October 8, 2025
Regular School Board Meeting・Seattle Public Schools
My name is Manuela Slye, student safety committee chair for Seattle Council PTSA. I am here to talk about student safety.
I didn’t come to testify about the SPS/SPD MOU. I am here to talk about the harm and pain inflicted to students INSIDE school buildings, perpetrated by teachers and administrators. Many cases have been denounced, investigated, taken to court, and settled. This has cost the district millions of dollars. But I am not here to discuss that. I am here to focus on the student victims, their families and the lifelong impact in their lives, while District and unions point their fingers at each other.
It has been widely reported FOR YEARS the physical and emotional abuse and assault incidents in this district: principals calling the police on little first and second graders; teachers punching middle schoolers on the face; coaches grooming and sexually harassing high school athletes; vice principals questioning students and their family’s immigration status. Even a case of a little kindergartener placed in a cage-like space, while peers walked by confused to see him there sitting alone.
But don’t take my word for it: there is plenty of documentation I can direct you to of this and many other cases of inappropriate and disgusting adult behavior in Seattle Public Schools.
This system relies on families moving on or students finishing their time at school. But advocates like me do not forget. We are the institutional memory of many.
So my question to you is WHEN IS IT ENOUGH? How many more students have to end with brain injuries, broken dreams and broken hearts? How many more until district staff, administrators, officials, people with high level and high paying jobs ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE? How many more iterations of a school board until our children are safe at school?
Our children and community deserve answers.