North Kitsap School Board: Worthington, Lockwood advance to general election

POULSBO — April Ferguson ran hard for North Kitsap School Board District 3 — literally ran.

While campaigning in the Breidablik neighborhood, she jogged rather than walked so she could meet as many voters as possible.

“All but two people said they were voting for me,” she said Election Day eve.

She said her message of “changing the environment and atmosphere in the district to one that is more supportive of community involvement” resonated in Breidablik, where the district’s closure of the school in 2013 for budgetary reasons is still a sore spot.

“The Breidablik community was willing to fundraise to keep their school open. They weren’t listened to.”

Ferguson’s support in Breidablik wasn’t mirrored throughout the school district, however. Beth Worthington, the current school board president, and Richard (Dick) Lockwood were the top finishers in the primary election Aug. 1, and advanced to the Nov. 7 general election.

In early returns posted at 8:10 p.m. by the Kitsap County Auditor Elections Office, Worthington had 2,770 votes, Lockwood had 2,216, and Ferguson 1,129.

Election night, the county Elections Department reported an estimated 3,000 ballots countywide remained to be counted. That includes ballots cast for Bainbridge Island school board and city council, North Kitsap and Central Kitsap school boards, Bremerton mayor and city council, and South Kitsap Fire & Rescue’s Proposition 1 property tax levy.

Worthington (www.BethWorthington728.com), a senior systems engineer for Leidos, Inc, was endorsed by the county Democratic Party. During the campaign, she said her priorities are to “sustain funding” through a tax levy, likely in February 2018, and advocacy with the state Legislature, “as McCleary won’t be fully funded in the yet-to-be seen 2017-19 budget”; building success for all students “by building local capacity to achieve educational outcomes”; and paying to modernize curriculum, facilities and technology “through sustained investments.”

Worthington was president of the school board during some trying times. Parents were dismayed to learn several weeks after the fact that sexual activity had taken place on a school bus for students with special needs. They were again dismayed to receive late notice that an HVAC unit had malfunctioned, regulating in an evacuation and the exposure of children and teachers to noxious fumes.

Worthington said the district has made strides to improve timely communication to parents. “I will continue to encourage this trajectory in two ways: ensure policies provide for timeliness, privacy under FERPA and confidentiality in the case of pending litigation, and by providing oversight of and feedback on district practice.

Lockwood, a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a technical supervisor at Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific, won the endorsement of the teachers union. He is president of the North Kitsap High School Choir Booster Club president and served on several district planning committees.

During the campaign, Lockwood said his priorities are to retain “our excellent educators” by ensuring they have what they need to accomplish district goals; prioritize corrective maintenance on district facilities; and support the district’s reading-level goals, “with a focus on providing the resources necessary for kindergarten and first-grade reading proficiency.”

Regarding timely district-parent communication, Lockwood said he would “stress in routine board meetings to the superintendent the need for quick decisions and communications from the superintendent during emergent conditions … I would also revise the district’s public relations policy, which is over three years old. It is now focused on the nature and content of bulletins to parents, and not on urgency.”

Lockwood said he will “listen to parents, educators, and administrators to seek common ground and focus. To the voters who don’t have children in our district: The better our schools become, the better our community’s social and economic future.”

Worthington said, “I am a systems thinker and respect the multiple perspectives of every issue. I have four years of board experience and, while always learning and growing, I can immediately contribute fully.”

ABOUT THE JOB

Members of the North Kitsap School Board are each elected to four-year terms. School board members currently serve without pay.

The legal responsibilities of the board are to: