Three Bainbridge Island residents are vying for a seat on the Bainbridge Island School Board — one is the current school board president looking to defend her position from two challengers seeking to assert their place at the table.

The three candidates recently took a few moments to discuss what they will be bringing to the table and the issues that are important to them.

Sheila Jakubik

Sheila Jakubik, the current school board president, is seeking to retain her seat . Jakubik said her experience would be a key element in her ability to work with the board in the coming term.

“Last year went pretty well. I think overall that I’ve had so many different roles within the district that it makes me a really well-rounded individual,” Jakubik said.

“Just having been on the board, you have a lot more background around all the issues,” she said.

“We’ve had the budget issue of the declining enrollment and the raise that we gave the staff, which meant that we had to look at how to really tighten our belt and save money. That has been a challenge but I feel like we’re working hard to figure out how to continue our great education for students and keep our programs intact,” she said.

Jakubik also said her experience as a parent, working with the PTOs and as a teacher in the district, all add to her ability to work effectively on the board.

“I went to board meetings regularly before I was on the board, so I think watching different boards and how they worked also has given me experience,” she said. “I really headed up the search when we did the search for superintendent, so I worked closely with the consultants there.”

Some members of the public have criticized the Bainbridge Island School District of not acting with transparency. Jakubik, however, said this is chiefly a communication issue rather than intentional obfuscation on the behalf of the district.

“I think transparency has to do with clear communication. I see the district and the community as partners in providing an excellent education for our students. The district has some areas of improvement in making sure that we are providing clear communications to the Bainbridge community,” Jakubik said.

“I know one area that could have been more clear is in our bond request. We focused on the amount that we were asking the voters to approve. In the future, we need to be more clear about the total costs and how additional funds were going to fill the gap,” she added.

Jakubik said she has enjoyed her time on the board, and that she feels she has done a good job as president.

“I have loved serving on the school board and I hope for the opportunity to continue,” she said.

Jesse Burns

Jesse Burns is a Harvard-educated strategy consultant who grew up on the island and graduated from BHS. Burns recently moved back to his hometown with his wife and two children and is looking to bring his professional experience working with schools to the board table.

“I want to get involved in helping the community that I grew up in continue to be a great community and have great schools,” Burns said. “Professionally, a lot of my work involves working with school districts, foundations, educational nonprofits — who are all focused on improving student outcomes.”

Burns has previously stated that in order to cultivate transparency between the school district and members of the public that an innovation team should be formed to tackle communication challenges faced by the district by using current communication tools.

“If we go to the root cause of the problem, if you look at the number of people focused on communications within the district, it’s very small,” Burns said.

“If you contrast that with organizations that only have $5 million to $10 million of revenue compared to the district’s tens of millions of dollars of revenue, those other organizations tend to have many more people in formal roles managing the communications outreach.”

“Think about the tools that we see in our current political dialogue that are being used to share information effectively; social media, blogs. The district tends to rely on more traditional methods,” Burns said.

Burns also said the recent budget crisis illuminated to him the district’s lack of clear funding priorities and emphasized the importance of clearly outlining what is most important. That’s crucial when the time comes to cut positions in the event of another budget crisis.

“Theres a lack at the district level to clearly and concisely articulate what those funding priorities are and how dollars get allocated,” Burns said. “That sort of foundational strategic plan — that articulates priorities and how resources will be allocated to priorities — is missing. And to me, is another root cause that we have to solve.”

“Once we have in place a plan that articulates how we focus our resources, then it’s easier to make these straight-off decisions when budget stuff happens. It also forces us as a district to not use short-term budget challenges as a venue to make strategic decisions,” Burns added.

Another divisive issue Burns tackled was the fate of the Commodore Building. Earlier this year, a proposition was made to close Commodore, which houses the school district’s Options Program.

“If you change the location of this program, you’re defacto changing the co-location with other programs. And we lose the integrated benefits that we think are critical to this program.”

Burns said that while he’s willing to close the Commodore Building, he wants Commodore and the Options Program to be closely examined in order to understand what is being added to the program as a result of co-location, design and the physical requirements of the space.

“Let’s explore how this could play out and be successful rather than saying, ‘Hey, we’re in a budget crisis, we need to cut this down and we’re going to move you,’” Burns added. “As a board member, that’s what I would like to see our conversations embody. And I’m not seeing that in the conversations today.”

Christina Wakefield

Christina Wakefield is the mother of a first-grader in the Bainbridge Island School District. Wakefield moved to Bainbridge from southern Africa, specifically choosing Bainbridge for the schools and the community.

Wakefield has worked as an adviser for global health with the Manoff Group; as a team leader with USAID and as a research associate with the World Health Organization.

“As good as the school district is, I think we can do better,” Wakefield said. “There are so many examples of innovation and exciting things happening in the world of education that are not happening on Bainbridge in any sort of systematic way.”

Wakefield said she would like to see a couple things added into the classroom.

“I think a greater emphasis on creative technology uses in the classroom, rather than consumptive. I think Bainbridge is doing a great job of using technology as a teaching tool, but as a city adjacent to somewhere like Seattle, it seems a shame to me that we’re not teaching kids more about how to create technology and be a part of that economy,” she said.

Some elements that Wakefield would like to see incorporated are blogging, simple computer coding for younger students and mandatory computer science classes in the higher grades.

“I think there’s also a greater need for experiential learning,” Wakefield said. “Project-based learning in the classroom as well as externships and being able to connect students…with some of the companies and exciting opportunities that are taking place in our region, so there’s avenues for use of what they’re learning in the classroom.”

On the issue of replacing Blakely, Wakefield would like to see the new school retain the core elements that were envisioned in early designs.

“I think our district should be committed to a long-term vision that involves environmental efficiencies… that involves common space that facilitates a completely different type of interaction in an elementary school, and then the internal walkways and things like that that are really important for security. I don’t think those things can be compromised,” Wakefield said.

“If it comes down to it and there is no other way…I would support going back to the voters, but with a lot more emphasis on transparency and really helping voters understand exactly what they’re voting for,” she said.

When asked about her time working in public health and how her experience could manifest itself as a board member, Wakefield said she would look to recommend ways for the district to address issues of sexual assault.

“I think the issues of sexual health and sexual assault and adolescent development in the high school is an area that I have a huge amount of expertise in,” Wakefield said. “I worked with the Adolescent Health Unit at WHO for a while. I think there’s a lot of really exciting, interesting examples of work that’s being done in high schools across the United States to stem sexual coercion in an environment that facilitates or at least accepts certain kinds of behavior.”

Wakefield said she hoped to open a dialogue and possibly integrate a training program like Green Dot, which teaches bystander intervention of sexual assault and domestic violence scenarios.

“I would be really eager to help the district have an honest, real conversation about what’s going on, rather than taking a more punitive or reactionary tack to some of those issues. I think you really need to get in and start to think about root causes,” she said.