Jim Adsley resigns from School Board after 9 years

Published 10:00 am Saturday, December 30, 2006

After serving nine years on the South Whidbey Board of Education, veteran director Jim Adsley resigned earlier this month.

Adsley, who resigned for personal reasons, ran unopposed for the seat in 1997.

“Serving on the school board was a major time commitment,” Adsley said.

“It’s time to take care of some personal projects and to help my Mom.”

He said he will be taking care of his 94-year-old mother and attending to personal business ventures that have been pushed to the back burner during his tenure.

Although he has resigned, Adsley says he will keep his hand in helping to shape the future of South Whidbey schools.

“I may not attend the monthly school board meetings, but I plan to visit the schools and continue to support co-curricular activities,” he said.

Adsley will also continue coaching a girls fast pitch team in the spring.

“I will continue to support the staff and students anyway I can,” Adsley said.

Over the past nine years, he has seen both turmoil and growth during his tenure with the district. He said he believes the district is in a good place now under the leadership of Superintendent Fred McCarthy, who Adsley said has the qualities to effectively manage the district and its staff.

“For the first time during my nine years, I see true leadership of the district,” he said. “I think its going to be OK, the new administration is moving the district in the right direction.”

He said he feels comfortable leaving his position with the board at this time.

Some of the turmoil he has seen includes financial woes that have rocked the district in recent years. That has basically been resolved, as well as the resignation and subsequent lawsuit brought by the former superintendent, which was settled in November.

“The ship has pretty much corrected itself,” he said.

Adsley said his first board meeting in January 1998 was packed with angry South Whidbey High School parents.

“The ASB funds were $29,000 in the red,” he said. “Parents wanted to know why the money their students had raised for activities was gone. So did the board.”

The issue was resolved and the ASB funds were paid back.

Adsley has served as president, vice-president and most recently financial auditor on the board.

“I was very aware of the financial problems the district was facing,” he said.

In August 2003, a shortage in the district’s fund balance was made public for the first time. An independent audit revealed weaknesses in the district’s reporting and accounting of the 2002-03 budget.

“We even had trouble making payroll temporarily twice,” he said.

However, Adsley said, interim Superintendent Bob Brown got the district back on its financial track.

“Brown helped the district and the board pull together and begin trusting one another again,” he said.

Where Adsley has disagreed with other board members is over the handling of the district’s property.

“I have strong convictions that assets already belonging to the district should be protected for the future benefit of the district,” he said.

Adsley said he disagreed with the board’s decision to sell a portion of prime view property in Langley to developers of the Garden Bungalows on Sixth Street just behind Langley Middle School.

“The district recently gave up, in terms of view, the most valuable piece of ground in the district, for the benefit of the City of Langley and a private developer,” he said. “The developer will probably make in excess of $4 million on the project. They bought the property from the district for very little money.”

Adsley believes the property should benefit the district not private developers or other government entities.

“It is important the district work with a number of agencies, all of which are important to the community, but the school board should put the best interests of the district first,” he said.

Adsley retired to South Whidbey in 1997 to be near his three grandchildren from SeaTac, where he was administrator of two fire districts.

“I was drawn to run for the board because I have always tried to support the community I lived in,” he said.

He made his decision to run for the District No. 4 seat on the board after watching the South Whidbey High School band perform. Adsley said he was so impressed with the quality of the music program that he wanted to be a part of the district.

“I couldn’t imagine why the position was vacant, with such deserving staff and students, and so on the last day, I filed for the position,” he said.

And he doesn’t regret the decision.

It has been a very rewarding part of my nine years experience on the board to meet the staff personally, he said.

“I will continue to be interested in what they are doing to improve opportunities for students,” he said.