No vaccination mandate for Peninsula Schools, new superintendent says. Here’s why
All children will be able to return to school in the fall, whether they have been vaccinated or not, incoming Peninsula School District Superintendent Krestin Bahr said in an interview with The Gateway.
Bahr says she will not require students, teachers or staff to be vaccinated for COVID-19 unless otherwise mandated to do so. She also said she will not be offering any incentives for either teachers or staff to get vaccinated.
“Whether or not a student gets vaccinated, that is their family’s decision,” Bahr said. “We are not going to make it so that if you’re vaccinated, you can come to school and if you’re not vaccinated, you may not come to school. That will never be a conversation. Vaccines are something that are deeply personal for families. Until and unless they are required, all children are able to come back to school in the fall.”
Bahr made the comments in a lengthy sit-down interview with The Gateway before she takes the job on July 1. She is replacing current interim superintendent Art Jarvis, who is taking another temporary position in the Bellevue school district.
Formerly superintendent in the Eatonville school district, Bahr says she has been fully vaccinated herself, but said that was her “own personal choice.” She said she will not “advocate one way or the other” on whether other people get vaccinated.
Bahr was selected for the role in March. Superintendent in Eatonville since 2013, she is taking over just as the district is beginning to recover from a year-long coronavirus pandemic which has seen schools shut down, switch to remote learning, then re-open on a hybrid plan.
Bahr sat down June 11 for a wide-ranging interview with The Gateway about her plans for the future, what a return to school will look like, and how she plans to address the challenges facing the district.
Among the takeaways:
▪ Remote learning may continue for students who learned best in that environment, and parents may have more choices about which model is best for their child. There will be a “new normal,” which may not look like school before the pandemic.
▪ The district will be challenged to provide mental health support for students, teachers and staff burned out by the pandemic, and to ease their return to in-person school.
▪ “Critical race theory,” a hot-button issue for some conservative parents, is not an issue in the district because it is not on the curriculum, nor is it mandated by the state. But the district is committed to “equity and inclusion” in the classroom.
▪ Bahr is working on a “100-day plan” for her first days in office, but she’s still getting her feet on the ground and asks for time while she meets with teachers and parents and learns their priorities.
Seeing with fresh eyes
To familiarize herself with the Peninsula school district, Bahr said, she has been conducting a series of meetings with staff and community members, and hopes to do more.
She’s been driving from school to school, “seeing everything for fresh eyes,” said said, and looking forward to “meeting everyone with no agenda and with a big heart for children. I’m really, really looking forward to that.”
“There will be many civic organizations that I look forward to meeting and people I haven’t met, like even the mayor or the city council; over in Key Peninsula, all of the leaders over there. It will be a very, very busy fall,” she said.
Bahr said an obvious challenge will be leading the school district out of a pandemic year that has been very traumatic for everyone.
“It has never been in my playbook, how to come out of a pandemic, a worldwide pandemic. So we are writing new ways to relate to families, relate to children, and to understand that,” Bahr said. “Give us feedback. That’s why the first six months will be really important. We need to listen, we need to be on those listening tours to say, what was it that worked for your child?”
The new normal
She said she hopes the district will be able to give parents more choices about how children will learn.
“We will meet families where they are and create opportunities that are the best for their children. So whether or not they have discovered that perhaps remote is a better option for them, and maybe they just want partial school, it’s a wide-open door right now,” Bahr said. “We are going to come out of this pandemic in a different place than we were when we went into it. Families have learned so much, children have learned so much, organizations and systems have learned so much.”
Bahr said that has created a “new normal” that will inform how the district handles their plans in the coming months.
“Let’s partner and talk about what is best for your child. What was really good in remote learning? What was it about remote learning?” Bahr said. “Then making sure that the officials that are creating these new programs hear that as well. That’s what we need to do is be able to partner with families in ways that we have not ever had to do before.”
She said the pandemic experience has shown schools they can tailor learning experiences more effectively for each child.
“Not all three children in one family are going to be exactly the same. So being responsive to each child, personalizing it for each child — that’s what’s exciting, that’s the exciting part of this. I don’t think any of us would have wanted what happened to happen, but let’s take the opportunities and the lessons that we’re learning now to make our systems more responsive to children and families in the future.”
No vaccine mandate
Some areas of the school district, notably the Key Peninsula, have lagged behind in vaccination rates.
On that issue, Bahr said, that’s a decision that should be left up to families and individuals. She said the district will continue to “work closely” with Dr. Anthony Chen and the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, and to follow guidelines from the state and the Centers for Disease Control.
Bahr drew an analogy to the flu vaccine, which the district also does not require.
“Just like the flu vaccine, we do not require the flu vaccine. If we did, then that would be required. There are certain vaccinations that are required to attend school and we would abide by that. That’s what I am saying.”
As for teachers and staff, vaccination “is not something that we ask at this time and it’s not something that’s required for employment at this time,” she said.
No ‘critical race theory’
When The Gateway solicited questions for Bahr from readers, one of them asked about critical race theory (CRT), which is defined as “an academic movement of civil rights scholars and activists in the United States who seek to critically examine the law as it intersects with issues of race and to challenge mainstream liberal approaches to racial justice.”
Some conservative critics apply the term to any discussion of race, racism or inequality, and charge that it paints American society as inherently evil and racist.
It’s not an issue in the Peninsula School District, Bahr said, because it’s not even on the curriculum, nor is it mandated by state standards. The district also provided talking points for the school board and principals on the issue affirming these same points.
However, she added, the district supports a state-sponsored program called Multi-Tiered System of Support, which seeks, according to its mission statement, to “identify and address biases and systemic barriers that drive inequitable access and disparate outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and students of color, students experiencing poverty, students receiving special education or English learner services, students who identify as LGBTQ+, and highly mobile student populations.”
“Talking about equity and inclusion within that classroom, that’s the work that we are doing in Peninsula,” Bahr said. “That’s the work that has to be done and making sure that the teachers have all the tools that children can learn.”
Supporting teachers and staff
Over the past year, teachers and staff have been on the often literal front lines of the pandemic. This has caused burnout and teacher departures in a profession that already was facing a growing exodus.
Bahr said supporting teachers and staff is a priority to ensure high levels of retention.
“I think that that is always part of mentoring teachers, providing robust support for teachers, and even more, so I would absolutely say this year has been very hard,” Bahr said. “It is my intent to continue the wonderful mentoring programs, connecting people, bringing people together.”
She pointed to her prior experience in this area.
“My entire career, I have worked with teacher retention. I serve on the Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) board right now, which is around teacher retention and professional growth. So making sure that we have an opportunity to reach out to staff, really working closely with the union, the teachers’ union, all of the unions in Peninsula to make sure that people are getting what they need,” Bahr said.
Carol Rivera, president of the teachers’ union the Peninsula Education Association (PEA), agreed that the last year has been a challenging one for teachers and staff who are looking forward to recharging before returning for the fall.
“We need to get ready, mentally and physically, to hopefully see the return to more normal education,” Rivera said. “We had a lot more temporary contractions that will need replacements just because of the pandemic.”
Repairing past relationships
At the height of the pandemic, the PEA had previously taken a vote of no confidence in prior superintendent Art Jarvis over his handling of the crisis, citing “an overwhelming lack of trust.” There were also concerns at one elementary school over the choice of a new principal.
Asked if she saw a need to repair relations with teachers and staff, Bahr said she was looking to the future.
“I’m coming in as the new superintendent,” Bahr said. “The history is important to some. For me, it’s about meeting the people, and building relationships and building trust through that, because I’m a pretty open, transparent, pretty honest and direct leader. And so if I’m gonna mess up, I admit that, right? I’m not perfect. And yet, the people that I have been in contact with my entire life will tell you: What you see is what you get with me.”
Bahr said she did have a “wonderful” meeting with the union, though she declined to discuss specifics.
Rivera said Bahr has been out visiting in buildings, though she clarified that “there has not been some big union meeting.” She did praise the individual meetings she has had with the new superintendent.
“Relationship building starts in authentic ways and I think that I can say our meetings I’ve had have been very authentic,” Rivera said. “I know she is excited and we are excited to look forward to the fall.”
The biggest challenge
Concluding the interview, Bahr identified the most pressing issue facing the districts’ schools after the pandemic as the mental health of both teachers and students though said there no current plans to devote additional resources to the issue.
“The biggest challenge that I would say, coming out of a pandemic, is really around mental health,” Bahr said. “Making sure that children belong, that they feel like they belong, making sure that children feel valued, making sure that families feel valued, reconnecting. I think the re-connection and the revitalization of relationships, face-to-face or remote in new programs, that is going to be our biggest challenge.”
This story was originally published June 17, 2021 at 5:30 AM.
