The Impact will host a series of election focused interviews from now through the first week of November. We begin with the non-partisan Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
The incumbent, Chris Reykdal, has held the position since 2017. Before that he was a state representative. He held senior administrative positions with the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges for fourteen years and is also a former high school history teacher.
His opponent, David Olson, has served on the Peninsula School Board since 2013. Olson is a retired naval officer and has worked in the banking industry. He was a Pierce County Charter Review Commissioner in 2016.
One of them will chart the course of K12 education for 1.1 million public school students for the next four years.
In our interviews with each candidate we cover a range of topics including: school funding, test scores, cell phones, class disruptions, and disciplinary procedures.
“I think our state and other states are getting a little too bureaucratic, where every single time a student was being addressed for behavior, it caused a mountain of paperwork, a mountain of phone calls, and it was bogging down the system.instead of like when we went to school, we were mouthing off in class or we weren’t paying attention. The teacher got to address that right there. We’re going to get back to that,” said Reykdal.
“I talked to teachers around the state. They told me that there are several issues that impact our classroom. One is student discipline, cell phones is another one, and absenteeism. So being able to address those issues, and find the root causes of what those are, I think would help. Because the teachers tell me they’re overwhelmed,” said Olson.