RUNNING FOR OFFICE: 1999

I think it is important that people understand that running for school board isn’t something I have chosen to do on a whim. I ran for school board in my hometown of Issaquah in 1999 because, as a 25 year old, I saw inequity within the schools in my own small school district and decided to do something about it.

When I was 18 years old I thought I may want to be a kindergarten teacher so I asked to volunteer in my baby brothers 1st grade/2nd grade combination class for one year. After working one day a week in his class during the school year, I realized I did not want to become a school teacher! My brothers teacher showed me what a true teacher looks like - she loveesssssss being a school teacher and absolutely loves her students! Plus, small children are a lot. It was like herding cats and I had no idea how the teacher had the energy to keep up with these littles year after year after year. At 18, I could not relate to that level of devotion and dedication to a craft and decided to reevaluate my choices.

It was when I was 23 years old that I started paying attention to public schools again but in a whole new way. It was at this time that I was able to purchase my first home and started paying property tax (I had received a financial settlement from a car wreck that permanently damaged my spinal cord and put me in a wheelchair for all time.) I was curious about property taxes and contacted the King County property tax office who informed me that 2/3 of my property taxes went to public schools. Huh, I had no idea. And so with this new found wisdom I started paying attention to where that money was going. I even went and spoke with the Issaquah School District Interim Superintendent (the Superintendent quit under public pressure because he was sexually harassing a woman) to find out where all of those property tax dollars were going. He taught me quite a bit about how a district runs and what his job is and what a school board member does. I was put in touch with the district accountant who broke down the expenses incurred by the district and where the money went. She showed me the amounts spent on overhead (heating/electricity/water/garbage of each school), bussing (Issaquah School District owns their own buses and hires their own drivers), and explained how the school principals are in charge of their own schools and lets the district know when they need something. I filed this away and went about my life.

It was about a year later that I attended my baby brothers wrestling match and noticed that the wrestling singlet he wore was the same that was used at my time in the same school ten years earlier. I was scratching my head as to why these clearly old and worn out uniforms were still being used when I knew the district was making quite a bit of money via property taxes and the schools in the north end (Pine Lake Plateau, i.e. Sammamish) had a brand new gorgeous high school built on the most expensive land on the Pine Lake Plateau (this is what old school Issaquah people call what is now known as Sammamish.) Heck, the Sammamish middle school, Beaver Lake Middle School, even had a water feature in the lobby of the building but my old middle school had ratty wrestling singlets! Apparently, my brothers middle school did not have it in the budget to purchase new wrestling uniforms for their team and was not getting any support from the administration. Keep in mind, many school principals become apathetic towards asking for resources from the district as they rarely receive what they need/request and, after awhile, just stop asking; person can hear ‘no’ only so many times. Needless to say, I was pissed and in my disappointment and rage, I anonymously donated new uniforms to the team. I did receive consent from the coach first, through a mom intermediary as I really did want to remain anonymous and I didn’t want my brother singled out by the team or coach, and he was so thrilled it re-inspired him to continue coaching as he was considering retiring. What I learned is that, unfortunately, some schools were going to receive special treatment by the district and others were going to be ignored. In this case, I believe it was ‘class’ related. The north end schools had a wealthy class of residents, the schools in the middle of the district: downtown Issaquah, Squawk Mountain and Tiger Mountain had a mix of middle class to lower middle class. The south end, Renton Highlands, was lower middle class with a working middle class. Proximity may have also played a part as the Renton Highlands neighborhoods were far from district headquarters and Issaquah in general but was still in the Issaquah School District and therefore deserved the same attention as the other regions of the district. I grew up at the base of Cougar Mountain, which was forgotten about by everybody, but I ended up attending the south end middle school and high school when the administration decided to redistrict the boundaries.

I then starting fighting for student rights and made my mark when it came to my high school alma mater, Liberty High School, removing the school lockers because they decided the lockers were dangerous. See below links to articles:

http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM03191997P12.php?tags=crystal|liston

http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM08041999P01.php?tags=crystal|liston

http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM10131999P01.php?tags=crystal|liston

http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM10271999P04.php?tags=crystal|liston

http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM10271999P05.php?tags=crystal|liston

http://ihm.stparchive.com/Archive/IHM/IHM11101999P01.php?tags=crystal|liston

This is when I decided, at the advice from my other brother, to run for school board. I ran a strong campaign and received around 5,300 votes out of the 16,000 votes cast. Not too shabby for a passionate 25 year old! So, again, in my disappointment and rage I decided to find a way to make a difference at my former high school since the administration seemed disinterested. And, again, I made an anonymous donation. This time I really sat and thought about what departments tend to find themselves neglected by their school principals, community and administration. And then I remembered my art teacher always worrying about his department being cut and arguing with the principal in the hallway about funding. So art it was…but then I remembered my other brother, there are 3, was in band and I know band gets ignored all of the time, so then it was going to be band! I contacted the band instructor and chorus instructor (turned out that orchestra had a strong donor program) and told them I had an anonymous donor(s) and to give me a wish list to pass on. Well, the wish lists came within a week and the band wish list was 5 pages long! I called the Seattle Symphony to see if they had any old instruments they would like to donate and was informed that the instruments get better with age so, no, they didn’t have anything. I called my uncle who runs a music shop in Anchorage, Alaska and the order was too big for him to fill but gave me some names and numbers. And after some hunting and gathering I was able to fill the entire order except the grand piano, I have limits. All-in-all, I paid $40,000 of my own money, secretly, because I was sick of the classism that I was seeing in our district. The money did come from my settlement and I was able to write it off on my taxes, as public schools are non-profits, and it was during the President Bill Clinton years so the economy was epic. This is the first time I am speaking of this publicly and even some of my closest people do not know because I am not sure how to talk about it without seeming lame or a ‘white savior’. In my mind, it needed to be done so I did it…with consent. The only people within the district that knew that it was me was the district superintendent who, as part of the job, accepts or turns down donations to the district, the district accountant who fills out the forms and the school principal who initially decides to accept or turn down a donation. Aside from that, it was a secret because in my mind it wasn’t about me but about the kids. At the time, in order for the kids to participate in band, they would have all needed to rent instruments which negatively affected the students whose parents were unable to afford to do so.

THEN, I kept hearing that both Skyline High School and Issaquah High School were, yet again, having their graduation ceremonies at the new Safeco Stadium, i.e. Mariners Stadium. Build in 1999, the stadium allowed high schools to graduate on their field with about a million different caveats and a very hefty price tag and so in 2000 the wealthy high schools in our district decided to spend the $30,000 each to have their graduation ceremonies there. Liberty High School did not participate in this as I suspect the principal didn’t have and/or didn’t want to spend that kind of money on graduation. Liberty students would graduate at Memorial Field? I asked my brother, who would be graduating in 2001, if this pissed him off. Although he wasn’t particularly interested either way, he did see the classism that was occurring and didn’t much care for it. When a group of young people are continuously neglected and cast off they remember and it hurts. Kids know when people care and see them and value them. So, yet again, in the latter part of 2000 I began the process of renting Safeco Field, anonymously of course, for the 2001 graduating class. It was definitely a process as Safeco Field (T-Mobile now), at least at that time, was a spoiled little bitch. People couldn’t stand on the ‘special grass’ and essentially could come in, graduate in a special area and then leave.

NOTE: I voted ‘no’ every single time it was on the ballot to build the stadium (voters voted ‘no’ three times and our government built it anyway.) The Mariners haven’t earned a stadium like that, we lose money on them as tax payers based on the merchandising contracts with the stadium and tax payers pay for the cleaning and maintenance. Plus, the Seattle School District was bankrupt at the time the government decided to build the stadium with tax payer funds. But…whatever. I was going to eat shit emotionally so the students at Liberty High School felt like they were seen, valued and important too!

However, I had a caveat of my own for this particular donation. I really wanted the school orchestra to perform, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, otherwise known as the theme to, 2001: Space Odyssey, before the graduation ceremony as this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for it to happen. Well, there was no sheet music for it so my uncle, the miracle man musician, sat up one night listening to the composition and wrote out the sheet music for every instrument in the orchestra. He was very tired. The orchestra instructor, who was kind of pissed about it, taught his high school orchestra the theme in record time and they performed it beautifully at the graduation ceremony. This was the one time I did feel shitty about my donation as my request for the 2001 theme to be performed was unfair to the orchestra instructor - I threw my weight around and that was wrong.

I found out later that Liberty High School had such a great experience and the students were so excited to have been able to graduate at the stadium that the school decided to continue with graduation ceremonies there and did so in 2002 and 2003. After watching my baby brother graduate during the 2003 season, I sold my house and moved to Seattle. I have, to this day, questioned my motives and the results of that last donation. Even though the students were excited and felt like they were equals to their wealthier peers at the other high schools, I do wonder if it was the right thing to do. Yes, kids do know when they are seen and acknowledged but was spending that kind of money on a graduation ceremony any different that the school district purchasing the most expensive land on the plateau for the future Skyline High School? Was purchasing that expensive land any different than purchasing an expensive graduation ceremony? Can students feel important and seen without the need for extravagance? Or is graduation worth that kind of money? Did I end up perpetuating the continuation of an expensive event by financing the first one? Did I do long term financial harm to Liberty High? I have no idea where the funding came from for those future graduation ceremonies at Safeco Field. These are questions I have not been able to answer for myself and will I realize I will continue to question and check myself as I age and grow.

In conclusion, if you read this far good on you, I am being vulnerable in my story because it is important for voters to know where my heart lays. Money is not always an answer and I acknowledge that not everyone running for office has funds to make these kinds of donations and wealthy people shouldn’t be the only ones to be elected officials. And, I don’t have that kind of money anymore as the Clinton years ended and the economy isn’t the same. All of the money that I spent on schools was money made in the stock market. Plus, I’m not actually wealthy. It really was just playing the market during a hot time. I am not able to donate monetarily to public schools like that again which is why I have been donating so much of my time instead. Which still holds value.