School board race heats up

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, October 29, 2025

The school board director election on San Juan Island is one of the few contested races on the ballot, with Melanie Hess and Levi Wolf vying for the seat. Hess, the incumbent, brings experience and a focus on operations, while Wolf, the challenger, offers a youthful perspective and a focus on student experience.

The Washington State School Directors’ Association outlines school board members’ (known as directors) responsibilities as follows: “Hire, supervise and evaluate the superintendent; set the vision, mission and strategic goals for the district; review, revise and adopt policies; establish and oversee the budget; serve as community representatives; and monitor the district’s progress toward its goals.”

Fred Woods, the current superintendent of the San Juan Island School District, told the Journal about the importance of this election and position.

“The school board director position is crucial for our community,” he said. “The board of directors is responsible for setting the overall direction and policies for the school district, ensuring that our students receive the best possible education. It is a significant role that impacts everything from curriculum to budget allocation. Simply put, the school board plays a vital role in our community. Their dedication and oversight are essential to maintaining a strong, effective system. Currently, we have a very high-functioning board with great experience leading a high-achieving school district.”

Melanie Hess

Incumbent Melanie Hess, a mom of four whose kids have attended elementary, middle and high school on the island, has only served as a school board director for one year. Hess was unanimously voted into the position by the superintendent and school board in 2024 when there was an opening between elections.

Hess was asked to apply because of her work with the San Juan Public Schools Foundation, where she helped raise funds to close the funding gap for educators. Hess told the Journal that she learned a great deal about the school district during her three years with the foundation.

“I’m good at fundraising, but I’m really good at finance and operations,” she said. “Learning about the district on a more organizational level with the foundation, instead of just a parental level, made me wonder, ‘What can I give to the district that I already know how to do?’ So that’s how it all came to fruition about a year ago.”

Hess, who has been endorsed by County Councilmember Kari McVeigh and Island Petroleum Services owner Adam Eltinge, believes this position is about more than improving the classroom experience.

“It’s way more than that,” she said. “It’s about finance and economics, it’s about being the largest employer in our community. These are educators who need to feel safe and empowered to do their jobs in the right way, and then hearing the community and having processes. It’s about operations.”

Hess, who has worked in the tech industry for 25 years and currently works at the executive level at Microsoft, feels confident she’s qualified. Protecting and defending public education is a topic she returns to repeatedly as her top priority, and she wants to continue the work she’s begun as school board director, such as bridging the special education funding gap through regionalization changes.

“We are a really special school district. We have amazing administrators, families, and community support. It’s one of the reasons we moved here in 2017,” she shared. “I feel honored to even be part of the process, let alone to have been appointed by the existing school board, my peers, and why I care about this going forward.”

When asked about hot-button topics in education, such as trans rights, parental choice/vouchers, religion in schools, or the dissolution of the Department of Education, Hess clarified that the school board’s role is to follow state law.

“The school board and all of the members are very respectful of the state legislature and the laws they’ve created,” she said. “My personal take on it is: I will listen to the community. My own agenda —the way I vote in my personal life —doesn’t matter. It’s a non-partisan role. We do have the ability to lobby our legislators. I think it is our job to put our personal political agendas aside and vote with how the community really needs us to vote.”

Levi Wolf

Challenger Levi Wolf, who was born and raised on San Juan Island and attended public/private schools and was homeschooled, brings a fresh perspective as someone who was a learner in the school district within the last five years.

“I have a different point of view since I graduated more recently than everyone else on the board, which gives me a unique perspective,” he told the Journal. “It’s more fresh in my mind.”

His goals include focusing on clubs and sports after school to help kids avoid drug use, and taking advantage of the island’s location to launch marine biology courses. He also wants to embrace artificial intelligence rather than reject it.

“I want kids to be able to love to learn and be excited to learn, because there are so many things to learn about,” said Wolf. “I want to change it so that it’s a place people are excited to go to and have fun. One of my main motivations is that school is bogging kids down, so I’m trying to fix that so we can help all the kids learn well and love to learn on the island.”

Wolf has attended most school board meetings this year and has few criticisms of the current board, stating they’re doing a good job for the most part.

“We don’t have financial problems, and they started a pre-k, which seems to be working out well,” Wolf said. “I’m kind of wanting to focus more on the main subjects, like math. Some of the core subjects are, I feel, being dropped or pushed to the side a little bit more. I thought I’d go in there to at least try to fix those.”

He has participated in Boy Scouts and 4-H, and recently helped organize the San Juan Island Homeschool Co-op, also known as the Critical Thinking School, where he is currently chair of the board. Wolf referenced a training course he took for school board directors, led by the Leadership Institute, whose tagline is “Where conservative leaders are made.” Although it’s not listed in the voter’s information pamphlet, Wolf is also chair of the San Juan County Republican Party Executive Committee.

When asked whether being the chair of a political party was a conflict of interest with the non-partisan role of school board director, Wolf said he’s not trying to hide anything and has learned valuable skills through his political party roles, such as Robert’s Rules and meeting management. He does not believe it’s a conflict of interest.

“I’m running for school board to try to fix the problems I saw with the school when I went through it and to make it a better place,” he clarified. “I am a part of the Republican Party because I wanted to know how the entire system of the parties works and I want to help our community solve some of its problems. I am not running for school board for any political reasons or agenda.”

When asked how he would vote on polarizing issues in the education spotlight right now, such as trans rights, religion in the classroom and parental choice/vouchers, Wolf gave varying answers. He doesn’t believe religion should be in the school, but also believes sports should be restricted to gender at birth. He supports vouchers, but doesn’t see them coming to Washington state anytime soon.

Wolf said that as a school board member, he would vote to support vouchers and the restriction of transgender athletes, but would not vote for religion in schools, and holds firm that his experience in the Republican Party would make him an asset to the board.

“If I am elected to the school board, I have already had experience in having community engagement and talking with concerned community members,” he said. “I can easily discuss multiple points of view and disagreements on topics with the other board members respectfully.”