FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 7, 2003

CITIZEN GROUP CALLS FOR OLCHEFSKE'S RESIGNATION
Commercial-Free Schools Group Cites Fiscal Mismanagement

Seattle, WA. --The Board of Directors of the Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools voted unanimously this week (7-0; one recused) to support the call for replacing current Seattle schools Superintendent, Joseph Olchefske.

"The poor performance of the current Superintendent is counterproductive to our goal of stable, adequate and equitable funding for schools", says Dr. Brita Butler-Wall, co-founder and Executive Director of the Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools. "On his watch, the mismanagement resulting in the loss of $35+ million increases the likelihood that administrators will be grasping for corporate funding schemes as a solution to revenue losses."

CCCS board members are concerned that the Seattle School District is rapidly losing credibility among voters, making it more difficult to ask the public to entrust more of its money to them via the next levy.

Several parent groups and the Board of the Seattle Principals' Association are calling for Superintendent Olchefske's resignation, and teachers in Seattle have just voted to call for his removal as superintendent of schools, with more than 85% support.

The Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free schools was founded in 1997 in response to a new plan to sell paid advertising on school walls to meet an alleged budget crisis. The entrepreneurial architect of that plan was Chief Financial Officer Joseph Olchefske, later appointed Superintendent. Following public outcry, the ads policy was rescinded a few months later, and the budget crisis never materialized.

The Citizens' Campaign for Commercial-Free Schools is a broad coalition of local education, labor and community groups. The grassroots advocacy organization now has over 2100 individual supporters in Seattle and 120 communities throughout Washington State, including many elected officials and community leaders. For more information, see www.scn.org/cccs.