Candidate for Shoreline School Board Position #4: Zack Stallings

Zack Stallings,
School Board Candidate

Candidate for Shoreline School Board Position #4: Zack Stallings

My name is Zack Stallings. I am a Shoreline native and a graduate of the Shoreline School District. I am running for the Shoreline School Board.

Shoreline School’s current budget crisis was brought on by a myriad of problems, but the solution is not to cut positions and programs like Family Advocates and Credit Recovery. 

These and other programs bring in students from out-of-district and keep students from leaving the district. With the implosion of Seattle Schools we can not afford to miss this opportunity to bring more students in. 

The most important position to maintain is Family Advocates, not only because this provides the most baseline support for families in crisis, but also because Shoreline and Lake Forest Park taxpayers willingly gave up their hard-earned money on the promise this program would be expanded and fully funded. 

Shoreline and LFP residents understand that children experiencing hardships cannot learn, and children who cannot learn here will learn somewhere else. I will never vote for a budget which so drastically reduces programs that help disadvantaged students.

As an employee of the Shoreline School District I am intimately aware of how this budget will affect our most vulnerable students. What I am not acutely aware of is: how exactly did we end up here? I know the community at-large feels blindsided by this deficit, and I know parents feel like they were left out of the loop on the Reduced Educational Plan. 

Far too often decisions are decreed from the top without community involvement; the anger and desperation of parents at the meeting where the Reduced Educational Plan was approved was palpable. 

Many felt like this was their only chance to say something. I will find ways to proactively include the community’s feedback before we get to that point.

A vote for me means a vote against educational plans that target our most disadvantaged students. I will not endlessly pontificate about achieving equitable outcomes for students, I will achieve them.

Thank you for your time, and for your vote.