POULSBO — Brad Camp’s term on the North Kitsap School Board got off to a positive, if somewhat belated, start on Thursday.

Camp, who is a public affairs manager for Sprint, spent Saturday morning and afternoon in Bellevue during a Sprint product launch, answering questions from such high-profile newspapers as The New York Times and USA Today.

When he drove out of Bellevue to make the 5:20 ferry back to the peninsula, he ran into a wall of traffic.

A boatload of rain, a number of accidents, and crawling, stalling traffic over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge had turned streets into waterlogged parking lots.

“It was amazing,” Camp said. “I’ve never been in traffic like that in my life.”

Camp doesn’t usually work in Seattle, and after Thursday’s snarl, he expressed appreciation: “I’m glad I live and work in North Kitsap,” he said.

Camp finally made the 7 p.m. ferry and began his term on the school board at 8 p.m., one hour later than expected.

Camp smiled sheepishly after the meeting.

“I was worried,” he said with a laugh, “but they still had me (on the board).”

While Camp was making his entrance, the board member he replaced, Marie Hebert, was making her exit.

Hebert had served for two years, and as a member of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, had urged the school district to try harder and reach further, specifically to improve their relations with Native American students, parents, and community members.

Hebert, who stepped down from her one term because of the time the school board took up in her schedule, asked the board to keep trying.

“I hope you continue to build a bridge between the schools and the tribes,” Hebert said.

She reminded the board members to remember that at the tribal center they are guests of the tribe; to listen to tribal members and take their silences as time to think, not necessarily agreement; and most of all, to make an effort to reach parents whose children have discipline problems.

“Please make more of an effort to contact parents,” Hebert said. “Parents should have as good an experience as children.”

Hebert’s not going anywhere: she promised to remain an advocate for children and their education.

She also thanked the board and expressed appreciation for her time there.

And she showed it with gifts, including sunset snapshots that Hebert, an avid photographer, had snapped and had framed.

While Hebert was stepping down, Bethany McDonald and Dick Endresen were staying.

McDonald was recently elected to her second term on the school board; Endresen was recently elected to his fourth.

McDonald, who was elected board president for a second term, got to kick off her session with something the board has been chugging at for months: purchasing a plot of land for the new secondary school in Kingston.

“It’s a very exciting step for the district,” McDonald said.