Dear Superintendent Tammy Campbell,

Let me be among the first to welcome you to the fine city of Federal Way. I must, however, admit that I was among the thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people in Federal Way who were disappointed that you were selected over Interim Superintendent Sally McLean. Please don’t take this personally, it’s just that those of us who have had the opportunity to work with Sally, hold her in very high regard. In addition to having done amazing work with the district’s finances, Sally’s honesty, integrity and common sense approach were a welcome relief from our last superintendent.

While I am sad that Sally didn’t get the job, I have heard great things about you from several sources and the school board seems incredibly optimistic about your potential. As both a parent and taxpayer I certainly hope that you will quickly confirm the school board’s decision.

Please know that your job will not be easy. In addition to all of the normal challenges facing a community with high poverty rates, our community is also still healing from the damage inflicted by our last Superintendent Rob Neu. I won’t bore you with the details of his reign of terror, but it was ugly, really ugly.

Please also know that our community is full of really passionate people, especially when it comes to education. If you can harness this passion, you will be unstoppable. However, don’t be surprised, or offended, if at times you become the target of misplaced passion. Each of us desperately wants our schools to succeed, we just don’t always agree on the best methods and some people have a hard time remembering their manners.

Here are five things you could do in the next 12 months to repair the damage Neu caused, prove yourself as a spectacular superintendent and, most importantly, rally our community behind your strategic plan for making our schools truly remarkable:

1. Hold community meetings in every middle school, church congregation, community group and business association. Don’t preach to people about your grand visions or about how you have all the answers. Rather, give students, parents, teachers and community members an opportunity to have their concerns validated and their suggestions considered. If you really want to get answers, contact all of the families living in Federal Way whose children attend other schools, or call every teacher/employee who has quit FWPS in the last five years.

2. Ignore the ever-changing and almost worthless standardized tests. Imagine if a teacher helps a student go from a 1st grade reading level to a fourth grade reading level. By all accounts this would be considered a huge success, unless the student is in fifth grade, in which case standardized tests would label both the student and teacher as failures. Nevermind that by the time we see the results of these tests it’s too late to actually help the students or teachers.

3. Focus and publish what really matters: student progress. At a glance, you, the school board and the community should be able to see which schools, programs and teachers are producing the most student progress. This knowledge would allow us to see in real time what is working and duplicate it across the district. It would also allow you to quickly identify students, teachers and programs in need of extra assistance.

4. Embrace technology and results based education. Our classrooms today are essentially the same as they were 50 years ago. I can’t think of any other business or organization that is more technologically backwards than public education. Countless grants are available to bring out classrooms out of the Stone Age, empowering teachers to teach and students to learn.

5. Open a second public academy. Despite being one of the top performing schools in the entire state, enrollment to this school is awarded by a lottery and is only available to families who can afford to drive their students across town. Use the currently-empty top floor of the district office to house the new school and give each of your district office employees the opportunity to mentor students for one hour a week. I’ll even be the first to donate to this cause.

Superintendent Campbell, you have the great opportunity and responsibility to turn our district into a world-class institution. Your vision, leadership and ability to rally our community will either make or break Federal Way. Without good schools, nothing else matters. With good schools, everything else will take care of itself.

Welcome to Federal Way!

Contact Matthew Jarvis at jarvismp@outlook.com.