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closeJohn Earl set to fill school board vacancy
Running unopposed, candidate is familiar with school district
Nate Hulings
of the Gateway
John Earl is running unopposed for the Peninsula School District board of directors seat which will be vacated by retiring Director Jill Johnson.
Earl’s background with the district includes working on the levy campaign last winter and being the assistant wrestling coach at Gig Harbor High School.
Earl said his work on the levy showed him how committed the district is when it comes to fiscal responsibility.
“I was really pleased with how (Superintendent) Terry Bouck and the school board put that together,” Earl said. “That was just smart on their part.”
Earl said filling the shoes of Johnson will be tough.
“She was wonderfully involved with all the schools and programs,” Earl said.
Earl said the district is at a point where it must be inflective and take an honest look at its priorities — something he said it’s been doing quite well.
“We love to expand and grow offerings,” Earl said. “But we’re going to have to make tradeoffs, and I’m not looking forward to that part of the job.”
Other areas that interest Earl include increasing student participation within the community and benchmarking achievement.
“Schools are all about community,” he said. “We want to make sure students are in the school system long enough to become real productive citizens and members of the community.”
Earl believes the district should focus on methods to evaluate student and district achievement. However, not much needs to be changed with the current way the district handles itself, he said.
“I don’t look at the Peninsula School District and say, ‘This is something that’s broken,’ ” he said. “I think we have a really strong management team in place now; they are doing a real good job at running the system with the assets available to them now.”
Earl is in the software encryption business and is the current president/CEO of Patrick Townsend Security Solutions in Olympia. He has lived in the Gig Harbor area since 1995, and he and his wife Kathy have been married for 21 years.
Earl has four children and five grandchildren; all of his grandchildren have gone to school in the PSD.
Earl enjoys high school wrestling, both officiating and coaching. Another hobby he recently began is goat farming.
“Goats are way more fun than I expected,” he said.