Two more announce intentions to run for school board
June 10, 2009
By Laura Geggel
Two more candidates, Paul Houldridge and Kevin Bardsley, have filed to run for the Snoqualmie Valley School Board.
Paul Houldridge of North Bend is running for board seat No.1, a position representing part of Snoqualmie and North Bend. Two other candidates — Scott Hodgins and Geoffrey Doy — are running for the position, as well.
Anytime more than two candidates run for a school board seat, The King County Elections office requires that a primary election be held. Mail ballots will be mailed to all Snoqualmie Valley School District voters by July 31 for the Aug. 18 primary. The final election will be held Nov. 3.
Houldridge, software developer for a company in Bellevue, and his wife Kari have five children who attend Opstad Elementary, Twin Falls Middle School and Mount Si High School.
At Opstad, Houldridge volunteers with the WATCH D.O.G.S program and has volunteered in his son’s classroom, as well as with his sons’ Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting programs.
Houldridge was also a member of the Coalition to Defend Education for a year. CoDE formed after the events surrounding the Rev. Ken Hutcherson’s speech at the Mount Si High School Martin Luther King Jr. assembly. A group of parents called the assembly the straw that broke the camel’s back, and formed CoDE to, among other things, focus on school policies relating to issues of teacher bias in the classroom.
Houldridge said he was no longer active with CoDE and said, if elected, he would focus his school board work on encouraging academic excellence, practicing fiscal responsibility and integrating transparency and accountability.
The school board should follow its policies while respecting the rights of the school’s administrators and teachers, he said.
“I think the key principle is that the school should service education,” Houldridge said. “When we dedicate an entire day or an entire month for things that don’t apply to the curriculum, I think it short-changes the kids.”
Students should be exposed to the core subjects of language arts, math and science, and also “enriching disciplines like music, art and sports, which teach valuable lessons of their own,” Houldridge said.
Fall City resident Kevin Bardsley is running for school board seat No. 3, an area representing part of Snoqualmie and Fall City. Bardsley will run against incumbent Craig Husa, who was appointed to the board in February after the resignation of Kathryn Lerner.
Bardsley ran against Husa during the appointment process, but did not receive the position.
“I think the first thing I’m looking at is there are two board positions that were appointed by the existing board,” Bardsley said. “District 3 wasn’t present to vote on anything. I strongly believe in the American system, in by the people and for the people.”
Bardsley and his wife, Margie, an instructional aid at Chief Kanim Middle School, have four children who have attended Fall City Elementary, Chief Kanim and Mount Si High School. In addition to supporting his children’s involvement with extracurricular activities, Bardsley attended boundary-redistricting meetings and participated in a focus group organized by the Long-Term Facilities Task Force.
Like Houldridge, he said the school district and board could have communicated better with the community regarding the budget deficit and blueprint. If elected, Bardsley said he would regularly meet with the people he represented.
“I’ve never met the people who have represented my district in the past, unless you go to a board meeting and actually talk to them,” Bardsley said. “I know how to sell things. You go out and talk to people. You press the flesh and talk to people.”
He voted against the last two bonds, saying the district had done a poor job communicating about the bond and should have scaled down the amount of money it requested.
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