If elected Superintendent of Public Instruction this November, David Olson may influence the lives of each school-aged baby within the state of Washington and command practically half the state price range. Although he earned the Washington State GOP’s endorsement, the retired Navy diver and welder isn’t well-known exterior Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula, the place he’s served on the native college board for practically 11 years.
He definitely wasn’t a high contender within the race, the place his challengers out-fundraised him a number of occasions over. Earlier than the first election, a match-up between incumbent Superintendent Chris Reykdal and average liberal Reid Saaris appeared way more possible. However Saaris faltered, incomes simply 23 p.c of the vote. He completed third behind Olson (who earned 31 p.c) and Reykdal (who earned 39 p.c), making a basic election race between a conservative and a progressive.
However the director of the Workplace of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is nonpartisan, so voters received’t see both candidate’s political desire or celebration on the poll, and they won’t know what a conservative stink bomb Olson may very well be for the state’s faculties.
To tick off a number of of these bombs: Native dad and mom mentioned Olson is cozy together with his native chapter of Mothers for Liberty, a far-right dad and mom group that opposes inclusive insurance policies and classes on race, gender, and sexuality at school; he helped the Peninsula Faculty District push away essential race principle and Range, Fairness, and Inclusion (DEI) coaching after which bragged about it whereas dad and mom and college students complained of racism and discrimination in his district; and he mentioned that America can be “saved” if each four-year college went bankrupt in order that college students entered the trades as a substitute. A critic of what he sees as administrative overreach from the state, Olson mentioned he would restore management to native college districts on “day one,” however he informed a conservative podcaster he’d defund any college that allowed its college students to protest the struggle in Gaza, which he conflated with supporting Hamas.
Olson didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Marginalized Youngsters Have a Lot to Lose
The Superintendent of Public Instruction leads the workplace liable for overseeing public training in Washington. The company allocates funding to each college within the state, greasing the wheels that educate multiple million college students annually. The Superintendent additionally has statutory authority over what youngsters study and once they study it. The Legislature can all the time step in to handle any adjustments, however they would wish a complete session to implement much less complete statutes.
Olson’s perceived indifference to district issues with racism and homophobia apprehensive greater than a dozen college students, dad and mom, group members, and former academics who spoke to The Stranger. If his actions on the state degree mirror these of their group, they mentioned marginalized youngsters in Washington have rather a lot to lose.
Kate Bitz, a coach and organizer with the civil rights and anti-bigotry group Western States Methods, mentioned Olson presents himself as an inexpensive politician, however his feedback on college coverage and his relationships with Mothers for Liberty have left households questioning his “dedication to serving his entire group.”
“Particularly once we see college students talking out about their experiences, that clearly reveals that Olson’s makes an attempt to chop down complicated conversations about race and gender are usually not serving to the surroundings within the faculties,” Bitz mentioned. “It might even be resulting in elevated hurt for marginalized youngsters.”
Standing on the Washington State Republican Conference in Spokane this April, Olson recalled the “large, proud” second his college board banned “essential race principle,” DEI coaching, and all these “horrible, socially divisive applications that inform our kids to be divisive and that they’re oppressive and victims.”
His assertion refers to a vote in 2021, when then-President Olson and the Peninsula Faculty District board unanimously adopted a decision to proceed not educating essential race principle, or CRT, in response to a Washington invoice that didn’t compel them to show it. From public statements, it’s clear that Olson buys the right-wing line that essential race principle—a graduate-level principle of systemic racism that emerged from authorized circles within the Nineteen Seventies—is a pernicious try to seed white guilt within the minds of America’s Okay-12 college kids.
Karin Ashabraner, a retired college instructor and former president of the Peninsula Schooling Affiliation instructor’s union, mentioned Olson leaned conservative throughout his first race in 2013, which prompted her to withdraw a private endorsement for his candidacy, and that the pandemic had pushed him farther to the correct. Earlier than setting his sights on essential race principle, Olson opposed the state’s masks mandate and supported an early return to highschool. “He’s positively going farther down the correct than perhaps anyone ought to,” Ashabraner mentioned.
The week earlier than that vote on a decision making clear the district didn’t and wouldn’t train CRT, Olson had taken warmth from conservative dad and mom in a college selection group for defending the significance of the fairness and inclusion applications that he now denigrates on the marketing campaign path. On the time, the district informed the Tacoma Information Tribune that any fears of the decision hampering range and inclusion efforts had been overblown, and that it could not have an effect on the work of a 50-member Fairness, Range, and Inclusion Committee. However three former members of that committee informed The Stranger that the district restructured the committee and eliminated them with out warning.
Connie FitzPatrick, the Democrat who challenged Republican State Home Rep. Jesse Younger within the twenty sixth Legislative District in 2018, served on the committee and seethed when Olson talked about banning DEI throughout his conference speech. A frontrunner within the native chapter of Indivisible, a progressive motion group, FitzPatrick has been encouraging folks in her group to attend college board conferences and watch Olson extra intently. “It’s time that we have to all arise and say that we deserve higher. This isn’t okay,” she mentioned.
Homophobic and Racist Bullying
Quite a lot of group members have already been watching. Within the final 12 months, dad and mom and college students have persistently complained to the board about homophobic and racist bullying. Listed below are a number of complaints Olson has heard:
- In January, James McCourt of Gig Harbor Excessive Faculty’s Black Scholar Union, testified at a board assembly that Black college students, who made up lower than one p.c of the scholar physique, had been handled otherwise as a result of they had been Black. He mentioned some folks known as Black college students slurs and informed offensive jokes to their faces. McCourt mentioned the district ought to train college students about racism in “age-appropriate methods” to handle the issue, and if the board wasn’t keen to decide to any curriculum change, then it ought to at the very least herald Black audio system to speak to college students about race.
- In February of this 12 months, Justin Vautrin testified that his elementary-aged daughter was disciplined for telling a classmate she’d kissed one other lady. He mentioned the scholar she informed later punched and threatened to kill her. In line with recordsdata reviewed by the Tacoma Information Tribune, the district opened a number of investigations, all of which concluded that she hadn’t technically been harassed, intimidated, or bullied beneath district coverage, and the varsity had taken motion by itself, a place the board maintained in a letter to Vautrin.
- In April, Camri Clawson, a junior at Peninsula Excessive Faculty this fall, informed the board she heard folks use n-word and slurs for homosexual folks each day at college.
Two incidents of racist bullying within the district in 2023 made native information. That January, the district known as in a third-party investigator after college students reported {that a} participant on the Gig Harbor Excessive Faculty lady’s basketball workforce known as a participant on the Peninsula Excessive Faculty workforce the n-word. Some college students informed the investigator they heard the slur, others didn’t. The report was inconclusive, and nobody was disciplined. In December of final 12 months, middle-schoolers in Gig Harbor pushed and punched a 12-year-old Asian pupil on the bus. The boy mentioned his bullies informed him it “should suck to be Asian,” however Kopachuck Center Faculty informed his mom, April Nelick, they might not corroborate his assertion. Nelick informed KIRO 7 that officers stopped answering her emails after some preliminary back-and-forth.
Aria Messer started attending conferences final fall after her eighth-grade son was bullied for popping out as bisexual. She felt queer youngsters went unheard, and the district mantra of inspiring and empowering “each baby, each day” was “baloney, at the very least from sitting board members.”
“By no means as soon as have I heard David Olson say something to acknowledge the issues which can be taking place, or to ask for clarification, to hunt reparation,” Messer mentioned. “There’s been no motion aside from apathy and ignorance to something that’s been delivered to his consideration.”
In June, Messer’s son, Ryan Jr., testified at a board assembly that he deliberate to not attend Gig Harbor Excessive Faculty the following 12 months out of “real worry” for a way others would deal with him there. He requested the board, “Are you keen to acknowledge that somebody is so afraid of discrimination they’re keen to go to a different college simply to be away from hate speech and bigotry?”
Possibly not. At an April board assembly, after employees offered a survey that discovered a “discouraging” lack of belonging at Peninsula Excessive Faculty, Olson steered that the low numbers he’s seen through the years could also be defined by overly broad questions, college students intentionally mendacity to “screw with the survey,” or that “automobile accidents” or arguments with their dad and mom could have swayed their solutions. He requested two pupil representatives on the assembly in the event that they’d answered “100% truthful.”
“Possibly they dread lunch, or no matter,” he mentioned. “Does that make up for the entire reply?”
Over the telephone, Peninsula highschool junior Clawson mentioned Olson has “blatantly” disregarded her issues and the issues of others who’ve testified. “He clearly reveals no concern for college students,” she mentioned. “I’ve taken subject with the way in which David Olson would heart his apparent political bias and opinions over listening with curiosity to the phrases of scholars.”
The Dangerous Guys
Annoyed dad and mom like Messer mentioned Olson caters to not them however to conservatives just like the Mothers for Liberty members who attend college board conferences. A number of group members confirmed that Olson has talked to these members earlier than and after conferences.
Final 12 months, the Southern Poverty Regulation Middle labeled Mothers for Liberty as an extremist group. In a current interview with the Middle Sq., a conservative publication, Olson mentioned dad and mom involved about trans-inclusive insurance policies round pronouns and sports activities participation may be a part of their native chapter. Pierce County Mothers for Liberty Chair Sarah Garriott and Vice Chair Marc Nance didn’t reply to requests for interviews. Since November of 2022, shortly after Garriott was appointed chair, she has spoken throughout public remark at the very least 11 occasions, railing in opposition to authorities overreach, racial justice teachings in faculties, and the state’s intercourse complete training coverage. In a gathering final August, she unfold falsehoods about transgender kids.
“Asking a growing baby for his or her pronouns who doesn’t supply them isn’t exhibiting respect–it’s introducing confusion,” she mentioned. “It is step one that may finally result in sterilization and physique mutilation.”
In Might, Olson additionally attended an “Unequivocal Fact” seminar, mentioned one attendee, who shared a photograph of Olson on the occasion. Introduced by One Washington and the Management Institute, a corporation that trains conservative activists, the speak featured the swimmer Riley Gaines, a distinguished activist who opposes transgender ladies competing in ladies’s sports activities, and Mothers for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice. Olson has come out in opposition to trans college students enjoying on groups that align with their gender identities, a long-standing coverage in Washington state supported by the OSPI.
Final month, the anti-gay Puyallup pastor Dennis Cummins, who has superior the groomer conspiracy principle that queer individuals are recruiting kids, interviewed Olson in regards to the OSPI race for his YouTube channel, ExperienceChurch.television. In a single sermon, Cummins framed politics as a non secular struggle in opposition to “manipulators” and “false prophets,” like former Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments Director Anthony Fauci and “state leaders” in Washington. Cummins mentioned these leaders knew “the rainbow faith isn’t actual” and used gender-affirming look after minors, which he known as baby mutilation, to achieve energy and management.
Satirically, if anybody within the Peninsula Faculty District wanted DEI coaching, Olson would rely as a primary candidate. Final 12 months, he approached a former Gig Harbor Excessive Faculty pupil who was operating a sales space at a Native training occasion at Swift Water Elementary. The scholar, who requested anonymity, mentioned Olson requested him what tribe he was part of. When he mentioned he was Apache, Olson replied, “Oh, these are the unhealthy guys.” After an ungainly silence, he added, “… Within the films. Within the films, I imply.”
The dialog continued. “Do you guys ever put on the …” Olson paused, trying to find the correct phrase, “… I’m not going to say costumes. Regalia?” The scholar mentioned Olson then regarded round, as if trying to find a response, and mentioned, “See, I didn’t say costumes.” One other pupil, standing with him on the sales space, confirmed the story.
After Olson left, the scholar mentioned all he may do was snigger on the bluntness of Olson’s “clueless” feedback, however he skilled actual frustration throughout his years at Gig Harbor Excessive Faculty. He mentioned it felt like college students needed to “scream” at a defensive administration to get something carried out.
“[Olson’s] not somebody that needs to be in any workplace,” the scholar mentioned. “I don’t need somebody to be in cost who struggles to even perceive college students in his personal district. I don’t need him answerable for all people if he can’t even have constructive conversations together with his personal college students … It could really feel like a step backwards.”
How Shut Are We to Taking a Step Backwards?
Most likely not that shut.
Seattle-based political marketing consultant Ben Anderstone mentioned the August major outcomes already present folks voting alongside ideological strains.
In probably the most Democratic precincts within the state, Olson earned lower than 10 p.c of the vote, however he earned 57 p.c of the vote in Republican-leaning precincts. Whereas Saaris gained help from rich voters and whereas Reykdal carried out higher with youthful renters, their help got here overwhelmingly from Democrats in blue areas. Anderstone mentioned Olson would wish to scoop up at the very least half of Saaris’s solidly Democratic, college-educated voters. Along with his socially conservative observe file, Olson finally has the “quick facet of the tradition struggle stick in Washington state.”
“Possibly they’re actually mad at Reykdal as an incumbent, however they might actually should be voting in opposition to their conventional ideological sort to present Olson what he must win,” he mentioned.
Reykdal mentioned that he takes any opponent critically, and that there’s probability that Republicans will put extra power behind a state race the place their candidate can disguise behind a nonpartisan label.
In a down-ballot statewide race, he mentioned onerous money isn’t the deciding issue (he has outraised Olson three to 1), and that they’re working to teach voters on Olson’s values.
“Who assaults Range, Fairness and Inclusion, who’s honest round fairness?” he mentioned, including that Olson’s statements on bankrupting universities was “extremist speak.”
Shasti Conrad, chair of the Washington State Democrats, mentioned in an announcement that the celebration was taking the OPSI election critically and dealing to prove the vote for Reykdal. They plan to shine a highlight on Olson’s “abysmal file” of pandemic protections for college students and his plans to intestine public faculties on the expense of charters.
“Chris Reykdal has led OSPI with nice success and we can not change captains mid-stream,” she mentioned. “Reykdal has earned one other time period and we’re excited to help him.”
