KERNELS OF EFFECT: NKSF GOES BACK TO SCHOOL

Sep 4

3 min read

NKSF Building Outreach Committee members, led by board member Adam Bishop, are visiting North Kitsap schools this year to hear what teachers and parents need most.

Matt Consolini, smiling in plaid shirt stands at a table with NKSF flyers, beside snack boxes and volunteers.

A new NKSF committee wants to meet you where you already are — in the schools we’re working to improve.

For over two decades, NKSF has noticed the same pattern play out again and again. Whenever a board member is also active inside a particular school, coaching a team, volunteering or teaching in a classroom, or serving on a parent-teacher organization, that school shows up on our radar more. More conversations. More engagement. More grant requests. The Building Outreach Committee, formed this August and led by newest board member Adam Bishop, exists to make that pattern intentional: NKSF presence in more schools, more often, not just the ones a current board member happens to frequent.

Without that kind of presence, NKSF is mostly guessing. Our listening has been somewhat indirect: the grant applications teachers submit, disconnected conversations, the occasional email, filtered through whichever teachers scrounged up the time to communicate with us. The committee closes that gap with direct, ongoing contact. That means talking with the teachers, staff, and parents who know our schools best.

Stefan Keel holds a Hilder Pearson Elementary School tote outdoors beside bushes and trees.

Led by someone who's already there.

Adam joined the NKSF board just before summer break and is the perfect engine for this initiative because he's already embedded in the constituency the committee is trying to reach. He coaches cross country at Kingston High School, substitute teaches throughout the North Kitsap School District, and serves on the PTA board at Vinland Elementary, where he's also a parent of two students. He's joined on the committee by Kathy Prasch, a retired educator and NKHS principal; Stasie Pike of Evergreen Home Loans; and NKSF board president Stefan Keel.

While those few are focused on the building outreach initiative, all of our board members are in our schools and in our community and are always ready to chat about how to strengthen education. Get to know us so that we can get to know you.

What the committee is listening for.

The committee's initial goals are to build relationships, gather information, and inform parents, teachers, and staff about NKSF. Over the coming months, members will be developing connections with people passionate about pushing North Kitsap education beyond the basics, and learning what's actually missing at the classroom level, things like:

What's coming up short that would help a classroom get beyond the basics: additional materials, books, equipment, or technology.
Programs or projects working elsewhere in the district that could expand into other schools.
What’s gone defunct, or never existed, that the schools want to see brought back or built for the first time.

At the same time, committee members will share NKSF’s work with that same audience, making sure the people closest to the classroom know what the Foundation is doing to support them.

Two women smile at a school booth with a large WOLFLE ELEMENTARY PTO banner and flyers on the table with back to school packets.

What we hope this grows into.

Listening well is only the beginning of what's possible here. Down the road, we're hoping this committee helps build a district-wide network of people willing to show up for any North Kitsap school: tutoring a struggling reader, staffing a carnival booth, handing out popcorn or helping monitor kids during recess and in the cafeterias, moving chairs before an assembly, whatever a school needs that week. If you've ever wanted to help out but weren't sure how or where, that's exactly the door we're opening.

We also want to help bolster the PT(S)A/O (Parent-Teacher (Student) Association/Organization) groups already doing this work, and help rebuild one where a school has lost theirs by strengthening connections with parents and teachers.

North Kitsap's schools get stronger when the whole community decides to show up for them, not just the people already inside the building. As a district-wide connector, NKSF wants to help NKSD schools bridge not just the funding gap, but the one between the buildings, too. Because schools aren’t something that happens to a community — they’re something a community builds together.

How to find us.

Several North Kitsap Schools Foundation magnetic fastener packages with name labels on a brown tabletop.

This work is designed to happen in person as much as possible. You’ll see us at your school wearing name badges with the Foundation's logo. If you miss us, you can email us at contact@nkschoolsfoundation.org and always learn more at nkschoolsfoundation.org. But the bigger plan is to show up where teachers, staff, and parents already are: attending community-oriented events in schools and connecting directly with parents and parent groups at their meetings and events.

If you're a teacher, staff member, or parent in an NKSD school and one of these names or badges shows up at your next school event or PT(S)A/O meeting, we’d love to chat. Say “Hi.” Tell us your story. Ask us questions. That conversation is what this committee was built for.