In the Aug. 1 primary election, islanders will winnow a field of four candidates running for one school board seat, with the outcome determining which two of the candidates will advance to the November general election ballot.

The general election will also decide who fills three other open seats on the board sought by five other candidates.

The four candidates for Position 3 — Angela Marshall, Martha Woodard, Gator Lanphear, and River Branch — will take part in an online-only primary candidates forum, moderated by Vashon Chamber of Commerce executive director, Amy Drayer, to be broadcast at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 20 on voiceofvashon.org and Voice of Vashon’s Youtube page.

Community members are encouraged to anonymously submit questions for the primary candidates via a form online, at tinyurl.com/45j8ccxs.

The Beachcomber reached out to all four candidates last week, asking them to expand on statements provided in the King County Voter’s Pamphlet.

Angela Marshall

Marshall, an island resident for almost eight years, and the parent of two Chautauqua Elementary School (CES) students, is the deputy director of King County’s Labor Relations office.

In a candidate’s statement, Marshall said her long professional experience in public policy, government and labor relations had proven her capable of meeting “the challenge of making sustainable and responsible decisions as a steward of public funds, while also delivering continuous improvement measures in ways that make a meaningful impact to King County residents.”

Marshall said she was inspired to run for school board “after observing a blurring of healthy boundaries over the years between the functions of the board and district administration.”

Last week, in an email, Marshall elaborated on that statement, saying the role of the board is to establish goals for the district, while the administration is responsible for managing the district in furtherance of the board’s direction.

“The community is not currently witness to this relationship working as it is intended,” she said.

As an example, Marshall cited the board’s policy of “no surprises,” saying it currently went beyond ensuring that board members did not ask unexpected or irrelevant questions at a meeting, or put forth 11th-hour agenda items that had not been approved prior to meetings.

“In the last couple of years, minimal debate among board members has occurred regarding very important actions …. whether they be layoffs, defunding of programs, or administration wage increases to name a few,” she said.

She added there had been little to no public deliberation when the board was confronted this year with the need to make decisions about the district’s investigations of VHS teachers John Rees and Kara Sears, following accusations that both teachers had groomed students for romantic relationships that began shortly following the students’ graduations.

Instead, Marshall said, a legal advisor was consulted in private, outside of the public’s view.

“Before receiving formal approval of the board, the superintendent negotiated and signed at least one resignation settlement agreement, in lieu of termination, with a teacher who was found to have committed boundary invasion violations,” she said.

Marshall further criticized the district’s settlements with the accused teachers, saying those decisions conflicted with the core values of the district.

“… The administration’s priority to avoid potential legal appeals in lieu of disciplinary termination sent the wrong message to staff, students, caregivers, and our community,” she said. “We must be able to take appropriate disciplinary action when those who are employed to educate our children in a safe environment inflict harm.”

Marshall rejected assertions by current board members and administrators who said, at the time, that the district had been bound to follow the advice of its legal advisors in its response to the investigations.

“A good legal advisor will ensure their client understands potential risks, but this does not mean an organization is compelled to avoid such risks at all costs, especially if to do so would undermine its core values and the safety of others,” she said.

Marshall promised increased diligence and transparency as a board member, and that she would be an ally to district staff members, saying many are now stretched too thin in their work.

“The district needs to take a good look at the staff workloads and solicit their input on how to support them in achieving a more healthy, productive, and inclusive environment,” she said.

Martha Woodard

Woodard, who retired in 2016 after a 33-year career as a teacher at Vashon High School, has received an endorsement from the 10-person executive board of the Vashon Educational Association (VEA), representing teachers and other certificated staff in the district.

She has also been endorsed by the National Women’s Political + Caucus, a group founded in 1971 that recruits, trains and elects progressive, pro-choice women to elected office. That endorsement was based on an extensive interview of her views of equity and equality issues, Woodard said.

Jenny Granum, president of the union, said that she could not recall a time in the recent past when VEA endorsed an election — but she could also not recall an election where nine candidates vied for four positions. VEA’s leaders were thrilled, Granum added, that so many community members had expressed interest in becoming board members.

According to Granum, a number of VEA’s executive board members had urged Woodard to become a candidate in the race, and VEA’s endorsement was based on Woodard’s long-time dedication to the community, her experience and knowledge gleaned in her long career in education, her understanding of school district funding, and her years in bargaining for the local union.

“We … know that she will ask hard questions and will always use the lens in decision-making, based on providing a high-quality education for all students,” Granum said.

Granum said if other board candidates seek the endorsement of VEA, the leadership group will review candidate statements and resumes, and conduct interviews. Then, the executive board will vote on the endorsement of the candidates.

In an interview on Monday, Woodard said the single most pressing issue facing the school board is to ensure that the district provides high-quality education for everyone — a platform that touched on everything from how the Washington legislature funds education to localized concerns about administrative oversight of the district.

She described the board’s role as one of supervising the superintendent and overseeing the policy and finances of the district. Building administrators, she said, are under the supervision of the superintendent — and as a board member, she would work to identify the bureaucratic obstacles that are now preventing principals from spending adequate time in classrooms, observing and directing the work of teachers.

According to Woodard, ensuring that administrators can better perform the most central supervisory aspect of their jobs would result in greater safety for all students.

When asked to reflect on the district’s first investigation of John Rees, which took place in 2008, when Woodard taught at VHS, she spoke generally, saying all the policies regarding boundary invasions now in place at the district were also in place in 2008.

Teaching, she said, can be very isolating, which is why she has long been a proponent of team teaching.

“The people who observe you are your administrators, and how well the administrator does his or her job is terribly important,” she said. “If you don’t have a good administrator there, then these issues can fester. Individual teachers don’t see other teachers.”

Later, in an email, Woodard clarified her statement about the 2008 investigation, saying she did not wish to imply that the investigation had been subpar.

“I think that the district followed the correct procedures given the information that they were given by all those interviewed at the time,” she said. “However, it is vital that the district restores trust with the students through oversight of the staff and listening to student and staff concerns.”

Recalling her time as a classroom teacher, and in her work for Vashon’s teacher’s union, she said she had “always been amazed at how many clogs there are in the system for a district as small as ours.”

She promised to tackle the job of “un-gunking” the district’s systems — working to promote streamlined communication and transparency so that greater diligence, accountability and adherence to core district values including equity and safety would follow.

Woodard said she would be able, as a retired person, to give her complete attention to her work as a school board member, and that she would seek input from all parties in the district — from custodians to principals to students — in order to “listen to concerns and see how much at the top we can help the bottom.”

In a voter’s pamphlet statement, Woodard called district funding a perennial challenge caused mostly by how the state allocated money, and she reiterated that conviction in her interview on Monday.

As a board member, she would promote greater public awareness and advocacy for legislative reforms to the present system.

”The state legislature funds inferior legislation and calls it basic education,” she said. “It shouldn’t be basic — every student deserves the best education.”

Gator Lanphear

Gator Lanphear is a teacher and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) advocate who has worked as an elementary school teacher at Chautauqua Elementary, and also in Tacoma and Sacramento. He has served on the City of Tacoma’s DEI Committee, creating policies for the city, and worked as a K-12 educator and artist for the City of Tacoma’s Office of Environmental Policy and Sustainability.

In his voter’s pamphlet statement, Lanphear said his professional and lived experience as a person of color, parent, and volunteer had brought him “great … awareness of the different experiences of educators, staff and our children.”

His aim, according to the statement, is to create “a safe, equitable, and inclusive school district that focuses on the learners, educators, staff, and community of the Vashon Island schools.”

In a phone interview last week, Lanphear expanded on that aim, saying that during his time as an educator at CES, he brought DEI concerns to the school’s administration that could have been addressed earlier by administrators.

In his work and life, Lanphear said, he has always been the type of person to call out safety or equality or health issues. His work on the City of Tacoma’s DIE Committee had sprung from his realization, he said, that “I need to stop [the lack of equity and inclusion] at the beginning. I need to be first in line, not pointing it out after 20 people ahead of me have said, ‘Okay.’”

The same instinct had driven his decision to run for the school board on Vashon.

He said he had a deep concern about trends of book bans and Christian rhetoric now shaping policies at public schools nationwide and would work to protect Vashon from those far-right movements.

“I feel I need to be in the room when that happens so I can say no,” he said.

His service on the school board, he said, would always center the students most impacted by lack of safety, equity and inclusion.

“Sometimes you have to shake the foundations,” he said. “And yes, I want these sweeping changes that make sure school is safe for the kids and bring a sense of belonging.”

Lanphear also said the district had fallen short in its handling of the 2022-2023 investigations of the two teachers accused of grooming students for romantic relationships.

“What happened at the high school — it is not okay,” he said. “…I want to make sure that everyone is accountable.”

The school board additionally erred in not specifically condemning the practice of grooming by staff members, and in declining to institute a policy prohibiting staff from engaging in relationships with recent graduates, as was requested by one of the students who had accused John Rees of that behavior, Lanphear said.

“I would have pushed for that statement … Kids should not be groomed, we’re mandated reporters,” he said, referring to state statutes that require district personnel to report incidents of such behavior.

River Branch

River Branch, a parent of a child attending Chautauqua Elementary School and a tenured associate professor of film and digital storytelling, said in a statement that during her 25-year career in education, she has successfully brought “ethical and inclusive practices, strategic thinking, creative problem solving, and vision to educational institutions in times of challenge.”

These experiences included being appointed to serve on the body that oversaw a roughly 35 million dollar college budget.

“I faced budget shortfalls with innovative, dynamic, and strategic responses in which out-of-the-box thinking allowed us to not only cover expenses but also expand our offerings,” she said.

The Vashon School district, she said, is “at a critical juncture in which budget shortfalls compromise critical programming, in which the trust among students, families, the board, and the administration has been damaged, and in which, coming out of the pandemic, increased stressors [now] face teachers, staff, students and families. Without a strong, experienced, dedicated, and driven board, we will compromise our island’s greatest resource, its heart, and its future.”

The most pressing current needs of the district, she said in an email, include responding with innovation to budget constraints so that sites of challenge transform into sites of possibility. Another need, she said, is to identify and provide concrete supports to address the additional issues facing teachers and students coming out of the pandemic.

Repairing the ruptures of trust among the board, staff, students, families, and administration are priorities, as is addressing the lack of safety felt by students.

Regarding the performance of the current board, Branch praised the members for their diligence during the pandemic —calling it one of the most challenging times ever faced by the district. But she said that the past year had demanded even greater transparency, accountability, outreach and innovation.

“The board needed to take greater ownership of and responsibility for driving budget decisions, responding proactively, transparently, and ethically to profound betrayals of trust, and bringing to bear the vast resources of our community in order to ensure that our children and educators thrive and that we stand as leaders in the field of public education.”