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From local leaders and hometown heroes to breaking stories and in-depth conversations, the KMAS Podcast brings you the voices that matter in Mason County, Washington. Hosted by longtime broadcaster Jeff Slakey, each episode dives into what’s happening around the Hood Canal—government, education, small business, the outdoors, and everything in between.
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Well, folks, I am at North Mason School District and I have got a great opportunity to meet the new superintendent, Dr. Christine Michael. How are you? I am great. I am so excited to meet you, too.
So 19 days or so on the job. We're recording this here. You started on July 1st.
And, well, welcome first to the community. Thank you. Thank you.
We are thrilled to be here. Tell me a little bit about how you got here. Okay, well, it's one of those roundabout kind stories.
So I moved here with my husband and my father-in-law. And I have grown children. They live in Chicago and Indianapolis.
So they were not living in my hometown of Ohio anymore. And we have always come out to the Pacific Northwest, either to go to Olympic National Park or to visit my brother who lives in Sequim. And every time we're here, we say, why do we live in Ohio? Like, it's so beautiful out here.
And when we were here last September, I found out that they had a superintendent opening. And so I went and checked out the community a little more versus just driving through on the way to one of the National Forest or the National Park and was really impressed with what I saw and knew it was a very close community. And so it just looked like a great opportunity to come and enjoy Washington, but also be able to add to the educational system here.
How is it similar to the how is the school set up similar to kind of what you're familiar with in Ohio? So yeah, so I was a superintendent in a smaller district, east of Columbus, it had about 1300 kids, but about 130 square miles. So in terms of like the transportation challenges that North Mason has, we had those similar challenges, where you always try to keep kids on the bus for under 60 minutes, if at all possible, but sometimes that just can't happen. I like that there's kind of a central campus, I had that at my previous place, like the elementary, the middle and high school, we only had one elementary in the district office, we're all on one campus, which meant, you know, every single chance I could, I would go to one of the buildings, too much paperwork, your eyes are going blurry.
Let's go check out kindergarten, or, you know, let's go to the special needs classroom at the middle school. And I loved that. I love that kind of campus where you can interact with students and know every single staff member because it's not so big.
But I think the size that North Mason is, is actually the sweet spot compared to the place where I was a superintendent before because 22-2300 students, you're able to offer students a lot of opportunities. And not so small that you're trying to figure out how to create a program or a class just for, you know, five kids, there's, you know, a bigger pool, so therefore, usually more opportunities. One of the things, and I'm sure you've already run across this in your meetings, and just kind of out meeting the public is that folks really take pride in their district, in their community in Mason County, specifically, like it's, this is our district, these are our bulldogs, you know, things like that.
What have you heard coming in from folks about, well, welcoming in and you say, hey, I've got a great experience. I know I'm new to our community. But it's kind of the same everywhere I've been and being a superintendent, it's about the students.
Absolutely. No, I've just heard, I will say every single person that we've met, my husband and I have just been so impressed that they're so friendly, whether it's somebody, you know, chatting with you at the coffee shop, and the whole coffee shop building is a whole separate thing because they do not have those in Ohio. You know, where you can get coffee every five minutes.
And everywhere you look, there's a place. It's great. But I think a lot of people talk about the pride they have in the buildings and the grounds and the programs and how we have such great kids and how hard working they are and how they try really hard to always get along with each other.
I'm looking forward to meeting some students. I haven't actually met any physical students. We're supposed to be doing that the first week of August.
There's a, as you probably know, there's a student representative on the board. And we'll be adding a second one since our other one graduated. So I'm looking forward to getting to talk to some students.
And one of the things that I loved about my previous job and being located so close to the high school is I was able to have a superintendent's advisory committee where I got to interact with the students once a month. And they're not usually very shy about telling you what they think, you know, what's going great, what's an opportunity to do something a little bit better. So I like that feedback.
But I think that this is just a community that so many people have pride in. I'm coming from a district that you could trace families back, you know, parents, grandparents, etc. So I was really excited that that is the way it is here at North Mason as well, is that, oh, yeah, my grandkids are here, or, oh, my great grandma used to live over there.
And so I'm getting to really enjoy those family stories, too, and learn some of the history. Have you been around here for a winter? Well, I interviewed in January. So I was here in January, in February, a little bit, but only, you know, for a day here or there.
I mean, it's beautiful year round. I just, you know, I remember and know some of the struggles and I'm sure you had the similar ones in Ohio when it comes to winter and the travel and the transit, you know, we got a lot of elevation here. I just was thinking about that if you holiday here and then come here in September, but that's great.
Yeah, no, I think, you know, when I was here interviewing, you know, I was waking up at midnight to do, you know, snow cancellations back in Ohio. And so I'm used to some of those challenges. And it's dark when you go to work, and it's dark when you come home, and it's just kind of gray and gloomy.
I've been told it's a little bit more intense here in Washington. But you know, you get used to it. And it's 93 and 90% humidity right now in Ohio, and it's rained more days than not.
You're in store all seasons here. It's beautiful. It's going to be wonderful for you.
When you're talking and listening, and you know, you have those impromptu coffee clutches at the local stores. What are you hearing about how the past and the education and kind of to what is your what's kind of your passion when it comes to education? Yeah. So I think my passion is I'm a huge advocate for public education.
And I think it is really the great equalizer that exists in our society. And it's really important that we invest all our best resources in helping all students, you know, achieve whatever dream it is that they want for themselves. And I lost track of what the question was.
I'm sorry, this is on radio. No, hey, no worries. This is fine.
And I was just wondering what you heard about the other so from citizens passion about what they take pride in about the learning here at North Mason. Yeah, I think that there's there's some pride around our career technical education programs. I've seen some expansion, they've been talking about, you know, adding robotics.
And you know, when I go and I see the different salmon activities that they have in the different buildings. So the fact that there's such a close connection between the environment and the schools is something that people take a lot of pride in. When I was here in the winter, they were I think, carving, I don't know if that's the right word carving canoes.
Yeah, which you certainly would not see in the middle of Ohio. But the facilities are a source of pride up here on the central campus. And I know that this is a community that wishes our elementary schools were at the same quality standard as our high school.
But you know, we have some work to do. And school funding is a challenge no matter where you live. Because taxes are hard on people.
But unfortunately, we're in a society where that's where a lot of your school funding is coming from. Yeah. And you know, the struggles here in the state are great across the districts and across the counties.
You're you're not saying anything that's different than any of the your counterparts are saying here in Mason. So when you're looking at that, and you're having your kind of meetings initially now with the school board, what what are you looking at? I know that North Mason voters didn't pass the last levy. There's talk about it being again on the ballot in November.
What are you what are you kind of planning for, you know, preparing for in those situations? So we we have a citizens committee that started meeting the end of June, I was meeting weekly to really help advise the the district leadership about do we go back on the ballot in November? What does that look like when we go back? Are we going back exactly the same as we did last time? What can we do better? And so we are getting ready to talk to the board this evening about putting a levy initiative back on the ballot as a replacement levy. That the levy failed right about the time I was getting hired. And so I wasn't involved in some of those initial conversations.
But I will say that the the district team here has done a nice job of trying to include me whenever they possibly could the actually the time change worked in my favor where my day could be done in Ohio and I could get on some meetings with them. But the district did have to make about $4 million in cuts. And they tried really hard to keep those cuts away from the students whenever possible.
But we want to be able to provide those opportunities for students. And so we're going to need those levy dollars back. Because the state apportionment is just not enough to help us get everything that our students need and deserve.
And that's what I hear a lot about too from the other superintendents in Mason County and talking with our 35th district representatives. I don't know if you've had a chance to meet Dan Griffey and Travis Couture and State Senator McEwen. They are very focused on education.
And I talk with them during session about this a lot about how they're looking at figuring out what the funding models will be and how the kind of the apportionments are not matching what the state funding is not matching, especially when it comes to the bills. You know, because a lot of people too, it's hard to it's hard to kind of wrap your brain around the fact that every month you have a power bill and you have a water bill. And I think a lot of folks, for whatever reasons, feel like if you're a school district, you're part of the government.
And somehow that's just like there is no bill. Right. But that that's a huge portion of what it takes to keep these buildings running and keep the lights on and the air flowing and things like that.
And so when it doesn't match to I don't know what the property values were like in Ohio where you were from, but here we don't have major property values. There's not a ton of housing. So those levy dollars when it's per 1000 or whatever, based on other communities in the state, especially there, it's hard pressed to kind of even make up some of those deficits.
Yeah, so I think there's there's some things that are similar in terms of funding between Ohio. You know, it was based on those extra dollars were based on property taxes, and we had to take go to the vote and get levies passed or bond issues. Um, and again, we I was coming from a district that had really no industry.
So the property taxes really were on the back of our citizens. Most communities tend to have about 70% of the residents in a school district not have school aged children. Yeah.
So I think making sure that we find a way to help our senior citizens and our older people whose kids have maybe graduated, um, really know the value of North Mason schools and help invite them in so that they can see these good things in action. Um, I think that's work that I was doing there. And I'm going to need to continue that work here as well, not just as an opportunity to get to know the community, but also to help it be a little less abstract what those dollars are going for.
Yeah, about 80% of most districts money goes to staffing. And that includes, you know, bus drivers, you know, teachers, paraprofessionals, all really important. Every position is essential.
We the district and I should say I'm saying we because now I am Yeah, no, I'm that district too. But as a group, you know, we had to make some cuts around one of our security personnel, which I would love to see brought back because safety and security of our students is the number one thing. We want all families to feel secure that when their students are coming to school, they're in a safe and loving environment and that we have the procedures in place to ensure that we have those safety things.
So, um, this is a little off topic, but, you know, one of the things I first do when I got here was to walk around the buildings and try to really understand the procedures and policies we had around safety. Ohio had invested billions of dollars in school safety over the last five to 10 years. And so there are certainly some features that I'm used to having regarding security cameras and access to different online tools that kind of work together to help keep the environment safe that doesn't seem like we have here in North Mason.
But I'm still in the evaluation process. As you said, it's like day nine. Yeah.
Yeah. But, you know, I hope to be invited to, you know, different community events and be able to meet the community where they are, whether that's a homeowners or a safe association. Like I got to go and have a luncheon at the hub last week.
And yeah, yeah. What a great what a great facility. They're great folks.
Beth Gizzy there. She just does a wonderful job. And it really is, you know, that the tagline is that it's a hub.
The senior is kind of the North Mason senior center area. But really, so many people utilize that space. That's a that's a definite good one to hook up with.
And I know Sheriff Sperling is a wonderful advocate for things and not being in an incorporated city up here. You know, you rely heavily on the sheriff's office. And Deputy Colbinson does a lot of outreach in the North Mason schools.
And so you have some really good advocates here that are passionate about what they do. So, you know, they they'll definitely be good to talk with when it comes to those types. Absolutely.
I really I actually got to meet the sheriff last week. I initially met him briefly at Allen Days. And then he and I had an opportunity to sit down and talk just about the county and the as a whole, kind of start to build those relationships.
One, I mean, I could tell that this is a community that's invested in itself, right out of the gate within my first two weeks with the fires on Tunerville and across the canal, working with the Mason Fire District and the regional outreach from the I'm sure I'm messing up some of the acronyms. But I said, you give me a tornado. I am.
I'm your girl. I know all the policies and procedures. I'm still learning some of the acronyms around, you know, natural resources and the fire department.
But boy, everybody just came together. And, you know, we housed them at Hawkins Middle School. And we were so thankful that they came and helped us, us being the greater community, but also that we could do something in return for them as well.
So obviously, those connected relationships between county commissioners, sheriff, again, like you said, we're not incorporated. So that partnership with the sheriff and these safety organizations will be huge to continue to make sure that they're nurtured and encouraged. That North Mason Regional Fire Authority with Bo as the chief and Abe Gardner is a huge resource that does a lot of outreach in their kind of now combined campus with the sheriff's office up there.
Just up past the hub is a wonderful facility. And another advocate for education and learning is Commissioner Netherland, who's this commissioner district here. He's a wonderful asset when it comes to talking about those kinds of things.
So as you go out, and you kind of mentioned a couple of the things that folks who may not have been in education or in a classroom in a long time, would see different would see as a new thing like the CTE career and technical education. But also there's a lot of new health and wellness, I guess. Socio emotional learning, like those are those are terms that some of the older population of Mason County may not really be familiar with if they're now they're a few, you know, kids, grandkids, I guess, generations removed from being in the classroom.
So when you're out in advocating for the schools, how do you or how do you plan to like, you know, explain that these are core, core parts of the education world now? Yeah. So I mean, really, schools have become such a hub of of the community. Not that it takes away from what parents responsibilities that are at all, like, but we are partners.
But whether it's, you know, trying to ensure that students have good, strong character, just like when I was growing up, you know, there were expectations around behavior and things that my teachers taught me that would help me be a better adult. But it's essential that we are looking at the child as a whole, because reading, writing, math, science, those basics are essential, but they're not the heartbeat of every single child. We also have children whose, you know, hearts are in minds around arts and sciences and music, and we need to nurture the whole part of the child, and really try to teach them to be resilient learners.
So they can navigate really every single unknown situation they might encounter, or at least have some skills to be able to navigate those because, man, things are changing fast. If you'd ever told me, you know, four years ago, that artificial intelligence would be, you know, part of everybody's, not everybody's, a lot of people's daily lives. I wouldn't have believed it.
But I've, I've watched it, you know, put industries out of business and teachers try to navigate like the, how does that work in their classroom? How can they use it for their own productivity, but also how can they use it in a way that's positive and productive for students as well? Without being kind of, I guess, knee jerk reactions to these disruptions like AI, how do you be on the forefront of teaching these skills to be in kind of collaboration with the traditional learning, you know, without going full bore into the AI is the future, and we're not going to look at anything else to kind of make melding everything together. Yeah, I think it's kind of like when they started having only online textbooks several, I don't know, probably a decade ago or so at this point. And it's important to know what the resources are.
And I think most teachers tend to be very, very creative people. And they figure out ways to incorporate, whether it's something that is a technological change, like online textbook, or being able to write on a PDF. It used to be just about like, how do you log on to the internet? And how do you, you know, get to the right website that's not full of fake information? And it has certainly become much more.
But I think that the majority of teachers are paying attention to student interests and looking for natural opportunities to expand their repertoire when it comes to teaching and keeping students engaged. And, you know, whether we like it or not, there is certainly some engagement that comes with the use of technology that sometimes can be, you know, the hook between a student really being excited about the material and maybe, you know, trying hard not to take a nap. How do you work on and, and advocate or talk about like cell phone policies, social media use, cyber bullying, kind of those types of things? Where are you at on those? Yeah.
I read a really powerful book last year called The Anxious Generation, which is really about how the use of cell phones really kind of rewired some of our teenagers brains. And it really went back to the beginning of when cell phones became something that were in not just everybody's pocket, but then all of a sudden it was high schoolers and middle schoolers and elementary schoolers. And part of the premise was just the unfettered access to information and adults out there in the world that we give to our students with when we give them a cell phone that is internet enabled is unlike anything else we do.
And just the dichotomy between, like I was told, like you go outside and you play and you don't come back in until we either blow the whistle or the streetlights come on. And now, you know, with Stranger Danger and some of those other things that we're aware of, we tend to be much more protective physically of where our students are located, but yet almost all students have access to, you know, a cell phone where they can access all kinds of things that probably would shock the majority of us. So I think that in terms of navigating it, and I'm trying to think exactly because I kind of started talking about my book.
Do you mind telling me your initial question again? No, it was just like, how does, how does that? How do you? Oh, cell phone policy? Yeah, cell phone policy. How do you talk to the teachers about advocating for, you know, you know, not texting and cyber bullying? And again, that unfettered access really where people can push a button, and all of a sudden, the whole school has something that could be really emotionally damaging to a student for things. Yeah, I think that it's interesting, because I'm learning kind of the take from Washington.
So a year ago, Ohio passed a ban on cell phones in schools, K-12. And it was supposed to be really just during instructional time. And apparently, the governor didn't think it was strong enough, because they just instituted like a full cell phone ban for students during the instructional day from bell to bell, which is, I think, challenging.
I think it's like when technology first showed up, you know, you could try to keep kids off the computer, or you could try to teach them responsible use. I think that the things that it's actually hard on families, quite honestly, like they're the ones that tend to be most nervous about their child not having a cell phone. But if you look at some of the studies where you sit next to a child in class and see how many notifications they might get in a 50 minute period, like, it can be hundreds.
Yeah. And most of us are so used to just in instant interaction with anybody. And so, you know, when my children were teenagers, I had to really remember to say to myself, do not text Simon and tell him, don't forget your basketball bag, because he's in class, you're gonna have to just count on him to be responsible.
Yeah. But I think that cyber bullying is so hard, because the majority of it happens outside of the school day with social media apps. And trying to stay on top of the different apps and the different ways that students can be horrible to each other is really challenging.
But we need to find a hit a balance where we're educating them about the harm that they're doing to each other in a way that really helps them become better decision makers of not doing those kind of behaviors. And you want to teach you want to you you're you want to teach that stuff early in their educational career, but not so early that then they start asking for those devices, right, you know, early on, but it's kind of really, as soon as one, one kid in the group has one, yes, really hard, it is really hard the rest of the kids from saying, well, you know, little Johnny, my buddy, Johnny's got his phone or a watch that's enabled. And how come I can't have one and without the parents really understanding kind of the brain development and what it means to get those notifications and the dopamine hits that the scientists all kind of relate to those types of notifications.
It's a fine line. Yeah, it really is. And I think that it can be really challenging to help.
Because as adults, like I think that, especially older adults, while they might be on Facebook, and they might be on some of these other social media sites, just the frequency that new social media things are popping up all the time and things that used to be just like a video game, like, oh, you're playing Mario Kart, there wasn't a social aspect to it, where you are talking on headphones to people, God knows. Oh, now all over everybody. Yeah, everybody.
But it's, it's really, it's really challenging to also help families understand what that constant interruption to their attention does, like you said, for the brain development in a way that still allows families to feel like they have a safe connection to their children, but not in a way that's disrupting their learning experience. You know, a lot of it, I'm thinking about this, it's a lot about like what we were just talking about, where if somebody hasn't been in school for a long time, you know, they think school is your, you sit at the desk, and everybody, you know, sits alphabetically, and they're face front, and the teacher talks at the kids versus with the kids to what it is now. And it's the same as if you were thinking about getting on, you know, CompuServe or America Online early on in the internet days, versus how rapidly it's changed and the access and availability.
That's amazing. Did you have any salmon or geoduck at Allen Days? We did have salmon. We were I didn't have geoduck.
You were there for Saturday. Oh my gosh, it was great. Oh, yeah, it was amazing.
Like, I love oysters. And I love most seafood. Sometimes in Ohio, you don't necessarily want to get the salmon.
Yeah, but it's a different story out here for sure. Anywhere you look, you can get great seafood here. Well, I am so happy to have met you and talk with you.
And I look forward to more conversations throughout the school year. So whenever you have things you want to share with the community, I'm happy to come on up and have a chat. And yeah, welcome in this.
Thank you. You're here at a great time. And again, you'll find so many people are so invested.
You know, everybody has kind of a different everybody has a different way to get there. But everybody wants the best for Mason County. Absolutely.
And for the kids. And so being able to listen to all those different ideas and kind of figure out which ones work or which ones can be combined. People are more than willing to help too.
Okay, great. Well, I'm excited to just meet more people and listen to the things that, you know, they're proud of and look for those opportunities that might be able to make improvements. But I'm going to try something different, called Soup with the Soup.
Okay, and I'll invite you to one of those where, you know, quarterly, we'll just have some soup and open it up to like an open forum. Come on in. And let's just talk about whatever your questions are, or get to know me and I can tell you a couple good things about the school and, you know, we'll give you some soup and maybe some good sourdough.
The you know, that's one thing too, that I think a lot of people have a hard time fully understanding is, you know, if you watch the school board meetings here in North Mason or in Shelton or anywhere, really, you know, people come up and they speak their piece for a few minutes, and they don't necessarily quite realize that you can't have a back and forth. I mean, it's a public meeting, and there's laws against that stuff to have those open dialogues. You know, the first couple might be rough, because everybody's been waiting around to talk.
But yeah, after a while, everybody kind of realizes, well, things are moving forward really well. And this is a good opportunity. So that's a great idea.
Yeah, that's really cool. Will that be here at the school? I think so. I think we're probably going to try to figure out how to do it at the high school, if we can figure out a way to do it.
If not, I'll probably be reaching out to the hub to see if I can partner with them. Or maybe one of the local restaurants. Yeah, just because it, I think we use our facilities at the high school so frequently, it would be hard to do it there and not disrupt everyday things.
But I'm pretty sure I can find a partner that would be willing to host us. Oh, yeah, yeah. The hub would be a great spot for that, too.
And you get somebody like, I don't know, wild and woodsy or something to come up and have cater the soup or something like that. Yes, they did cater the luncheon I went to last week. And wow, good food.
Holy cow, that was amazing. Food is something that people take a lot of pride in. Yeah.
And it's always delicious. That's great. Yeah.
Dr. Christine Michael here, new superintendent for the North Mason School District. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thank you so much for coming and talking to us here at North Mason.
And I look forward to getting to know you better and getting to know North Mason even better. That's great. Thank you.
Yep. Thank you.