Superintendent search

Board needs

unbiased consultant

Wouldn’t we all like to hire our own boss? North Kitsap School District Board of Directors made the correct decision in hiring an outside search consultant for the new superintendent.

The board is the only entity at NKSD that does not work for the superintendent at some level. They work for the community that elected them. It is the board’s responsibility to oversee and work with the superintendent, and they are the ones who evaluate his/her performance. It is the superintendent’s job to evaluate the head of Human Resources. It seems like a conflict of interest to me if the HR Director is the one reviewing and screening applications for his new boss.

This way we have an unbiased consultant listening to the school board on the type of superintendent who will lead the school district in the direction it needs to be going. Also, our school board is frugal in what they spend funds on. They have spent very little, if any, on travel or state and national conferences in the last seven years, and they receive no salary; therefore, they have funds available for searches like this. Good luck in your search process NK School Directors!

Renee Arcement

Poulsbo

School delays and closures

Why do a few flakes with temps in the 40s shut down

the school district?

Regarding the most recent school delay/closure: I am irritated by the recent decision to do so. I was awoken by my alarm clock at the usual time Tuesday morning to make my children their lunches. I could hear a light rain on our skylights and a few cars driving by on the wet roads outside.

I started the coffee pot and proceeded to knock on the kids’ doors after having looked at the clock and thinking they were going to be late if they didn’t get moving.

That is when my daughter told me that she received several text messages from her friends informing her that there was a two-hour delay. Looking out the window, I’m baffled as the temperature is hovering in the low 40s and a light rain is falling but no wind, ice or snow. HUH?

I went to the North Kitsap School District Web site to discover that due to weather conditions it was indeed true.

Why is it that the garbage was picked up at the usual time that same morning, that our mail arrived on time as well and I managed to get to work without issue at all?

Don’t we have chains for the buses and snow routes in place for areas that get accumulations in our Northwest winters? Or is it that a decision maker somewhere overreacted to a few flakes somewhere in this large county and decided to shut down the entire school district because of their own quandry?

KIDS NEED TO BE IN SCHOOL! Especially after coming back from a long winter break.

I bet I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Jeri Coleman

Kingston

State Route 305 traffic

Why are the HOV lanes backwards?

How come the high occupancy vehicle lanes on State Route 305 are backwards? Everywhere I have ever seen HOV lanes, the lanes are on the inside … not the outside.

Let’s examine the northbound 305 lane in Poulsbo. Has anyone counted the number of right turn opportunities there are for potentially solo vehicles to exit? Off the top of my head I’m thinking there are around a dozen or so. How many transit stops are on the right side of the road going north? Hmmm … are there any?

Buses coming into Poulsbo from the south on 305 turn left on to Hostmark. Yet the HOV lanes are the right lane … so all the local traffic will need to move across the HOV lanes to turn right and the buses will need to cross the local transit lanes to turn left.

Now let’s look at traveling south … OH NO … it’s the same problem!

FLIP the lanes, they all need to be repaved anyhow. Then mark them correctly.

Christina Stewart

Suquamish

Presidential debates

Why was Ron

Paul excluded?

By now it should be common knowledge that ABC News and Fox News will be limiting the number of candidates it hosts in their Jan. 5 and Jan 6 New Hampshire debates. Although it may be seen as a public service for these news outlets to host these presidential debates, they must be done fairly and honestly, or they will impart their own media bias into the election.

ABC News has chosen to limit candidates based on polling above 5 percent as well as results of the Iowa Primary. This would appear to limit the GOP Debate to the five candidates most likely to succeed. The Democratic debate would appear to include no more than four candidates based on these rules.

Fox News on the other hand, has chosen to exclude Ron Paul based on its own bias. It appears that they do not like his position of bringing the troops home as soon as possible, nor his plan to eliminate the federal income tax. They have excluded Ron Paul even though he has polled in double digits in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

Should a media outlet with such blatant bias be allowed to host any presidential debates?

Dan Goebel

Keyport