Seattle Public Schools’ new superintendent talks safety, attendance, budget issues
Jan 5, 2026, 7:37 AM
Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Ben Shuldiner presents in front of a elementary school class. (Photo courtesy of KIRO 7)
(Photo courtesy of KIRO 7)
As the newest superintendent to take the reins in Seattle, Ben Shuldiner is outlining his priorities and how he’ll measure success in the first year.
First and foremost on his priority list is safety.
“How can you send your child to a school district if you don’t feel your child’s going to be safe?” Shuldiner asked.
KIRO 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon asked him what he plans to do to evaluate how to improve safety and security at SPS.
“There’s all sorts of — what’s considered gold standard safety and security things that a school district can do,” he said. “And what I see in Seattle is that you are approaching that but not there.”
SPS has seen recent tragedies. Twelve-year-old Arsema Barekew was killed by a rolling, unattended car in March.
Seventeen-year-old Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot dead outside Garfield High School in June of 2024.
In September of 2025, the SPS board voted against bringing a school engagement officer into Garfield High.
So what does Shuldiner think can make schools safer?
“You’re talking about fencing,” he said. “You’re talking about cameras. You’re talking about security vestibules. You’re talking about metal detectors in the high schools.”
But adding metal detectors can be controversial.
“How do you respond to those concerns about metal detectors?” Sheldon asked.
“What we do in Lansing is not necessarily what we’re going to do in Seattle,” Shuldiner said. “But what we did in Lansing is we talked to the families. We said, ‘What do you want?’ We talked to the kids.”
Shuldiner pointed out that people pass through metal detectors at concerts and sporting events all the time. He said these could be run by school staff that students know and have relationships with.
“My job is to come to Seattle and say, ‘Hey, look, here are a lot of options,’” he said. “‘We need to do something. Where are we as a community?’”
Shuldiner is coming to Seattle from the Lansing School District in Michigan. SPS is about five times the size when it comes to the student population.
“What makes you ready to handle a bigger district?” Sheldon asked.
“The cool thing and the great thing about school districts is that kids are kids, teachers are teachers, schools are schools,” he said. “And when you have the right systems and structures in place, you can really move the needle at any size.”
Shuldiner does have experience in large cities: he sat on the New York City school board and served as a principal in that system, as well. He described serving as head of a leadership program at Hunter College that helped train principals and superintendents.
“So I’ve had a lot of experience with very large districts as well as Lansing,” he said.
His job also involves balancing the books. That means going through the budget line by line, job by job, looking for impact and overlap.
“What I’ve seen, and again I’m not the superintendent yet, but I’ve been in a lot of meetings and I’ve looked at a lot of the budget, is– what I see is a lot of inefficiencies,” he said.
In the Lansing School District, Shuldiner increased graduate rates from 62% to 88% over three years.
“It’s not rocket science,” he said.
He created what he calls graduation specialists who had relationships with every child who needed to graduate, their families, and their teachers.
“Once a month, we bring all of our graduation specialists together and they meet with me and a district graduation specialist,” he said. “Literally, we will put on the screen names of children that are behind in credits and we’ll say, ‘What are you doing for that child?’”
It’s something he told KIRO 7 he would consider in Seattle as well. He said the approach is similar in improving attendance rates.
“What’s happening at the individual school at the individual level, maybe it’s a school bus issue,” he said.
There’s a lot on Shuldiner’s plate in his first year.
In his first three months, students can expect to see him walking their halls.
“My plan is to be in every school in the first 100 days,” he said.
In addition to the school board’s requirements, he said he’ll grade himself on attendance rates, graduation rates, and safety and security.
“Those are our big three,” he said.
Shuldiner said he’ll also be taking a closer look at staff and ensuring everyone is in the right place.
“And then of course, the last thing is, we can’t be 100 million in the hole,” he said.
