The Bremerton School District Board of Directors met in executive session for about 30 minutes July 16 after hearing from four candidates for the vacant Position 1 and before choosing Carolynn Perkins to fill the slot, at least until November’s election.

“This is my passion come true,” Perkins said. “I’m so excited. I can’t believe it.”

The board was set to hear from five candidates, but Ruben Garcia withdrew before the interview telling Patty Glaser, community relations & communications coordinator for BSD, “Go ahead without me.”

Each of the four remaining candidates was given six questions to look over for five minutes and 30 additional minutes in which to answer those questions, although none of them used all of the time they were allotted.

Perkins said she was born and raised in Tacoma where she got her first job in the education field as a substitute teacher for their special education program.

She then moved on to research and evaluation and said her work helped create evaluation tools which eventually “morphed” into the WASL.

Perkins left the area and moved to southern California where she held director and principal positions at several private schools. She and her husband decided to retire, a word Perkins says she uses “tongue in cheek,” and chose Bremerton because it is a “city emerging.”

She said BSD is doing a great job with early education, especially all-day kindergarten, but “more can be done,” like building another middle school.

The other three candidates, Scott Rahm, J. David Rubie and Linda Simpson, all echoed most of Perkins’ sentiments about the district and showed a passion for wanting to serve on the board, but in the end, Perkins’ experience is what made the board give her the nod.

“I have been in this field for more than 20 years,” Perkins said. “Obviously I love it.”