SOUTH WHIDBEY: Candidates differ over school board priorities in hot race

Kira Erickson reports on elections for the South Whidbey Record. Read the whole story.

In her quest for re-election, an incumbent on the South Whidbey School Board faces a challenger with contrasting ideas about what’s best for the school district.

Clinton resident Ann Johnson, first appointed in 2020 and then elected in 2021, is seeking her second term on the school board. Her opponent Gwendy Gabelein of Freeland is running for election for the first time to represent District 5, an at-large position.

The two candidates for Position 5 share a background in education, both having previously worked as substitute teachers in the South Whidbey School District. Gabelein is currently a substance use counselor for Sea Mar Behavioral Health, while Johnson has been a Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist Trainer in her previous role with Readiness to Learn.

They Said It

They are also heavily involved in the South Whidbey community, with Johnson serving as the executive director for the Whidbey Children’s Theatre and as a past board member for the South Whidbey Parks and Aquatics Foundation and the Langley Arts Commission. Gabelein is active in roles with the Fairgrounds Advisory Committee, South Whidbey Wellness Coalition and the Autism Partnership of Island County.

However, this appears to be where the similarities between the two end.

Gabelein is straightforward in her criticism of the school board, which she said she has been attending meetings for the past nine years. A common concern she has heard from parents is that they don’t feel heard or that their questions have been answered. During a series of community town hall meetings where these issues were discussed, she volunteered herself as a candidate for the board.

“Unfortunately, the majority of the people don’t want to get involved in the circus,” Gabelein said. “That’s typically how it’s described. And I completely understand.”

She takes umbrage with what she perceives to be a lack of balance on the board, which often makes unanimous decisions with no disagreement. While it’s great that they’re supportive of one another, she said, different viewpoints and tough conversations are also needed.

In the past, she has applied for vacancies on the board, including the time when Johnson was appointed.

Johnson, on the other hand, is supportive of the direction the school board is going in. She’s proud of the board’s work over the past five years, notably its consistent growth in learning and modeling diversity, equity and inclusion practices alongside school administrators and staff.

“I think that we discuss things as we need to,” she said of the board. “I think we are getting better and better, always, at recognizing how to bring community into our conversations and how to look at that information in a clear and healthy way.”

Gabelein has been unsatisfied with the way the school district has handled the matter of gender-neutral restrooms, which will be added to the middle and high school as part of new construction funded by the bond.

Floor-to-ceiling stalls and open handwashing stations are features of the new restrooms, and there will be gender-specific and gender-neutral options for students to use. Plans of the restrooms submitted to the county for permitting do not yet include labels of male, female and all-gender, however.

Though the concept supposedly received community input, Gabelein does not recall it ever coming up at the school board meetings and as a result said many parents were shocked to learn about it. She believes gender-neutral restrooms, which others have pointed out can be found in some restaurants and airports, are for adults and not appropriate for kids in grades 6-12 who are coming into their own sexuality and puberty.

She also questioned why the school district hasn’t put up any details online, and said that in the absence of information, people go looking for it by making their own public records requests.

“Wherever people land on this transgender conversation, they weren’t really transparent,” she said. “Transparency is not a strong suit for our district.”

In her campaign, Johnson emphasized the need for students to feel safe in their learning environments. Johnson said she has observed that a small minority of community members feel either uncomfortable or opposed to letting kids identify how they want.

“That is a place where I just refuse to give any inches, because from a humanist perspective, civil rights and human rights go together,” she said. “And so when a few people in our community bring their politics and their language into school conversations, not only is it not fair, but it is inappropriate because my position is not partisan. It’s also damaging to the kids and families who are hearing that.”

Johnson has been supportive of the $80 million bond that passed with over a 60% supermajority in 2023 and the hiring of a new superintendent, Becky Clifford, earlier this year. She said Gabelein has been critical of both things.

“What I have recognized in my opponent is that there’s often pushback around things that can help our whole community,” Johnson said.

Gabelein said she voted against the bond because she found the amount to be excessive and there was a lack of accountability in how maintenance was managed. She admires the partnership the Oak Harbor School District formed with Sen. Ron Muzzall to secure financial support – though matching funds from the Navy likely helped the state grant go through.

Gabelein claims the majority of people involved in the new superintendent search were supportive of another candidate who was ultimately not chosen, according to a public records request that has not been reviewed by The Record by press time.

Johnson said of her opponent, “She had some really great questions during our hiring of the superintendent but again also had some negative things to say and was critical of the choice that we made, rather than embracing and moving forward and offering to help bring Dr. Clifford on board.”

Meanwhile, Gabelein is critical of Johnson’s praise of the school district’s improvement in academic test scores when she finds them to be not high enough.

According to the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s report card for the 2024-2025 school year, South Whidbey School District kids scored 74% in English language arts, 67.6% in math and 72.4% in science in an assessment of foundational grade-level knowledge. But in an assessment of consistent grade-level knowledge, students scored 49.6% in English language arts, 40.3% in math and 53.8% in science.

In a previous election story from her 2021 run, Johnson acknowledged that test scores are “quantitative only” and don’t show what’s going on in the classroom every day. She’s passionate about arts programs and other extracurriculars that give kids the opportunity to be creative and find joy in movement.

“Those things are what also help wire the brain, just like math and English and science,” she said.

Ultimately, the two candidates represent two drastically different perspectives, with one in favor of sustaining the board’s progress and the other in making big changes to its operations.

“Academics, fiscal responsibility, community voice, those are the things we need so we are a healthy district so we can support our kiddos, our staff and our community,” Gabelein said. “And there’s a lot of behaviors in there that are leading our district in the wrong direction.”

When she was appointed, Johnson knew it would be a big job but she didn’t recognize how much she didn’t know in the beginning. She feels her ability to learn and grow in the role offers her expertise and experience that her opponent doesn’t have.

“Currently I think that our board and our school district are quite healthy, considering the fact that we are currently under threat of federal monies going away and that our state model for education doesn’t serve our students as it should,” Johnson said.

On the Ballot in November 2025