Requiem for a parent-run education podcast
With two years, two podcasts, and over 100 episodes under her belt, a Seattle parent describes sustainability issues that challenged her efforts from the start.
In 2020, in the thick of the pandemic, I stumbled onto something that would have a huge impact on the next few years of my life: Seattle Public Schools (SPS) board meetings, streamed online.
As a parent of an autistic child struggling to navigate the district’s broken special education system, I was hooked.
Before that time, everything had always been so opaque from the outside.
Maybe an email from the superintendent once in a while, a newsletter that highlighted bright spots in the schools, stuff like that.
When you’re approaching the district as a parent, you kind of get used to hitting a blank wall. It’s easy for staff to ignore calls, respond to emails with platitudes, etc.
All communication is supposed to start from the lowest level possible, as well. So you approach your teacher, and if that doesn’t work you approach the principal of your school, and that’s usually as high as you go.
When you get the impression from your principal that they are bound by the amorphous “district,” it feels like something from on high that can’t be changed.
But here were the administrators talking about those decisions that impact all 104 principals in the district. Here were meetings where they were talking about the inner workings of the district. Senior staff were present at every meeting, talking about what was going on.
Until that point, I had no real understanding of what a school board was or what it did. Suddenly, I realized: this was where you could get clues about what was actually happening behind the scenes at the mysterious downtown building SPS calls the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence.
I think I’ve probably watched every school board meeting since then.
This was where you could get clues about what was actually happening behind the scenes.
After about a year of watching board meetings religiously and starting to feel like I had some grasp of what made the system tick, I got involved on the board of the Seattle Special Education PTSA.
Two years later, I decided to run for school board myself. When I didn’t make it through the primary, I turned to another idea that had been stewing in my head for a while: a podcast.
Why a podcast? Audio had become my main source of information. I could listen to news, analysis, and stories while shuttling my kids around, doing chores, or anything else that kept my hands busy. I saw how a podcast could make the limited window into district operations that board meetings provide more accessible to others. I imagined other parents wanting the same thing.
Most parents don’t have the time or patience to watch four-hour board meetings, read the reams of materials attached to every agenda, research the background of policies, or file public records requests. At that point, I was doing all of that regularly.
Traditional media covers major happenings in the district, but they can’t bring the same amount of nuance and attention to the history and the implications of matters facing the district as a district-focused podcast can.
I saw how a podcast could make the limited window into district operations that board meetings provide more accessible to others.
Starting a podcast felt overwhelming on my own, but I was lucky to connect with another parent, Jane Tunks Demel, who had the same idea. That alone confirmed for me that there was a real need for this kind of media in our community.
We got to work that summer – learning to record, edit, splice in music and board clips. And we released our first episode of Seattle Hall Pass soon after.
In the fall of 2024, we were joined by a brilliant intern, Jasmine Pulido, and we continued to develop the show.
Eventually, Jane stepped away from Seattle Hall Pass. Jasmine and I quickly launched a new podcast, Rainy Day Recess, which covered similar subject matter and built on many of the same lessons and goals.
Above, left to right: Podcasters Robertson, Pulido, & Tunks Demel.
What follows is what I’ve learned from being involved in both podcasts over the past two years.
Why the Podcast Mattered
There is a clear need for a podcast that helps people follow what’s going on in Seattle Public Schools
We heard this from people all the time. They’d say they’d always wanted to understand what was going on in the district but didn’t know how to get started. The podcast helped them feel like they had a way in. It broke things down, gave some context, and helped connect the dots between what was happening in board meetings and what was happening in schools. Some felt less isolated in their frustration.
Others said it was the first time they realized they could take action or speak up for their schools. Some of them started testifying, attending meetings, emailing board members, and organizing in their school communities. The podcast helped demystify the system and empowered people to get involved.
The audience was broader than we expected
While we initially imagined the podcast would be of interest mostly to parents, we quickly learned that teachers were just as eager for the information. Students reached out too! Local media figures regularly tuned in. Even district administrators and school board directors themselves were listening.
I knew that media folks were tuning in because I would run into them at events and they told me. I knew that admins were tuning in because people in the room told me so. School board directors would sometimes text or call to discuss episodes or raise points that were brought up in the podcast at the next board meeting.
Best of all, parents would begin to address difficult-to-understand issues (e.g. reduced general education staffing for kids in special education programs) in testimony, forcing the district to pay more attention to them.
While the listenership remained modest at roughly 500 per episode, the podcast became a much more powerful voice in the system than we ever expected.
People are eager to tell their stories
We almost never had trouble finding people to talk to. Parents, teachers, and students all wanted others to understand what was going on in their schools. Sometimes they were nervous, but most of the time they were just relieved that someone was listening.
It was hard to build relationships inside the system
Early on, we tried to establish connections with central office staff and other insiders at the district. But over time, it got harder. People became more cautious about talking to us. Some even said they were told not to.
We don’t know if being cut off from access to central staff meant we were doing something wrong or doing something right by exposing inside information the district wanted to keep hidden. Either way, it showed just how hard it is to get real information from the inside, and how much pressure there is to control the narrative.
We often let people stay anonymous for fear of backlash. In this case we would refer to them as “a parent”, “a teacher”, etc. The need for transparency varied based on how high up in the organization a person was. Parents sometimes wanted anonymity, teachers sometimes, and central staff always.
Factions are tough to navigate
Education politics are full of tension in Seattle (and maybe everywhere). Even just covering something could make people assume you were taking sides. We tried not to be part of any faction, but that didn’t stop people from projecting things onto us. It’s hard to stay neutral in a system that’s constantly in conflict.
Parents sometimes wanted anonymity teachers sometimes, and central staff: always.
Insider Lessons
Transcripts and show notes matter
We prioritized transcripts from the beginning through a disability-conscious lens. What we didn’t expect was just how widely they’d be used. People often referenced the podcast by screenshotting the transcript. And we put a lot of time into our show notes too, linking to source documents, board materials, articles, and legislation. Those notes became a hub of information that people could return to or share with others. It was a good reminder that accessibility and transparency benefit everyone, not just disabled folks.
It’s hard to get a fully diverse range of voices
We did what we could. We reached out, built relationships, and tried to show up respectfully. But there were times when it wasn’t enough. In one case, there was a south end school with serious issues. We did our research, interviewed white teachers, and filed records requests. But no parents of color felt comfortable being interviewed by two white women. A parent leader told us (very respectfully) that he just couldn’t be that vulnerable with us. We decided not to run the story. Even though we had all the material, we weren’t the right people to tell it.
Trying to do media work without a journalism background is hard
We had to figure out everything about being podcast hosts as we went. How to fact-check, how to cover something sensitive, how to be fair. We tried to be thoughtful and cautious, but it was a lot of learning on the fly. I often thought about how nice it would have been to have a background in journalism — or an editor.
Scripting vs. ad-libbing is tricky
Too much script and it sounded robotic. Not enough, and we’d ramble or miss key points. We were always experimenting with how to get the tone right, and sometimes that meant re-recording things a few times.
You need shared expectations and a clear mission when you’re collaborating
It’s important to spend the time getting really clear about your mission statement, what each person hopes to get out of the project, and how decisions would be made. Especially when you’re working in a high-emotion space like public education, those things matter a lot.
Flexibility is key
Some issues really impacted schools, and we did a series of interviews with parents and teachers to get a real sense of what was happening on the ground. Other issues were complicated, and we had a guest host, Dawson Nichols, who broke them down by video. For the legislature, we knew a lot of people don’t understand how it works, so co-host Megan Larkin and I broke it down one week at a time, tracking 6 bills related to school funding.
There’s no obvious or sustainable way to keep something like this going
We were doing serious, time-consuming work: research, interviews, scripting, editing, fact-checking, post-processing, publishing, and publicizing, but it was all unpaid. We started an LLC and got a fiscal sponsor (Social Good Fund) so we could pursue funding. We looked into advertising too, but hyperlocal podcasts don’t pull in much ad revenue. The audience numbers are always going to have some upper bound, and it’s below where an advertiser would be interested.
We had conversations with funders, but many didn’t fully grasp the value of hyperlocal, advocacy-leaning media. Eventually, we started getting small monthly donations from listeners who believed in what we were doing.
We were incredibly grateful, and those donations helped cover our software costs. But it was nowhere near enough to pay for the time and labor that went into making the podcast. And that makes it hard to keep something like this going long term.
We looked into various grants, and many of them were invite-only or too small to be of use. I attempted to cold contact various people, but I really wasn’t making any inroads.
Volunteer-driven work is inherently inequitable
If you’re relying on unpaid work, you’re really just relying on people who can afford to work for free. That shuts out a lot of the people whose voices are most needed in these conversations, especially BIPOC families, disabled people, and working-class parents.
What Sustainability Could Look Like
There’s clearly demand for hyperlocal, school-district-focused podcasts. Yet no structure currently exists to support them.
In an ideal world, perhaps there would be a shared network that provides technical help, startup resources, mentorship, and most importantly, salaries for the people doing the work. A larger audience base across cities could make advertising more viable. Or a foundation could step in to fund this kind of civic media as public infrastructure. Or local and national media outlets could house these podcasts, giving them a sustainable home while still letting them keep their grassroots focus.
People want this content. But it takes time, skill, and labor to produce, and that labor needs to be paid if it is to be sustainable and representative.
Closing thoughts
When I look back at these past two years, what stands out most is how deeply people care about their schools. They want to understand what’s happening. They want to speak up, and they want to be heard.
Seattle Hall Pass and Rainy Day Recess became a way to make that possible. It wasn’t always polished or easy or sustainable, but it opened up access to a system that too often feels closed off and impenetrable.
There’s so much potential here for journalists, for communities, for anyone who wants to help families and educators make sense of the systems shaping their lives. The challenge now is figuring out how to support it.
Christie Robertson is a parent, a podcaster, and an education advocate out of Seattle, WA. In September, she announced that Rainy Day Recess would be winding down.
Previously from The Grade
What’s it like being a citizen journalist covering a viral education story?
Make room for non-traditional education journalism!?
What to do about the glaring mismatch between education news and education?
What Boston parents really want from education news (Boston)
How I unintentionally became an education reporter (Minneapolis)
What happens when a non-traditional podcast fills in to cover school board meetings?
How the Seattle Times education team covered the COVID-19 crisis
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