully fund education, without relying on temporary measures like levies, one way or another (an income tax is likely unrealistic). Or else, if such funding cannot be secured, to make it crystal clear to the public that if services do get cut, the public is getting exactly what it is paying for. The Board’s role, and I would also take it as my personal role, is to provide the thought leadership necessary to move the public discourse towards increasing funding for education. If the Board can succeed a that, all of its other goals, including increasing equity and ensuring better outcomes for all students, become much more feasible.