Seattle Public Schools’ new superintendent will start in February with $425,000 contract

It’s official: Seattle Public Schools has hired its next superintendent, a district leader from Michigan, to begin working on Feb. 1.

The Seattle School Board on Wednesday unanimously approved incoming Superintendent Ben Shuldiner’s employment agreement, which includes a base salary of $365,000 plus $60,000 in retirement benefits, and runs through June 2028.

Wednesday’s vote finalizes Shuldiner’s hiring two weeks after the board named him as the lone finalist for the job.

“Reaching this agreement so quickly and collaboratively speaks to our commitment to partnership and our excitement to welcome Superintendent Shuldiner to SPS,” Board President Gina Topp said in a news release Wednesday.

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Shuldiner comes to Seattle from Lansing School District, where he’s been superintendent for nearly five years. The central Michigan school district enrolls just over 10,000 students — less than a quarter of Seattle Public Schools’ roughly 50,000 students.

Throughout his 25-year education career, Shuldiner has also been a classroom teacher, founder and principal of a high school, college professor, and consultant.

In a statement Wednesday, Shuldiner thanked the board and the district community for “entrusting me with this great responsibility.”

“Together we will make Seattle Public Schools the best urban school district in the country,” he added. “I am ready to do the hard work and am committed to making the most of the opportunities ahead.”

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Shuldiner succeeds former Superintendent Brent Jones, who announced in March he would leave the district in September, but went on medical leave in May and did not return for the rest of his tenure.

Just a few months before Jones stepped down, the board gave him a new two-year contract that included a 4% raise, bringing his total annual earnings to $390,940.

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Shuldiner will make a total of $425,000 — about 9% more than Jones, but still less than superintendents in several smaller Western Washington districts. State salary data shows the leaders of the Chehalis, Lake Washington, and Renton school districts were making more during the 2023-24 school year than Shuldiner will next year.

Under Shuldiner’s contract, he will also get a monthly car allowance of $1,000, and be reimbursed for “transition expenses,” including up to $17,000 in moving costs and $2,000 in legal fees.

With Shuldiner’s hire, Seattle Public Schools’ fourth superintendent search in a decade comes to a close. Shuldiner’s contract hints at the board’s desire to combat the high turnover in the district’s job — if he remains in the position through February 2030, he’ll get a $40,000 stipend.

Girard Montejo-Thompson, president of the Seattle Education Association, said the union is happy with Shuldiner’s hiring and “cautiously optimistic” that he will be the long-term leader the district needs.

Before the school board identified Shuldiner as a finalist, Montejo-Thompson said Shuldiner’s responses resonated with union members because of his focus on bringing the community together and improving transparency in a district that has long been plagued by widespread distrust.

That’s more important now than ever, Montejo-Thompson said, as the Trump administration works to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.

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“I think this is an opportunity for us as a city [and] as a district to kind of collectively come together on how we are going to support education,” Montejo-Thompson said. "This is the time that we have to be coming together to keep these institutions strong and healthy … when they’re under attack at our highest levels of governance.”

The grassroots parent advocacy group All Together for Seattle Schools echoed that optimism, saying that it “enthusiastically welcomes” Shuldiner to the district, and is “hopeful that his leadership will meaningfully transform how our district engages with the communities it serves.”