A board divided; Peninsula School District board comes to an impasse on new director appointment

After deliberating in three separate executive sessions over two days, the Peninsula School District Board of Directors came to an impasse and had not appointed a new director for District 3 by Monday evening.

The board was split between choosing Hassan Booker, a parent, a Navy veteran and local distribution manager, and Karin Ashabraner, a retired Peninsula School District history teacher and veteran. After some public discussion, board President Marcia Harris decided the board will send all four submitted resumes to the Puget Sound Education Services District for an outside opinion. Whoever is chosen will represent District 3, which includes the central, east and part of north Gig Harbor.

The fifth seat on the board has been empty since May when Rand Wilhelmsen unexpectedly resigned his position on the board. Wilhelmsen served on the board for over eight years. He was appointed to his position in 2010 and was re-elected in 2011, 2015 and 2017. His term ends in 2021. The appointed candidate will serve the rest of his term and can be re-elected to the board.

The board interviewed four candidates on Thursday during a special public meeting. Aside from Ashabraner and Booker, the candidates were:

• Lori Glover, a Gig Harbor resident for 28 years and a parent of Peninsula School District graduates.
  
  
• Laurel Kingsbury, a part-time substitute teacher for the district and a mother of peninsula students. She also worked full-time as a teacher in the Sumner School District before moving to Gig Harbor with her husband, where she decided to stay home and help raise their daughters.
  
  

The board decided to choose between Booker and Ashabraner after deliberating in executive session for an extended amount of time.

All the candidates were asked the same eight questions during the meeting before the board went into executive session. About half of the questions focused on finding a new superintendent for the district, since recent superintendent Rob Manahan resigned, and how the candidates felt about upcoming capital measures in the district, such as a bond.

Ashabraner said the district’s top priority should be passing a bond.

“Looking at the new construction ... it makes me quite aware we need new school buildings. The second priority is that we have a superintendent who can lead us well into the future,” Ashabraner said.

Ashabraner’s said the board should reach out to the community about recent negative comments regarding the failure of the bond.

“If we can’t work with (the opposition) on some of the concerns out there, we will have to do something different,” she said.

Booker said his top priorities include finding funding for facilities, teacher retention and a new superintendent while also working on improving student success after graduation and to compete for the best people with nearby districts.

“The timing of the vote also affected why we didn’t get that last 1 percent. Getting the super-majority is very challenging. One of the biggest opportunities we have is to put it back on the ballot at the right time,” Booker said. “What greater way to see how taxes are spent by giving kids a great education. If we don’t focus on that every day then we are giving the public a bad job.”

After a 90-minute executive session on Thursday, Harris reopened the public meeting for a vote. Director Leslie Harbaugh moved to appoint Ashabraner. The board voted 2-2, with directors David Olson and Deborah Krishnasadah voting no. Olson moved to appoint Booker and the board voted 2-2 again, this time with Harris and Harbaugh voting no.

The board went into a second executive session before adjourning the meeting Thursday night.

“I appreciate the thoughtfulness of everyone at this table and the discussion that we had,” Harris said before announcing the board would meet again Monday evening.

On Monday the board went straight into executive session for almost an hour before opening the meeting to the public. Harris announced the board could not come to a decision and suggested they bring the Education Services Department in for an outside opinion. All four candidates are still in the running for the open seat, Harris said.

Olson and Krishnasadah said they believed Booker could bring diversity and knowledge on financial matters to the board. Harris and Harbaugh believed Ashbraner’s experience in the community would be beneficial for the upcoming challenges the board faces in the 2018-19 school year.

An official meeting to decide among the four candidates has not been announced, but the board hopes to meet before its regular public meeting on Thursday, July 26.