The Vashon Island School District will seek applicants for an open position on the school board, after the resignation of board member Allison Krutsinger, announced at a school board meeting on Feb. 15.

Krutsinger, elected in 2021, served as the board’s vice president in 2022 and its president in 2023. Her four-year term in office as a board member would have ended in November of 2025.

Krutsinger brought relevant experience to her board role, both personally as the parent of a child in the district, and professionally, through her work as the director of public affairs for Washington’s Department of Children, Youth and Families.

In 2023, Krutsinger served on a 14-member workgroup, facilitated by the DOVE Project, formed in the wake of the resignations of two Vashon High School (VHS) teachers, Kara Sears and John Rees, who had been investigated by the district following accusations that they had groomed VHS students for romantic relationships that took place in the summer following the students’ graduations.

The workgroup — comprised of board members, district educators and administrators, students, and representatives of labor groups employed by the school district — has been tasked with developing action steps systems to ensure accountability, transparency and student safety system-wide in the district.

In January, the district announced some results of its ongoing partnership with the DOVE Project: the revision and update of board procedures regarding maintaining staff/student professional boundaries; more comprehensive training initiatives for staff, enhanced administrative supervision of teachers, and the decision to implement a new reporting channel, Stopit, to better ensure confidentiality and ease of use.

In Krutsinger’s resignation letter, read aloud by Superintendent Slade McSheehy at the board’s Feb. 15 meeting, Krutsinger said that she had enjoyed her service on the board, but cited a lack of bandwidth, for both personal and professional reasons, in her decision to resign.

“Unfortunately … I’ve come to the realization that I cannot do it all,” she wrote, “I’m stretched too thin to be effective.”

McSheehy and current board chair Lucia Armenta thanked Krutsinger for her service to the board, saying she would be missed, and Armenta urged islanders to consider applying to be appointed to her vacant seat.

The board will now have 90 days to appoint a new member, McSheey said, adding that the district will soon communicate how islanders can apply to be considered for the vacant seat. Following district policy, the board will then publicly interview selected applicants; a vote of at least three board members is required to appoint a new member.

Should the board fail to fill the board seat within 90 days, the vacancy will be filled with a person appointed by the Puget Sound Educational Service District, McSheehy said.

December of 2024 marked the first time since September of 2021 that all five school board members had been duly elected to the board — a brief period now ending with Krutsinger’s resignation.

Last year, a lively race for four open seats on the board drew nine candidates to compete in a primary to fill four open seats. Only one of the candidates ran unopposed — Armenta, who had been appointed to the board in January of 2023 to fill a spot vacated by Kali Aguilera, who had moved off-island. Aguilera, in turn, had also been appointed to her seat, after Bob Hennessey resigned from the board in 2021.

Former board member Mariel Thurasingham, who was also appointed to fill a seat left open after the election of 2021, opted not to become a candidate in the 2023 election for her seat.

In addition to Armenta, Juniper Rogneby, Kaycie Alanis and Martha Woodard were elected to the board in November, joining Krutsinger, whose term of office was not up until 2025.

To find out more about the application process to fill Krutsinger’s school board seat, visit vashonsd.org.