Carol Rava - D7 Seattle School Board Candidate

Carol Rava is running for Seattle School Board District 7, which covers South Seattle (east of I-5, south of Jackson). Her opponent is Jen LaVallee. This interview is part of our 2025 Seattle School Board Candidate series. Every Seattle voter will vote on four school board races in the general election: Districts 2, 4, 5, and 7.About Carol RavaManages $150 million grant-making team at Ascendium philanthropyMaster's in Education Policy; nearly 30 years in educationFormer Executive Director of Strategic Planning at SPS (2008-2010)Parent/stepparent of 5 SPS students across multiple schoolsCompleting K-12 Finance certificate from Georgetown UniversityKey PositionsFirst Priority:End Student Outcomes Focused Governance modelRestore Finance and Audit oversight committeesOn Her Approach:Focused on setting goals and aligning how the district works to those goalsBelieves goals need to be transparent and reflect the whole communityDistrict needs to hold itself accountable and make mid-course corrections when not meeting goalsOn District Structure:Advocates for consistency in quality across all schools regardless of locationBelieves it's not sustainable for a hundred buildings to pick a hundred different approaches to teaching and curriculumWants balance that allows unique school cultures to thrive while ensuring excellence students and parents can rely onOn Supporting Struggling Students:Supports research-based intensive one-to-one tutoringEmphasizes disaggregating data to understand who needs help whereWants to use best practices and research to provide the right supportsOn Community Engagement:Board serves as a conduit from the community to the districtOne of the main things the school board can do is hold the superintendent accountable for high quality community engagementOther Positions:Supports district-wide cell phone policyWants [email protected] to actually be responsiveAdmires: Jeanette "Mrs. Jones" Jones (Washington Middle School administrator who "believed in every child")Excited to Work With: Director Gina ToppImportant InfoBallots mailed: October 15th | Due: November 4thAlso listen to: Interviews with all District 2, 4, 5, and 7 candidates at rainydayrecess.orgCarol's campaign: electcarolrava.comPodcast info: rainydayrecess.org | [email protected] the showContact us at [email protected] Day Recess music by Lester Mayo, logo by Cheryl Jenrow.