At the Orcas Island School District (OISD) Board meeting on Aug. 5, the board, after discussion, voted unanimously in two separate motions that High School/Middle School and Waldron Principal Barbara Kline’s job be changed to a .5 Superintendent and .5 School Principal position and that Elementary School Principal Tom Gobeske be appointed as full-time Kindergarten through 8th grade principal.
During the discussion, board chair Janet Brownell asked Kline about the tremendous workload that the new combination position might entail for both principals. Kline responded, “We won’t know until we do it. With only four weeks until school starts there is a lot to be done. But we have the best teachers here that I have ever worked with. There is room for teacher leadership. The more you can get people involved in a systematic fashion to help things work well, the better it will be run.”
In order to ensure ongoing communication on the administrative change Kline said she envisioned quarterly status reports for the board with short term goals outlining what was going well, noting any surprises and identifying upcoming matters.
Board member Scott Lancaster praised Kline on her current relationship with the kids and asked how the change in position might weaken that. Kline responded that working with the children was a combination effort with the teachers. She noted that with the middle school students it was a matter of identifying potential problems and working on them. “With middle school we keep the thunderstorm of chaos contained, preparing them for success in the high school. We have excellent teachers to help us do this,” Kline said.
When asked by board member Tony Ghazel how a situation would be handled if a parent had a problem with the high school principal, when the normal course of action would be to go to the superintendent and Kline would be filling both roles, Kline responded that the policy might need to change to give parents another option. She noted that the good news was that there had only been one situation of that type in the past two years. She said that she would see herself as a superintendent first and as principal second.
As part of the shift in superintendent responsibilities Gobeske would take on transportation, maintenance and food service.
After the votes on the Kline and Gobeske positions, Keith Whitaker, who joined the meeting by phone from his vacation, disconnected.
In other unanimous actions the board voted a new salary structure for the District Office (there was no salary schedule in the past), to revise the Business Manager’s contract to add an additional reporting responsibility to the school board president on financial issues and to accept a $1,000 donation from the Seattle Foundation of Special Program enhancement for Marta Branch’s class.
The board scheduled a special meeting for Aug. 14 at 4 p.m. to discuss the new position contracts. According to Brownell, “At this meeting the board will also consider reinstatement of RIF’d (Reduction In Force) teachers for the 2008/2009 school year.”
