Six-year Oak Harbor School Board Member Jessica Aws is defending her Position 2 seat from first-time board candidate Karen Lesetmoe.

Aws, who was first appointed in 2017 and elected in 2019, has seen the district evolve before, during and after the pandemic. If re-elected, she would be the longest serving board member on the board.

“Being able to provide a bit of history there is important, especially with the new administrative team,” she said.

Aws has many years of experience working with children, including as a librarian, a youth coalition coordinator and an advisor for a group that works to prevent pot and cigarette use.

In 2022, Republican Lesetmoe lost against Democrat Dave Paul to serve as a member of the Washington State House of Representatives for District 10. This time, her focus is on schools.

Lesetmoe has lived in Oak Harbor for 18 years. Like many residents, she was brought here by the Navy, where she served between 2004 and 2008 as an aviation maintenance administration woman, a job that involved clerical, administrative and managerial duties — skills she can use to serve on the board.

Now she works as a real estate broker. In an email, she wrote that she met many parents who would ask her whether their children would receive a good education in Oak Harbor. Seeing how crucial quality education is to prospective newcomers has further motivated Lesetmoe to pursue this position and focus on improving test scores.

“Even though our scores are on par across Washington State we should see this as an opportunity to think outside the box and lead the way to become better,” she wrote.

Lesetmoe is one of the many parents who chose to pull their children out of public school due to concerns about lower academic performance, a nationwide phenomenon that resulted from the pandemic. Though she believes her children are receiving a better education at Oak Harbor Christian School, she acknowledged it’s a big expense.

“Not everyone has that ability to pay for private education or tutoring to help their child catch up,” wrote Lesetmoe, who is also a grandparent. “I believe every student, regardless of economic status, deserves a quality education. And with the resources and network that Oak Harbor Public School system has, there’s no reason that we can’t make that a reality.”

An idea she would like to bring to the attention of the board is to implement peer-to-peer tutoring and mentoring programs, which she believes would also help students fulfill the school’s requirement to do community service.

Aws will also focus on improving academic achievement and pushing the district to be better than average, as she believes students and staff in Oak Harbor have the potential to improve within their own individual abilities.

Aws said the district has been seeing positive progress in its post-pandemic recovery journey, with significant improvements made over the past school year, particularly in reading scores.

“We still have a lot of work to do in math, but we are on the right track,” she said.

Aws is not a parent, but her passion for supporting students extends beyond the school board.

She worked at the public library in Oak Harbor, reading stories to preschoolers and reaching out to schools and underserved communities. As the Oak Harbor Youth Coalition coordinator, she has contributed to a plan to prevent substance use in the community and schools. She has advised the Oak Harbor High School’s Community Awareness Peer Educators, focusing on marijuana and tobacco use prevention, and runs Bramblewood Farm, an equine boarding, training and breeding farm where she interacts with young students.

As a board member, Lesetmoe said she would represent immigrant families and people of color. She is a first generation American, and moved from the Philippines when she was 6 years old, “with a suitcase and no toys,” and understands the struggles minority groups face.

Lesetmoe’s agenda also includes accountability, transparency, safety and parental rights.

Increased parental involvement would include face-to-face interactions with teachers and allowing parents to see the inside of their children’s classrooms.

“Zoom and phone calls should supplement face to face communication not replace it entirely,” she wrote in an email. “That would increase parental involvement and improve transparency.”

With transparency, taxpayers would have more trust in the district’s investment decisions and commitment to their promises, she wrote, also referring to the failed bond measures.

Lesetmoe wrote that taxpayers “need to understand that we need good schools, facilities and programs because it benefits our community as a whole.”

After the challenges of communicating with stakeholders amid a pandemic, Aws said connecting with the community has been a focus of the board, particularly over the past school year. The board’s goal is to increase community involvement in the decision making process. Though many decisions depend on the state, the board will do whatever they can to make the best decisions possible.

Aws is a supporter of school bonds, and acknowledged the challenge of building two new school buildings with a limited amount of funds available, so ensuring fiscal responsibility while addressing aging buildings and meeting the needs of students is important.

Continuing to work on the strategic plan is another focus for Aws, as it guides the district’s decision making and it requires contribution from administration, teachers, paraprofessionals, students and parents.

A particularly significant topic that has been discussed during her time on the board has been special needs students. Aws said Oak Harbor has a larger population of special needs students than average due to the naval air station’s proximity to a children’s hospital. She described the district’s special education department as chronically underfunded, particularly after the end of COVID relief funding. Therefore, she believes levies are important to overcome this challenge as the school is pulling funds from other areas.

“The prototypical school funding model that is put out by the state does not support special needs as much as it should,” she said. “And it certainly does not support mental health services and counselors.”

Lesetmoe said she is open to listening to parents and teachers about any concerns, including those pertaining to special education resources. She also expressed her support for public school employees who are negotiating a contract with the district in hopes to get better pay.

Because negotiations are still in progress as of Oct. 4, Aws declined to comment on contract negotiations.

When asked to comment on the board’s response to “The Laramie Project” last spring, Aws explained that a board member’s role is to oversee policy, budgets and strategic planning, but they have no power to change the principal’s decision to veto the play. She said she was proud of the students who spoke against the decision at a board meeting, but said board members don’t respond to public comments — although they are able to under their own policy. She is glad they were able to arrange a performance with the Whidbey Playhouse.

Jessica Aws