Welcome!

Thank you for your interest in the work of school boards. The Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) is a statewide network of Washington’s 1,477 school board members who are supported by a small, non-partisan staff that provides them with research-based training and professional development, policy and legal resources, and legislative advocacy support.

Becoming a School Board Member

Washington state’s public school districts are governed by democratically elected school boards. These board members—called “school directors”—are citizens just like you! They are parents and grandparents, young people and senior citizens, and diverse community members from all walks of life. During election season, WSSDA provides candidate workshops for those who file. If you’re thinking about running for school board, visit our page about serving on your local school board:

Citizen Oversight

Citizens have oversight of their public school system by electing their local school board. Those local school board members then vote to elect their peers to the WSSDA Board of Directors and WSSDA’s standing committees. That’s possible because the board members you elect to your local school board are automatically “members” of WSSDA, meaning they can take advantage of its services and supports, and participate in the democratic process used for setting WSSDA’s mission, vision, and other elements of its platform.

Citizen Concerns

WSSDA has no regulatory authority. WSSDA cannot censure, enforce rules or laws, or impose policies on any school director, school board, or school district. Only the community that elected a board member can remove them from office via the regular public voting process at the end of an elected or appointed term or a recall vote midterm.

If you have concerns about a school board or its members, you should first follow the school district’s complaint resolution process. But a good first step is reaching out to your representative on the school board. You also have the option of stating your concern at a regular board meeting, but in that situation, the time allowed is brief and board members won’t be able to respond in that moment. If those steps do not resolve the issue after a reasonable amount of effort, the last resort would be to escalate your concern to the appropriate state agency that has regulatory authority under Washington state law.