While the island’s City Council and school board have a handful
of seats on this year’s election ballot, there is only one race
where multiple candidate have filed.
City Council
Susan Bergen and Kol Medina have filed for the North Ward to
replace Anne Blair, who is not running for reelection.
Pegeen Mulhern has filed for the at-large seat to replace Steve
Bonkowski, who also announced he is not running for reelection.
Michael Scott, appointed to the Central Ward earlier this year, and
Sarah Blossom, who represents the South Ward, are running for their
current seats.
School Board
Mev Hoberg and Tim Kinkead have filed for reelection and do not
have any opponents as of Wednesday morning.
Patty Fielding will not be running for reelection to the school
board, and Lynn Smith has filed for Fiedling’s position.
Candidates have until the end of the business day Friday to
file.
Bainbridge Island Police
Department evidence technician Jennifer Cooper, Lt. Chris Jensen
and Reserve Officer Mark Crowthers inspect ammunition turned in by
a Bainbridge resident. TAD SOOTER / KITSAP SUN
Bainbridge Island Police Department is looking to improve its
once rocky relationship with residents through a designated
community resource officer.
“When you have that good relationship of trust between officers
and the community, we’re more effective,” said Police Chief Matthew
Hamner.
City Council unanimously gave the department the go-ahead to
apply for a federal grant that would cover 75 percent of the
$100,000 annual salary and benefits of the community resource
officer for three years. The department would cover the full cost
the fourth year.
The community resource officer would be responsible for
community related events and programs with the department, such as
the citizen police academy, neighborhood watches and the police
youth advisory group.
The community resource officer would be a liaison for the island
schools, although it would be up to the schools how often the
officer meets with students.
While the district has been without a school resource officer
for more than a decade, there might not be a great demand for one
just yet.
The district recently determined students and parents felt safe
at the schools based on surveys and meetings with the police
department, said Galen Crawford, communications specialist with
Bainbridge Island School District.
Although residents don’t have a safety concern for the schools,
community trust in the police department was waning and the City
Council was split on whether to support a school resource officer
before Hamner became chief in June 2013.
In May 2011, the council stalled in a 3-3 vote to apply for
a school resource officer grant.
Another officer — president of the Bainbridge police guild at
the time — was accused of harassing City Council members the same
month as the fatal shooting.
During the summer of 2011, the department hired a volunteer
reserve officer — giving him a badge and the authority to carry a
gun — who had a criminal history, including a misdemeanor assault
charge and a weapons charge.
City Council learned about the reserve officer’s background a
couple months after he was hired, and he was asked to resign.
Public support for the police department has been increasing,
Hamner said, citing the council’s approval for a community
resource officer and the police department having more residents
apply for the citizen police academy than there were spots
available.
“I think the chief has shown he has the best interest of this
community and our children at hand time and time again,” said
resident Dominique Cantwell, a former board member of the
Bainbridge Youth Services.
A full story on the community resource officer grant will be
available on the Kitsap Sun website.
This post has been updated to include a response from the
school district.
While residents packed into a standing-room-only city council
meeting Tuesday night to share suggestions on what to do with the
city-owned Suzuki property, no action was taken and no new ideas
were discussed by the council.
The property at the southeast corner of New Brooklyn and
Sportsman Club Roads by Woodward Middle School is forested and has
several trails. There are no wetlands, streams or steep slopes.
There is a pond, but because it is man-made it does not meet the
definition of a “critical area” under the city’s codes.
Residents continue to be torn between leaving the 13.83 acres of
undeveloped land as is, using it for affordable housing, or
allowing the school to use it for possible expansion in the future
or outdoor education.
All of these ideas had previously been discussed at a public workshop last
fall, where the Housing Resources Board, Housing Kitsap, Cutler
Anderson Architects and Arcstudio each presented preliminary
concepts to more than 100 residents.
According to multiple options presented to the city, the site
could have anywhere from 45 to 75 housing units if developed.
Only 30 affordable units have been created on the island since
2002.
In 2000, the city purchased the land as a site for a police
station and courthouse. Since then it was decided the property was
too close to schools for a police station.
Some residents were concerned about increased traffic problems
near the school with more housing.
The tugboat Pacific Knight
helps maneuver the state ferry Tacoma to the Bainbridge Island dock
after it lost power while making the 12:20 p.m. sailing from
Seattle to Bainbridge on July 29, 2014. MEEGAN M. REID / KITSAP
SUN
We are asking readers to rank the top Bainbridge Islander
stories from this past year in a
survey. The top 10 will be posted on this blog.
After struggling with being bullied in elementary and middle
school, Eagle Harbor High School junior Otis Doxtater created a
program that helps students learn tolerance, unity and
kindness.
Otis’ efforts inspired many students Tuesday when he led the
Commodore K-12 Options School student body and employees in an
anti-bullying program.
Prior to a morning assembly, Otis visited classrooms with a
strip of orange paper for each student. The students wrote what
made them special on one side of the paper and on the other
described what things they would do to stop bullying. The
classrooms then created a chain of orange links, which later were
connected with the rest of the school’s classes during a silent
lunchroom procession.
Otis is known to many island residents for holding an
anti-bullying sign near the Bainbridge McDonald’s restaurant on
High School Road, off State Route 305. With “Stop Bullying” on one
side and “Love and Equality” on the other, the signs elicited
support and people wanting to talk to him about bullying.
“At Eagle Harbor High School everyone knows everyone and people
are very accepting,” Otis said in a news release published by the
Bainbridge Island School District. “I really found the right fit
here. Now I want to help others feel they can talk freely about
bullying prevention and know their actions can make a
difference.”
Otis’ efforts coincide with the eighth annual National Unity Day
on Wednesday (Oct. 22), which encourages schools, businesses and
communities to come together against bullying and unite by wearing
orange with a message of support, hope and unity.
Contributed photo / BISD
Cami Dombkowski retires after 24 years with the BISD.Contributed photo / BISD
Bob Houk retires after 28 years with the Bainbridge school
district.Contributed photo / BISD
BISD Kathy Roberts retires after 30 years in public education,
including her last 13 years with BISD.
Combined, Bainbridge Island School District employees Cami
Dombkowski, Bob Houk and Kathy Roberts worked 82 years in public
education and today from 3:30 to 5 p.m. the district will honor and
recognize the well-known trio with a reception in the
Bainbridge High School Commons.
The
three will retire from the BISD Friday.
Dombkowski,
human resources and transportation director, retires after serving
the school district since 1990.
Houk,
lead custodian, came to the district in 1986.
Roberts,
administrative assistant to Superintendent Faith Chapel, started
working for the district in 2001, after spending 17 years with
Everett Public Schools.
The
Bainbridge Island School District will be unloading all its old
kindergarten through eighth grade math books to families of
district students from 9 a.m. to noon Thursday, July 10, at the
Commodore Options School, located at 9530 N.E. High School
Road.
Books –
which are at least four years old and could be as old as 10 – will
be on sale from 50 cents to $1, district accounting specialist
Julie Gray said.
The need
to purge the old math textbooks followed the Bainbridge School
Board’s adoption of a new K-8 math curriculum. In the June 26 board
meeting, a consent agenda item was passed to dispose of surplus
district property.
After
the July 10 sale to district families, the books will be available
for purchase to other school districts on July 14-15, Gray said.
The remaining books will then be shipped to the state’s surplus
facility in Olympia, the Washington State Department of Enterprise
Services, likely sometime in the fall, Gray added.
For more
information about the math textbook sale, contact Gray at
206-780-1063 or through email at jgray@bisd303.org.
After
working 13 years for the Bainbridge Island School District, Kathy
Roberts will be retiring at the end of August to close her 30-year
career in K-12 public education.
Roberts,
administrative assistant to Superintendent Faith Chapel, worked 17
years for Everett Public Schools prior to being hired by
Bainbridge.
“It’s
hard to leave my second family who are the staff, students and
administrators of the Bainbridge Island School District,” Roberts
said after Thursday’s School Board meeting.
Following
Bainbridge High Principal Jake Haley accepting a principal position
at Costa Mesa High School in California, Bainbridge Island School
District named Mary Alice O’Neill as the school’s interim principal
for the 2014-15 school year. She will start July 1.
O’Neill
was the associate principal at BHS from 1999 to 2001 and Woodward
Middle’s principal from 2001 to 2009. She currently works as a
teacher on special assignment.
“I’m
excited to fill this important role,” O’Neill said in a news
release. “I believe we have one of the finest high schools in the
state. I’m looking forward to working with the amazing students,
the talented and caring staff, as well as the supportive parent
community.”
O’Neill
has worked as an educator for more than 30 years in Kitsap
County, California and Kuwait. She holds a bachelor of arts and
masters of education from the College of William and Mary in
Virginia.
“We’re
thrilled to have Mary Alice rejoin the district in this critical
role,” Superintendent Faith Chapel said. “She is a skilled and
experienced principal and understands the needs of our
district.”
Haley
will work through the end of the school year before starting his
new job in California July 1.
Last
month, Amii Pratt was named the new associate principal at Sakai
Intermediate School. The half-time administrative position – which
was cut in 2011 – is being reinstated as a result of the district’s
increased enrollment and changes in administrative roles and
responsibilities. She’ll start her new job July 1.
“Amii
has excelled in a number of instructional and leadership roles in
the district, and she is highly regarded by those who have worked
with her,” Chapel said.
Pratt
brings 11 years of educational experience to this new position. She
taught first and second grades at Wilkes and Ordway Elementary
Schools and second grade at Ogden Elementary in Vancouver, Wash.
She also served as a K-5 English Language Learner coordinator
in Vancouver for two years.
Currently,
Pratt is a K-5 English language arts teacher on special assignment
and is a principal intern at Blakely Elementary. She has designed
and led professional development sessions and co-facilitated the
Teacher Evaluation Committee for the Bainbridge Island School
District.
She
graduated in 2001 from Oregon State University with a bachelor’s
degree in science and a year later earned a master’s degree in
teaching from OSU. In 2008, she achieved her National Board
Certification, a rigorous and advanced teaching credential. This
year, she received her Initial Principal and Program Administrator
Certificate from the University of Washington’s Danforth
Educational Leadership Program.
Contributed photo
Amii Pratt recently was named the new associate principal at Sakai
Intermediate School.
Contributed photo
“This has been one of the most challenging and difficult decisions
that I’ve had to make in my professional career,” says Jake Haley,
who could officially become Costa Mesa High School’s new principal
on Tuesday.
***Story updated 11 p.m. May 13 to reflect Newport-Mesa Unified
School District’s Board of Education voting 7-0 on Tuesday
night for Jake Haley to be Costa Mesa High School’s new
principal.
Being closer to family who live in California will likely take
Bainbridge High School Principal Jake Haley back to the Golden
State, where he worked from 2005 to 2010.
Haley was named officially the new principal of Costa Mesa High
School after the Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s Board
of Education voted 7-0 for his hiring at Tuesday’s
meeting. Haley will start July 1.
Haley would replace Phil D’Agostino, who left in March to
become the district’s director of student services, the Daily Pilot
website reported.
“His background is in educational leadership, mathematics,
special education and athletics,” the Newport-Mesa Unified School
District news release stated of Haley. “He expresses a passion and
commitment to instructional leadership, a desire to meet the
individual needs of students and staff, and, exhibits the ability
to build relationships balanced with a sense of humor.”
Costa Mesa High School ranked 131st in California and 650th
nationally in U.S. News & World Report’s best high school rankings
in its recently released 8th annual list of more than 19,400 public
high schools in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Costa Mesa,
a seventh through 12th grade school, has a total enrollment of
1,693 students.
Haley’s roots run deep on Bainbridge Island. He entered Wilkes
Elementary as a kindergartener and attended BISD schools until he
graduated from high school in 1993. He was Bainbridge High’s
student body vice president his junior year and student body
president the following year.
After earning an undergraduate degree from Whitworth University,
Haley was hired as a BHS math teacher in 1997, a position he kept
through the 2005 school year. During those years, he also served as
the Spartans’ assistant football and assistant boys basketball
coach.
“This has been one of the most challenging and difficult
decisions that I’ve had to make in my professional career,” said
Haley, who will continue to work as the BHS principal through the
end of the school year. “For 28 years, Bainbridge has been my home
as I’ve evolved as a student, teacher, coach and principal. I will
deeply miss the students and staff of Bainbridge High School who
have enriched my life in countless ways.”
Haley left Bainbridge in 2005 to become the head football coach
for El Toro High School in Lake Forest, Calif. He guided the
Chargers to a pair of 5-6 records his first two seasons, a 6-6 mark
in 2007 and a 2-8 campaign in 2008, according to MaxPreps.com.
He then was hired as an associate principal for Laguna Hills
High School in Orange County, where he worked during the 2009-10
school year. Haley returned to Bainbridge in 2010 when he was hired
as Bainbridge High’s associate principal. Last July, he was named
the school’s new principal.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Bainbridge the sixth best high
school in Washington and 276th best nationally. Last year, BHS was
ranked seventh in the state and 274th nationally.
“Jake is an outstanding educator who has made significant
contributions to our district as a student leader, teacher and
administrator,” Bainbridge Superintendent Faith Chapel said. “He
will be greatly missed by everyone who has worked with him.”
Chapel said the Bainbridge Island School District will start
making decisions on replacing Haley in the next few days and will
announce those plans through the district’s Listserv email
service.
U.S. News & World Report ranked
Bainbridge High School the sixth best high school in the state and
276thbest nationally in its recently
released eighth annual rankings of more than 19,400 public high
schools in 50 states and the District of
Columbia.
Last year, BHS was ranked seventh in the state
and 274thnationally in the magazine’s “Best
High Schools Rankings.”
Only 133
Washington state schools made the magazine’s 2014 list. Eligibility
for the list required school’s garnering a national gold or silver
medal; Bainbridge won a gold medal.
Kirkland’s
International Community School was ranked the top school in the
state, followed by Bellevue’s Community School, Bellevue High,
Newport (Bellevue) High and Interlake (Bellevue) High.
Des
Moines’ Aviation High, Seattle’s Roosevelt High, Seattle’s Garfield
High and Winthrop’s Liberty Bell Junior/Senior High rounded out the
state’s top 10.
Dallas’
School for the Talented and Gifted in Dallas, Texas, earned the top
honors nationally, followed by BASIS Scottsdale in Arizona and
Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology in
Lawrenceville, Ga.
Kirkland’s
International Community School was ranked the highest nationally in
the state at No. 13.
According
to information the magazine posted online, Bainbridge High has a 67
percent participation rate in Advanced Placement course work. Out
of its total enrollment of 1,309, 50 percent of the student body is
made up of males, and it has a total minority enrollment of 11
percent.
Contributed photo / Grayson
Wildsmith
Peter Lindsey rebuilds a mailbox for an elderly Bainbridge Island
couple.
An
elderly couple were in a bind and needed help
immediately.
After
discovering their mailbox had been smashed during a weekend prank,
the couple called Bainbridge Youth Services seeking help because
they couldn’t get their mail delivered to them and they were too
feeble to fix the box themselves.
Bainbridge
High juniors Peter Lindsey and Grayson Wildsmith were recruited by
the agency to donate five hours on a Saturday to rebuild the
mailbox.
“They
had to mix the cement, place the new mailbox beam in the cement and
then fasten the mailbox to the beam,” said Marina Cofer-Wildsmith,
executive director of Bainbridge Youth Services, which is housed in
the high school. “All this done without any spotlight on their
work. No community service hours expected, no payment … they did it
just because. The couple were so grateful.”
Cofer-Wildsmith
shared the story of Lindsey and Wildsmith on the heels of the
successful three session Healthy Youth Summit, which was
sponsored by Bainbridge Youth Services, Raising Resilience, Rotary
Club of Bainbridge Island and the Bainbridge Island School
District.
After
attracting more than 60 participants and community leaders for the
first stakeholders meeting in September, the first summit in
November garnered 171 participants. The next three-hour meeting in
January had 168 participants and the third in March tallied 101
people. More than 50 youth participated in all three events, but
approximately 200 youth voices helped shape the direction of the
conversations as a result of youth surveys.
The
meetings meant a great deal to Dave Cinamon, whose daughter attends
Bainbridge High.
“I left
each event with a feeling of relief, happiness and optimism, having
learned more about this stage of my daughter’s life,” said Cinamon,
an architect on the island. “I loved each event – being with other
parents, and listening to great speakers and educators explain how
a teenager’s brain is developing during these years.”
Bainbridge
School District Superintendent Faith Chapel said she found the
meetings “very effective.”
“Over
the years, I’ve participated in many discussions about
adolescents,” Chapel said. “Without a doubt, these were the most
constructive and substantive sessions I’ve experienced. Each
segment was unique in its format and content, and the speakers and
facilitators were very effective.”
Cezanne Allen, board chair for Raising
Resilience, and Cofer-Wildsmith said the motivation for the Healthy
Youth Summit was simple: engaging both youth and adults. After
starting with teens telling them through survey data that
“we aren’t happy” and that adults
“put too much pressure on us making a decision for the future,” the
teens moved to “give us a voice” and “please redefine success –
congratulate us for who we are, not what we
do.”
“Our
expectations for these summits were more than met, as we engaged
all facets of our community and built momentum for ongoing
conversation and action,” Allen said. “The dialogue between youth
and adults in the room opened up rich understanding, trust and
respect on both sides. Common community-driven values were
articulated and 100 committed adults and youth worked together to
design action steps to move our community from good to
great.”
As a
result of the summits, Cofer-Wildsmith said she hoped to implement
methods to improve the way island adults “engage, empower and
listen to our youth.”
“We are
trying to establish a community movement where we look at how we
behave and interact with our youth differently – supporting their
strengths and less focusing on their deficits,” Cofer-Wildsmith
said.
Allen
said perceptions between Bainbridge adults and youth have changed
following the meetings and that the conversation will
continue.
“We are
working to support the action groups that emerged and to empower
and bring leaders from a wide variety of sectors together to create
a common agenda for action to support healthy youth development,”
Allen said. “We will plan a follow-up summit next year to
consolidate our learnings and track our progress.”
SUMMIT
RESULTS
Here’s
some of the achievements that came as a result of the three
community Healthy Youth Summits:
— Bainbridge Police Chief Matthew Hamner starting a Youth
Advisory Committee.
— Bainbridge Island Arts & Humanities Council are planning to
add a youth board member.
— Senior Center discussion youth technology mentorship for
seniors.
— Parent-driven youth mentor program established.
— Bainbridge Youth Services launching a paid summer internship
program.
***Editor’s Note: This story was published in the April
11 Islander section, but since it wasn’t available online we
are posting it to this blog as well.
