A retired police officer is making a write-in bid for a seat on the Oak Harbor School Board.

Dennis Dickinson, 50, is running for position No. 3 against Robert Hallahan, an airline pilot.

Dickinson just retired from the Oak Harbor Police Department. For the past several years, he served as the school resource officer.

It was that position that kept him from filing to run, he said.

Doing so would have been a conflict of interest, he explained.

His time as an officer and at Oak Harbor schools gives him the perspective and experience to address some of the challenges the district faces, he said. The district is scrambling to find solutions to a growing student population.

Dickinson identified some other problems he thinks need addressing, including school safety. Students practice fire drills routinely, and officials should do more to prepare students and teachers for violence. He doesn’t want to turn schools “into a fortress,” but training could help and awareness.

“Sadly, the topic of school safety has been front and center in the media for some time,” he said. “We cannot have the mindset that these types of tragedies will not happen here.”

On his candidacy website, Dickinson said the Oak Harbor High School stadium wouldn’t be easy to evacuate in an emergency because a flood of people would have to squeeze through the ticket booth entrances. He suggested to the district they  add a gate to the fence at the back of the stadium, but the work hasn’t been done.

“It would be a low-cost fix compared to a big liability,” he said.

Dickinson is a Navy veteran and a 1984 graduate of Oak Harbor High School. He is the father of three children enrolled in Oak Harbor schools. He now works as a driver for Parrish Trucking, hauling big rolls of paper from a Port Townsend mill to Canada.

Both men are vying to fill Christine Cribb’s seat. She is completing her term but chose not to run again so she can focus on her work as the Oak Harbor Chamber of Commerce director.