Board Appoints Treppiedi City Attorney Takes Open Seat After Losing Election Last Fall
Rocco Treppiedi, an assistant city attorney who lost a Spokane School Board election last fall, was appointed Wednesday to fill an open seat.
The board interviewed six finalists, then spent three hours behind closed doors deciding which one to appoint.
“It was a very difficult decision,” said board President Terrie Beaudreau, citing the quality of the finalists. “The board believes that in Rocky Treppiedi we have another strong advocate for kids.”
Treppiedi will be sworn in next week.
District insiders speculated that his willingness to run in an election and his second-place finish to new board member Christie Querna gave him an edge.
One other finalist, North Side pastor Lonny Bingle, also ran for a board seat but lost in the primary.
Jennifer Roseman also was considered a strong applicant because of her ties to the East Central community, and her work championing equal opportunity for low-income and minority students.
Treppiedi stressed high expectations, especially for top students, in his interview Wednesday.
“Kids who do well are allowed to (merely) do well. They’re not being pushed,” he said.
As evidence of what he called a “general malaise” in the quality of education, Treppiedi cited a 1992 board decision to drop letter grades from elementary school report cards. After complaints from some parents and teachers, the board restored letter grades last year.
Treppiedi, 43, said he disagreed with the board’s first decision on letter grades.
On another topic, he said the board’s pattern of unanimous decision-making doesn’t bother him.
“It indicates the board has done its homework, that there was discussion before you got to the decisionmaking process,” he said.
Last year, the five-member board made more than 200 official decisions without a single “no” vote. The only votes that weren’t unanimous were two occasions where a board member abstained.
Treppiedi said he would not hesitate to be a lone dissenter “if I felt that was the way to go on an issue.”
He said he opposes two school-related citizens initiatives: one allowing public money to be used for private schools in the form of tuition vouchers; the other allowing charter schools to be exempt from many state rules and school board oversight.
Both initiatives, likely to appear on November’s statewide ballot, would be “devastating to public education,” Treppiedi said.
In her interview, Roseman challenged the board to lead the community, rather than follow public opinion, on issues such as providing equal opportunities to all students.
“It’s a challenge to stake that ground and say, ‘This is what needs to be done. Come with us,”’ she said.
Other finalists were Rick Chase, Don Higgins and Nancy McLaughlin. Thirteen people originally applied for the position, created when John Warn resigned Dec. 31 after 28 years on the board.
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