Press release
Tukwila School Director Mary Fertakis has been sworn in as president of the Washington State School Directors’ Association, an organization made up of the state’s 1,477 locally elected school board members.

The installation of officers took place Nov. 27 during the WSSDA Annual Conference in Bellevue.

Fertakis was elected president-elect by WSSDA members last year. Under the association's bylaws, the president-elect automatically becomes president the following year.

As WSSDA president for 2012, Fertakis serves as an advocate for school boards and their efforts to promote student achievement. The president represents the association and communicates its positions to legislators, members of Congress, the State Board of Education, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and the U.S. Department of Education.

Fertakis has been a member of the Tukwila School Board for 16 years, serving as the board president, vice president and legislative representative.

She has been active in the association through service on the WSSDA Board of Directors, Legislative Committee, Urban Issues Committee, Federal Relations Network, the Achievement Gap Task Force and D-MAT. She is a 2006 graduate of the association's Leadership WSSDA training program.

The last Tukwila school director to be president of WSSDA was Herman Anderson, in 1941. Anderson was one of the people who helped to establish WSSDA.

The Tukwila School District administration building was named after him as part of the 2008 Tukwila Centennial.

Founded in 1922, the Washington State School Directors’ Association is comprised of all 1,477 school board members from Washington’s 295 school districts. The districts they lead serve more than one million students, have a combined annual budget of $6 billion, and employ nearly 100,000 people.

WSSDA’s core mission is focused on ensuring that school board members have the knowledge, tools and services they need to effectively govern their districts and improve student learning.