Bainbridge voters are presented with two candidates in the race for the District 5 position on the Bainbridge Island School Board, a four-year term position. First, the incumbent, Sheila Jakubik, who has held the job for the last four years. Second, the challenger, Christina Wakefield.

As part of the Review’s 2017 General Election coverage, both women were asked a series of similar questions, and their answers are presented here for comparison.

Additional candidate information is available in the Kitsap Voter’s Guide, found in this week’s issue of Kitsap Weekly.

Sheila Jakubik

BIR: What in particular are you especially proud of from the last four years, something that maybe stands out?

SK: I think one of the things that I’m most proud of, that was initiated in the time that I’ve been on the board, is — with the help of Bainbridge School Foundation — we have instructional coaches at each of the buildings. It’s sort of one of those things that you might not hear about a lot, but it is probably one of, I think, the single most powerful things that really changes education. Because the coaches are there both supporting students but also really coaching teachers, as well.

The instructional coaches were part of a whole big initiative we did getting better differentiation in the classroom.

BIR: In that same vein, did you have anything that maybe didn’t work out as perfectly as you’d hoped, something you wish you could take another stab at?

SK: I think one of the things that we’re always on the learning curve about is the communication piece. I think that really, with our new communications person, Erin Bischoff. I think that we’re really making some headway. I think that sometimes the timing of our communications have not been the best. There’s so much information you’re trying to share with the public, it’s always a trick trying to figure out what is the most clear and transparent way to share it? If there’s the one thing that I see as kind of the area that we continue to work on it’s that piece.

BIR: Given the recent budget crisis, and what many considered less than transparent decision-making on the part of school officials, what specifically do you propose to do to ensure the community is both heard and informed?

SK: At the board level, we knew where we headed. There kind of were two parts that impacted the budget from last year. One is that Bainbridge Island teachers; for many, many years, Bainbridge had always paid the most in our region, in the Kitsap area, and we were probably the most expensive place to live. So that kind of makes sense. We were at the point where we were falling behind other districts in our region, and so it’s really hard to retain and to recruit the best teachers when they can make more and live in a less expensive place. When we approved that budget at that time … we talked about, we knew that we would be deficit spending for the 2016-17 school year. We knew about that. We didn’t make a big public proclamation about it, and I guess that’s part of my wonderings about how we do that communication better. But we did talk about it at a board meeting. So it wasn’t like we were trying to hide it or we didn’t know it was going to happen.

Then, come September, we had less students than what we had budgeted for. So then I think we were really just kind of waiting to see how does this all shake out?

I would say I don’t feel like there was any hiding or any sneakiness or any trickery about the budget. We were talking about it at our meetings, which are open meetings, and I do think one of the things with Erin, one of the things that she really started last year was a really nice newsletter. If people choose to read it, I think we’re doing a better job of communicating out information in that newsletter, which we didn’t really have before.

I think we will continue to use that as a tool to share that information about what some of the things that are happening at the board meetings that people might not know about.

BIR: Do you have any thoughts on the future or the sustainability of the Options program?

SK: I believe in alternative learning pathways. I believe our district is stronger by having Options programs — and that would include Odyssey, Eagle Harbor, the Avalaro (SP?) program. Those programs are really important.

I would say if we can move those programs and keep the integrity of the programs intact, then there is a huge savings to the operating cost of the district. It kind of impacts in two ways. First of all, you have the day-to-day of just maintenance of the building, then you have all the office and all of those kind of people, that overhead. So, if you can locate those programs and maximize those resources, I think the district has calculated that would be around $400,000 savings, to do that. So you keep the programs, but they are located in places where they make more sense.

I want to be really clear, because I feel like there are some people in the community who feel like it’s a done deal, the decision was made — and it’s not. Can we afford to relocate the program? Do we really have space to do it? There’s still a lot of questions and there will be on Oct. 19 we’re doing a study session on this issue.

If the programs can be moved with integrity into other locations and we only need to replace one building instead of two? That’s a huge impact for our community as far as bonds.

Those are two of the ways that I think we would save money, but definitely the goal is to keep the programs, to continue to have those really valuable options in our district.

BIR: What construction projects are on the table right now that you think are most critical, or things that need to be done first?

SK: Definitely continue to move forward with Blakely, obviously. I would say that is most critical. Then, the 100 Building up at the high school, which we also passed the bond for.

We need to figure out what we’re going to with the Options school, what’s going to happen with Commodore, and once a decision is made about that we really need to sit down and work on our master plan, redo the master place — especially for the central campus. Because if that building isn’t going to be used I think it maybe changes how we do things, maybe changes where we build things.

I think once that decision is made the next thing we really need to work on is understanding exactly where we’re headed. It is redefining what are the next most important things to do and prioritizing them and coming up with the process.

BIR: This was the second year in a row that we saw an inappropriate student/school official relationship that resulted in criminal charges. What do you feel are the responsibilities of the district in curtailing such behavior – both on and off campus? What does the district owe parents in regards to that?

SK: The two situations, it would be easy to say, ‘Oh, they’re really different. They’re really isolated incidences. Shame on those teachers.’ The first thing I would say is that every teach knows it’s inappropriate to have a relationship with students. No teacher starts doing that not understanding they’re breaking the law.

When the second incident happened especially, the district – and I’ll say specifically Peter [Bang-Knudsen] – really sat down and looked at, ‘OK, where are the areas that we need to make sure we are shoring up safety and accountability?’

Here are a couple of things we did, that I think are really good: the first thing is that we added the Safe Alert button. That’s another piece we tried when we put it up to really get the word out about what it was, and we probably need to do that every September … What the Safe Alert button does is it allows people to quickly and easily notify the district if they have any concerns about anything. I think it’s sort of that whole idea like on the ferry, if there’s a package? If you see something, say something. Because we do then an investigation, and figure out exactly what could be going on.

The second thing is, sometimes coaches – especially coaches, because you’re doing so much outside of the school day – were either texting with their personal phones or using their personal emails. So we made sure every coach did have a school email. But we’ve really worked hard in communicating to coaches, and to all teachers, that they need to use their school email and that all the coaching staff, if you’re communicating through text it should be through the Remind (?) texting app. Then, all of that should be going to group. You shouldn’t be texting people on your individual phone, that was another sort of safety.

And then just the training, that we do at the beginning of the year with the teachers, we continue to do that. We sort of added some things … we added more to that training and the other thing that we did was we made sure the coaches were getting that same training as well. Because some coaches are not staff members.

BIR: Do you think a better balance can be struck in allowing the public access to school facilities during school hours?

SK: It’s a hard, hard question. If you are allowing a ton of people on your campus and you have no idea who they are, what they’re doing there, it’s really hard to make sure those kids are safe.

That is the biggest thing. We really were having a hard time with knowing who was on campus when. Really, it was after Sandy Hook happened that we really started looking at, ‘OK, what are the things that we need to be doing as a district to provide more safety and security?’ We used to have most all the doors in the buildings would be unlocked and people could come in through any door. Especially at the elementary school, that isn’t true any more.

We encourage people to come and use the facilities after the school day, wen they’re not being used by the students. I think that we tried to not hinder that part.

Being able to know who’s on your campus and understand where they are is huge, versus trying to figure out, ‘OK, what’s going on over at the tennis court? The track?’ It just gives you more people that either you’re worried about harm coming to or trying to figure out if they’re a potential threat if something happens.

We’ve been doing better and better at communication, but I think that when the Nicole Hebner thing happened, right away the Sakai families were notified. It’s a small community, but you’re trying to balance and respect whether someone, if they haven’t done something, but then also getting the word out so if there are other students or people that need to come forward, that they know. I think we did well with that one especially, providing information to people who may have been impacted.

BIR: Often times board members will defer to the chair when asked about something controversial. Going forward, how proud are you of how accessible you’ve been to people and how do you intend to remain accessible and responsive as an individual to the community?

SK: I think I’m incredibly accessible. I think it’s rare that I’d turn down [an invitation]. If someone wanted to meet with me, I’d go meet with them. After the Commodore Options announcement, it felt like to the community that it came out of left field – and I do think we were moving quickly on it and that’s definitely a communication piece that’s not our finest moment – I spent hours and hours and hours going out with different groups of people, meeting with them and talking with them about it.

I really encourage anybody if they have a concern, or if they have a question, to call me, to email me, whatever. I usually work to respond to most emails. I try to reply to most emails.

The other thing that I want to encourage is that we do have a way for people to be informed and that is to come to board meetings. It’s really rare that we get very many people at a board meeting, and so I really encourage people to come to a board meeting.

If that doesn’t work with them, I’d say the majority of the board is really accessible through – and for sure me – phone, email or setting up a time to get together and talk.

Christina Wakefield

BIR: What is the main difference between you and your opponent, or the main area in which you disagree?

CW: I think the biggest difference between the two of us is the idea of vision. I think Bainbridge school are good. I do not think they are great. I do not think that they are serving all of our kids as well as they could be. I’ve heard from lots and lots of teachers, lots and lots and lots of parents who feel that their kids are lost or underserved by a school system that kind of swallows them up and spits out the really high achieving ones. I think there’s not really a vision around that.

There’s sort of a lot of questions about very operational issues, a ton of discussion on the new buildings – which is important – but even those discussions aren’t being anchored in a vision of where we are and where we want to go. I think that kind of bigger picture conversation is what I’m hoping to bring to the board that I don’t see present on it right now.

BIR: If somebody sees you at the grocery store and says, ‘Why would you want to put yourself through this? Why would you want to run?’ What’s your answer?

CW: I would say I have two little girls, one of whom is in second grade and one is in Pre-K and hasn’t yet entered the system, and I care about the system and what it means for them and by extension what it means for all of the kids in our district. I sort of see through the school system through their eyes and I saw my second grader, last year in first grade, really starting to struggle with what I was just talking about, the idea of this system where kids become just cogs in a wheel. They’re numbers. They’re data points. And teachers do the absolute best they can within the system to make it not feel like that, but because the system’s designed around that, that’s what it kind of starts to feel like. I started to feel she was getting lost in that shuffle, and I felt like if that was happening in first grade, where was that going to lead as school went on?

Where do we really want to be as a district? What does this mean, to educate a whole child within a system of their peers? Again, that’s what I think I would bring that’s different and I feel so driven by the fact that we have another 12 to 13 years in this system, and I want it to be different for my own kids.

This isn’t my field of expertise or training. I work in global health. But my training is big picture, strategic thinking and sort of matching budget to that. If you start with what do we want to do to save mothers and children in Kenya, what money do we have to do it with and where does that all shake out? That’s really what my expertise is, and I felt like although the questions in the Bainbridge Island School District are certainly different than preventable death in Africa, I think the process is actually the same. It’s thinking big. It’s dreaming big. It’s imagining the future in a different way and then planning how to get there.

BIR: Given the recent budget crisis, and what many considered less than transparent decision making on the part of school officials, what specifically do you propose to do to ensure the community is both heard and informed?

CW: I would start by having it so people don’t have to file a Freedom of Information Act to access the district’s budget. I don’t understand why there isn’t a clear place on our website where you can just see the yearly budget.

Peter Bang-Knudsen said he operates with a $43-$44 million dollar annual operating budget for general education. But the line item breakdown of where that goes, what’s controlled by the state, what’s controlled by local property taxes, how it all fits together, what comes in, what goes out, what’s the operating cost of different facilities – all of that’s completely obtuse.

For example, the Options program situation. It’s been said that extra additional cost to operate that building is anywhere from $60,000 to $600,000. Someone has to know that. Someone is paying those bills, right? Why is that we’re left to guess or, I’m not exaggerating, have to file Freedom of Information Acts to get that information.

I think that’s the starting point: to take budget documents and turn them into really clear, easy to understand, ins and outs. Even if its in Excel and people can access it and look at it and ask questions because it’s people’s money, it’s not the school district’s money. It belongs to the tax payers.

I think that’s the first step: clarity in the operating budget … [and] providing more opportunity for [issues] to be thoroughly explained. I know the board meetings are public, but there’s not a lot of explanation. I think people are frustrated in that they have two to three minutes to ask questions, if the board permits, and there’s not really a dialogue. It’s very formal and stiff and rigid and I know there’s historical reasons for that, but I also feel like there would be a lot of benefit in these conversations to a lot more open explanation and public dialogue about really what is going on?

BIR: Do you have any thoughts on the future or the sustainability of the Options program? How much weight should the preferences of a minority, no matter how vocal, have in the overall budget planning consideration?

CW: I think this goes back to the idea of a vision. To me, we should not be doing away with programs of excellence, it seems sort of like a race to the bottom to deal with temporary budget constraints. I think we need to really think more about the fact that many, many parents are disgruntled with mainstream education. That’s why the Odyssey Program has wait lists. But, I don’t necessarily know that they want to be in Odyssey. They just want something different. To me, this starts with our vision. What kind of an educational ecosystem, if you will, do we need to create here that serves the needs of a lot of different kinds of students and different kinds of families? Then, where does [the Options program] fit into that system?

I will disclose my second grader now is attending Odyssey, so I obviously want the program to continue for selfish reasons. But, I also now really understand the kind of education and the kind of teaching that goes on [there] in terms of the individual focus on each child and what they need and how powerful that is. Part me doesn’t understand why that’s not kind of best practice across all of our schools, and I see the vociferous, passionate defense of Odyssey coming from a defense of actually that type of teaching. [But] I think there’s more to Odyssey than just that. There’s this extremely intense parental involvement in this small community – and that might not be right for everybody.

But the type of teaching … what each child needs, where they are today – it’s not about the lesson plan for today, but it’s about where are these kids today and where do they need to be tomorrow? Not as a block, not compared to each other, but for each one? – that’s rooted in every kind of best practice that you read about when you start to talk to people who are thinking about educational form in the United States, or Finland or all these other countries that we’d sort of like to emulate.

I really believe there is a really important place for that type of learning and that type of community. I understand the equity issues. I was on the outside of that looking in last year. But at no point did I feel like because there are challenges in the budget or there’s a perception things are not equitable do we do away with programs of excellence. Rather we should try to make the whole system so excellent that everybody feels like they have what they want. Obviously there’s going to disgruntled people in a system of several thousand families, but I think that’s the benefit of this idea of vision. What are we aiming for? What do we need to provide that we’re not providing right now? How do we make sure that our teachers feel completely enabled to do their job? That means rewarding innovation. That means giving them some freedom. That means ensuring small classes.

The Odyssey model has something that the rest of the district can learn from. In terms of an operational solution of where it’s housed, I think we can kind of figure that out. That doesn’t seem to be what should be driving all these conversations. We should start with what do we really want to achieve as a district.

BIR: What do you think are the most critical construction projects currently in development?

CW: I think obviously the new Blakely Elementary School is moving forward. I think there was a lot of progress reached over the summer as far as where the costs stand and this idea of value engineering. But, again, I go back the transparency of that. We still don’t know the line item breakdown of that budget. What costs what? When you talk about value engineering, what does that mean? Are we swapping concrete floors for wooden floors? How much is one option versus the other? From what I understand and from talking to folks about this, that kind of clarity was never really presented to the public.

I don’t understand in a public forum or a public building why it’s so difficult to put that out there and just be as honest as possible about what things cost and defend the choices that we’re making.

I don’t know as much about the 100 Building at BHS. From what I understand it’s kind of a mess. I really believe an inspiring environment helps create motivation and pride in your education and all that, but I don’t necessarily think an inspiring environment has to come from copper fixtures. I think a lot of that comes down to what can we do for less and I like the phrase ‘value engineering,’ but unfortunately in the discussion this summer it seems to have become more a buzz word than something meaning because of this lack of transparency around dollars and cents and where they’re being allocated.

I also know that a lot of the conversations right now on the school board … there’s a lot of conversation around facilities. And from what I understand the entire conversation around the Options program this summer was led by the facilities vision of the school district. And I would like us to move away from that a little bit. It shouldn’t start with, ‘What buildings do we have and how much is cost to staff them and how much does it cost to heat them?’ What do we want out of an education system? When a student leaves Bainbridge High School, who do we want them to be? My answer to that is their very best self. Their own version of their very best self.

We’re not a real estate management company. This is a school district. You have to go somewhere beyond the facilities.

BIR: This was the second year in a row that we saw an inappropriate student/school official relationship that resulted in criminal charges. What do you feel are the responsibilities of the district in curtailing such behavior – both on and off campus? What does the district owe parents in regards to that?

CW: People entrust the school district to care for their children while at school and at school functions. I feel like the school district has every responsibility to deal with that. You would hope that a lot of the sort of basic checks and balances that are in place for people when they get hired – background checks and things like that – kind of help curb some of that. But there has to be a sort of no tolerance policy in my mind and I think there needs to be really explicit – I assume there are – really explicit policies against any type of inappropriate relationship between minor students and any adult who has contact with them.

We could create an online training course that every teach, coach, volunteer has to take every year to make sure they understand what those policies are, and then also, bigger than that, also making sure students are aware of the fact they should be able to come forward and make those things public and know they’re going to have the full support of the district behind them. I think the research around sexual assault and the number of people who bring that forward that are not telling the truth, it’s a negligible percentage of people. So, while of course we have to have due process, it’s also really critical that students feel that if they have the courage and they are really digging deep to bring something to light, they are going to have the support of the district behind them. That means immediate administrative leave and that means a full investigation that is, again, extremely transparent… and a public issuing of findings.

Even in cases where it’s not about adults – I think the idea of sexual coercion and sexual violence in high school is also a big topic that sort of warrants its own conversation – but that’s something that I also think is really important that we need to start to think about.

We don’t have to be suspicious of everyone, but I think the district does have the responsibility to keep our students safe. End of story.

BIR: Do you think a better balance can be struck in allowing the public access to school facilities during school hours?

CW: In an ideal world, obviously, people are supporting these public facilities and I can understand the want to have access to them. At the same time, this is a very complicated world right now, and I think that the schools have to prioritize the safety and the well being of students and faculty versus public access during school hours.

I think it’s an issue that is potentially worth looking at or considering, especially if they’re external facilities like the track or tennis court and there could be specific hours of if you have to go through the same process that you have to go through to volunteer at the school – there’s a background check and you kind of register and it’s very simple and you photograph your driver’s license and you send it in.

But I guess at the end of the day I feel that the school system during school hours should be first and foremost about the students and making sure we can protect their safety.

BIR: Often times board members will defer to the chair when asked about something controversial. Going forward, how proud are you of how accessible you’ve been to people and how do you intend to remain accessible and responsive as an individual to the community?

CW: This is my husband’s greatest fear, if I win this. ‘You just can’t keep your mouth shut. You want to make sure you respond to everyone.’ People contact me on my personal email, it’s published in the voter’s pamphlet, and I feel like I’ve responded to every single person who has reached out because I do feel like things can be resolved when you really talk to people. I genuinely believe that from the bottom of my heart. I like talking and I like learning from people and hearing what their opinion is and helping revise and refine my own opinion based on that. If you’re not accessible to people to talk to them, how are you going to do that?

I promise to be completely open to anyone who wants to talk to me, whether it’s in the grocery store or to set up a meeting. I work from home, so I’m around a lot and pretty accessible during the day, because I do feel that these are huge issues and I don’t pretend to have all the answers.

I may regret those words if I do get this and four years later I haven’t stopped talking about [the issue], but I think that’s part of reason that I wanted to run. Because I wanted to be a meaningful part of the community in that way.