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 Rava

• Manages $150 million grant-making team at Ascendium philanthropy
• Master's in Education Policy; nearly 30 years in education
• Former Executive Director of Strategic Planning at SPS (2008-2010)
• Parent/stepparent of 5 SPS students across multiple schools
• Completing K-12 Finance certificate from Georgetown University

Key Positions

First Priority:

• End Student Outcomes Focused Governance model
• Restore Finance and Audit oversight committees

On Her Approach:

• Focused on setting goals and aligning how the district works to those goals
• Believes goals need to be transparent and reflect the whole community
• District needs to hold itself accountable and make mid-course corrections when not meeting goals

On District Structure:

• Advocates for consistency in quality across all schools regardless of location
• Believes it's not sustainable for a hundred buildings to pick a hundred different approaches to teaching and curriculum
• Wants balance that allows unique school cultures to thrive while ensuring excellence students and parents can rely on

On Supporting Struggling Students:

• Supports research-based intensive one-to-one tutoring
• Emphasizes disaggregating data to understand who needs help where
• Wants to use best practices and research to provide the right supports

On Community Engagement:

• Board serves as a conduit from the community to the district
• One of the main things the school board can do is hold the superintendent accountable for high quality community engagement

Other Positions:

• Supports district-wide cell phone policy
• Wants schoolboard@seattleschools.org to actually be responsive

Admires: Jeanette "Mrs. Jones" Jones (Washington Middle School administrator who "believed in every child")

Excited to Work With: Director Gina Topp

Important Info

• Ballots mailed: October 15th | Due: November 4th
• Also listen to: Interviews with all District 2, 4, 5, and 7 candidates at rainydayrecess.org
• Carol's campaign: electcarolrava.com
• Podcast info: rainydayrecess.org | hello@rainydayrecess.org

Support the show

Contact us at hello@rainydayrecess.org.
Rainy Day Recess music by Lester Mayo, logo by Cheryl Jenrow.