Public record

Correspondence with the district

This page contains our written exchange with Bainbridge Island School District leadership. We are publishing it so any community member can read the conversation directly.

The exchange is ongoing, and this page will be updated as new messages are sent.

Jump to April 30 May 4 May 6 May 9 May 13 (Jordan) May 13 (Amii)

Amii Thompson, BISD Superintendent

April 30, 2026 To: Intentional Tech Bainbridge community

Hello Intentional Technology Bainbridge Community,

Thank you for reaching out with a consistent message. I had an opportunity to meet with Jordan and Joanna last week. To ensure we have a shared understanding, I'd like to reach out to the entire group.

I want to honor that being able to provide public comment at School Board meetings is an important communication tool you absolutely have the right to exercise at any time. However, it has limitations, namely, it is a one-sided communication that does not allow for dialogue between the Board, the District and the person speaking. The Board can listen during public comment, but it cannot legally respond.

Typically, in a situation like this, a concerned community member would try to solve their issue at the lowest level step-usually at the building level with the building principal. If not resolved, the concern is raised to the district level. Oftentimes, reaching out to the Board and/or providing public comment is the last step in this process, implying the building and district level discourse did not work as intended, and the concern now needs to be brought forward to the Board of Directors.

I truly appreciate your dedication to this issue; it's clear we share the same passion for our students' success. Because our goals align so closely with the work the District is already doing, I'd love to sync up with you more directly. In the future, reaching out to us before launching external campaigns like petitions or websites allows us to combine our efforts and move faster. Real, lasting change often happens most effectively when we collaborate at the building and district level first, and I look forward to working together through the steps we discussed.

As I stated to Jordan and Joanna when we met last week - we have many shared goals, and meeting with a larger group would be a great next step. I could provide responses to the commitments you're requesting, and provide an overview of areas where we're in alignment, and areas where we need to find common ground. I would like to invite all of you to a community meeting on Thursday, May 14th at 4:30 PM in the BISD Boardroom. This meeting directly precedes our regularly scheduled Board meeting that evening. We will also have a Zoom participation option, as we understand this is in the middle of a work day for some people.

When: Thursday, May 14th at 4:30 PM
Where: BISD Boardroom (Zoom option available for those working or at home)
Goal: To find common ground and move from advocacy to partnership.

I believe healthy discourse creates the best results. I really hope we can come together as one community working to find the best learning environment for our students.

In partnership,
Amii

Jordan Cumming, on behalf of Intentional Tech Bainbridge

May 4, 2026, 3:32 PM To: Amii Thompson

A quick note that I am replying from our campaign address so the exchange is preserved in our shared record. Replies to either address will reach me.

Dear Amii,

Thank you for your email last Wednesday and for the invitation to the May 14 community meeting. I will be there, and I expect many in our community will be as well. I am grateful for the offer to engage on substance, and I am writing to share where the community stands ahead of that conversation.

I want to address several things directly, in the spirit you have asked for: openly, and with the goal of finding common ground.

On the timing of your email

Your email arrived approximately two hours before the April 30 board meeting. We did not distribute it to our supporter list before the meeting, and I want to be transparent about why.

First, two hours was not enough time to share an email of that substance with 400 supporters in a way that allowed for thoughtful engagement. Many of our supporters had been preparing to speak at the board meeting for several days. A late distribution risked confusion in a moment that needed clarity.

Second, there were elements of your email we wanted to engage with directly before sharing it broadly with our community. This reply is part of that engagement.

Third, and most important: the right of our community members to speak directly to their elected board representatives is one we did not want to disrupt. Public comment is a tool the community uses to be heard.

What happened in that room, and in the responses we have heard from people who were there or who watched the recording afterward, made clear that this was the right decision. Many community members who had felt alone, hopeless, or angry about what they were observing now feel less so. They feel less alone, and they have language and company for what they have been seeing. This is what community means to us.

One additional note on distribution. Your email references a supporter by name, in a context that could be read as that person representing our community in an official capacity. They were not. We will not share or post your email publicly until we have spoken with them and confirmed they are comfortable with that distribution. We will follow up on this promptly. Once we have that confirmation, we intend to share your email alongside this reply, both posted on our site so that any community member can read the exchange directly.

On shared goals

You have noted in our recent communications, and in your email last Wednesday, that the district shares many of our goals. We are asking that you specify, in writing and ahead of the May 14 meeting, which of our specific asks the district considers shared, and which it does not.

The community has been clear about what we are asking for. Those asks are still listed at intentionalTechBI.org/board.

The reason we are asking for this clarity before the meeting, and not at it, is practical. If the community arrives without knowing where the district stands on each of our specific asks, the meeting becomes a process of discovery rather than a productive conversation. With clarity in advance, our community can prepare meaningful questions, and the time we have together can be used to engage on substance rather than on framing. Specificity will help every part of the conversation that follows.

On the timing of our engagement

You have noted that the Strategic Plan process has been underway for many months and that there were opportunities for community input along the way. That is true. Many of us were among the 327 respondents to the November 2025 community survey, and we acknowledge that the level of engagement and the strength of the responses you are seeing today were not present then.

Sometimes a problem reaches a tipping point later than it should. As community members have become more informed about the developmental risks of a digital childhood and about the practices of the technology companies whose products are in our classrooms, we have come to view the current state with new and more skeptical eyes. We wish we had gotten here sooner. This is where we are now.

On the misinformation concern

I take this concern seriously. You have noted, both publicly and in conversations with members of our community, that there is a lot of misinformation on intentionaltechbi.org. The last thing we want is to spread misinformation. We would appreciate hearing specifically what you believe to be inaccurate, so we can publish a correction and acknowledge it openly.

One thing that has been brought up in this context is the duration of the Strategic Plan, which we had stated was five years. This information was sourced from the public references to the plan in the district's resource hub and in your newsletters.

If the duration has changed, we do not view that as a case of misinformation on our part. We view it as a clear illustration of why transparency is necessary for community collaboration. The community cannot be informed about a change the district has not yet shared. We were working from the public record. When the public record is incomplete, the community is in a difficult position to engage, and the gaps are visible whenever a fuller picture emerges.

If there are specific items on the site that you believe are inaccurate, please send them to me. We will review and correct anything that is wrong, and we will note the correction publicly.

On engaging at the board level

You noted in your email that concerns are typically raised at the building level first, then at the district level, with the board engaged as a last step. Many in our community have been raising concerns at the building level for years, with teachers and administration, without producing the changes families were hoping to see. This campaign emerged because the questions families were beginning to ask in common were district-wide questions that no single building leader could answer.

What our community came together to do at the board meeting was different. We did not gather to criticize the district. We gathered to share, with the people we elected to represent us, what we are seeing and what we are feeling. The board exists to hear from the community it represents. Public comment is one of the few mechanisms through which a community can speak to its elected representatives in their official capacity, on the record, together.

Beyond the act of being heard, the asks we are bringing are policy in nature. Durable change at the level we are asking for is set through board policy, not through individual building decisions or short-term administrative initiatives. This is how change is happening at districts across the country and around the world.

On state-level constraints

If any of the commitments we are seeking cannot be fully delivered at the district level due to state-level policy constraints, we would like to know that as soon as possible. There are advocacy groups across Washington engaging on these same issues, and there are state representatives who have indicated support for change in this area. State-level work takes time the children currently in our schools do not have, and any delay in identifying where the constraints are is costly.

If we can engage with state-level partners in parallel with the district's own work, that would help every party here. We would rather press for what is possible at the right level of government than learn at the end of a long process that the work belonged elsewhere all along.

Looking ahead

I am writing this in the spirit you described in your email, of healthy discourse leading to better results. I share that view. I also want to be transparent that our community will continue to engage publicly between now and May 14, and that our central asks will not change between now and the meeting. The asks have been carefully arrived at and can be decoupled from the Strategic Plan entirely, if necessary. A dedicated Intentional Technology resolution, crafted in partnership with the district, would be our ideal outcome. This is an amazing opportunity for our community to come together directly with district leadership to make changes we can be proud of.

I look forward to your written response on which of our specific asks the district considers shared, and to the May 14 meeting where we can discuss the path forward together.

Thank you for the time.

Sincerely,
Jordan Cumming
On behalf of the Intentional Technology Bainbridge Community

Amii Thompson, BISD Superintendent

May 6, 2026, 7:24 PM To: Jordan Cumming

Hi Jordan,

I want to acknowledge receipt of your email. I'm currently catching up after being out of the office, and I will get back to you with a full reply later this week.

Thank you for your patience,
Amii

Amii Thompson, BISD Superintendent

May 9, 2026, 2:37 PM To: Jordan Cumming · cc: BISD Board of Directors

Dear Jordan,

Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed email.

I would like to start by sincerely apologizing for the timing of my email on April 30th. Please know that I worked to get that response to you as soon as I possibly could. My intent was to provide these details before the School Board meeting to help us work toward a common understanding in some key areas. I take accountability that this was not the impact felt by you and members of your community.

Regarding the mention of a specific supporter in my last correspondence: please know that I did not intentionally mean to place them in an uncomfortable position. I hear your concerns clearly, and moving forward, I will omit their name and ensure our communication respects the privacy and comfort of all individuals involved.

To ensure our time on May 14 is as productive as possible, we will do our best to provide preliminary and simplified answers to your 12 questions and responses to your 5 commitments ahead of the meeting. I want to clarify that these responses must come from me and our BISD administrators (more on this below as it pertains to misinformation), rather than the Board. While the Board oversees policy and the Strategic Plan, the operational and pedagogical specifics are handled at the district and building levels.

As we move forward, I want to share some honest reflections on the process of change within our district. The requests you have brought forward are priorities-in fact, many are areas that we were already planning to address. However, these are not transactional changes that can be "switched on" overnight. They are examples of adaptive change that require deep involvement from our building and district staff. For change to be sustainable, it must be built on a foundation of relational trust and collaborative work. Rushing this process to meet an external timeframe or a list of demands risks undermining the very quality of education we all want for our students.

In our forthcoming response, we will also be clear about what cannot be met due to specific policy, legal, or budget constraints. For example, there is a misconception that these changes do not require new programs or purchases-i.e. the statement on your website "We are not asking for new programs or purchases." In reality, the ideas of moving away from seat-based digital subscriptions in many classes would require purchasing new physical textbooks. If these are even available (in some cases they are not) they are often significantly more expensive than current models, which impacts our broader budget. As I mentioned, we are also interested in finding purposeful shifts to low tech alternatives when possible, but this will be something that we need to work through grade-level by grade-level, and course-by-course.

I also want to address the relationship between your questions and requests, and our Strategic Plan. I believe that your questions and requests need to be decoupled from the Strategic Plan; while the two are certainly related, it is important that we allow the Strategic Plan to move forward as a comprehensive roadmap for the whole district, rather than letting its progress be tethered to these specific questions and requested commitments.

We have had a representative committee of 29 individuals (staff and community members) who have worked tirelessly over the course of eight months to collaboratively navigate complex data and mandates, synthesize diverse community feedback and shape a unified vision for the district's future.

We will present the Strategic Plan to the Board on May 14th, and request approval for the Strategic Plan on May 28th. The School Board will be asked to approve our Vision, Mission, Portrait of a Graduate and 9 goal areas.

Currently, we are working writing draft objectives that fall under each goal area of the strategic plan. These draft objectives are a work in progress that will continue through the summer and into August as we collaborate with our staff. We need to review all new ELA and Math standards per OSPI, and work together in grade-level and department teams to determine the scope and sequence of the standards, integration into content, implications for shared instructional goals, curriculum gaps, and the need for common assessments. Once finalized, every objective will be measurable, time-bound, and reported transparently on a district data dashboard. Please note that bjectives are not a part of the Board approval process.

Regarding the misinformation, there is a theme in that the phrasing and wording in many areas of the website are misleading. Beyond the purchasing example provided above, here are a few more detailed examples:

"Two asks. Both can be acted on independently and immediately. Both produce changes the community can see and evaluate before the start of the next school year."

It is fundamentally not true that both of your requests can be acted on independently or immediately.

"Direct the district to remove tablets and laptops from routine K-2 classroom instruction before the start of the next school year, except where these devices provide specific assistive or accessibility support."

While this is in line with where we are heading as a district (the idea of less screen time, and low tech alternatives when possible, especially at our primary grades, more play based play and place based learning, etc) this is not something that the board can functionally act on independently or immediately. This is adaptive work that must be done thoughtfully at the building and district level. In order for this to occur, we first need a baseline assessment of what technology is being used for at the K-2 level, and find a low tech alternative to anything that is a part of Tier 1 or core curriculum.

"Direct the district to publicly answer the 12 questions documented at intentionaltechbi.org before the Strategic Plan is finalized."

The tight timeline and demand for those answers feels especially presumptuous. We are a small district office staff in the middle of one of the busiest times of year-staffing, budgeting, bargaining, hiring, state testing, etc. To answer these questions thoughtfully and accurately, we need to confer as a team of at least 5 district administrators and all 10 building administrators. This takes time, and is nuanced work. To demand that these are completed within a few weeks period of time, and that action can be immediate is misleading and is inaccurate information.

Additionally, when navigating your website, current framing of data, public records and parent/community member quotes feels adversarial and seems to continuously imply an "us vs. them" mentality, which I believe is misleading. We were not asked to engage in this conversation with you leading up to the development of your website, creation of your petition, request for public comment or parent and professional community member quotes. Here are a few examples:

"In BISD, device use begins in Kindergarten and expands through the grades. Tablets in Kindergarten → Chromebooks in first grade → Take-home devices in 5th grade. The district does not publish comprehensive data about what that looks like at each grade."

"BISD is in the final weeks of drafting its Strategic Plan, with a board vote in May 2026. When the district surveyed 327 community members to inform the Strategic Plan, the answers pointed the same direction the research does: screen time needs to be reduced, and excessive screen time is the top challenge to student learning. This site exists to ask whether what the district is drafting matches what the evidence and the community are both saying."

"These questions cover who is responsible for digital citizenship instruction, how screen time is being measured and reduced, how EdTech tools are vetted, how AI is being governed, and whether the Strategic Plan reflects what the district's own community survey said. These are straightforward questions that any well-run district should be able to answer publicly. We believe BISD can and should."

"Families should be able to see which tools their children use, what data those tools collect, and what outcomes the district is measuring against. Not on request. As a matter of course. A district confident in its decisions should welcome these questions."

I do not believe that it was your intent to create a contentious community situation, but the impact feels more divisive than bridge building. I believe we can better serve the community by working in partnership and centering on shared goals for our BISD students.

I believe that there is an opportunity for a parallel pathway to run alongside the Strategic Plan, which can include continued dialogue about the questions and commitment from the Intentional Tech BI Community. This dialogue can be in the way of small group meetings and/or in some version of a Tech Advisory Committee (details TBD, but it will start in September and applications for participation will be shared prior to the end of this school year) that will be run by Whitney Skarbek, our incoming Director of Instructional Technology.

While I recognize your right to engage at the Board level—and I welcome that participation—it often serves the purpose of going "on the record" rather than fostering a collaborative approach to problem-solving.

Lastly, I've been reflecting on the Dignity Index research regarding the rising divisiveness in our country. It highlights how easily we can fall into "us vs. them" mentalities. The ideas of Benefit of the Doubt, Understanding and Accountability (10 Elements of Dignity) especially resonate with me as I approach this situation with you and the Intentional Tech BI community. For the sake of our students and our community, we need to come together to dialogue, understand differing perspectives, and move forward with a shared sense of purpose.

I look forward to a constructive and respectful conversation on May 14.

Thank you, and take care-
Amii

Jordan Cumming, on behalf of Intentional Tech Bainbridge

May 13, 2026, 7:05 AM To: Amii Thompson · cc: BISD Board of Directors

Amii,

Thank you for the substantive response. The commitment to preliminary answers ahead of the meeting and the offer of a parallel pathway with the Tech Advisory Committee are meaningful, particularly in what we know is a busy stretch of the year. We appreciate the additional effort. We also appreciate and accept your apology on the April 30 email timing.

I want to mark something important in your reply. You wrote that the direction of less screen time, more low-tech alternatives in primary grades, and more play-based and place-based learning is in line with where the district is heading. That is significant common ground. The conversation between us is, at root, a conversation about how to act on a direction we agree on.

Regarding the misinformation

On "we are not asking for new programs or purchases," you are right that the line is too absolute. We are not asking BISD to take on net new spending, and we believe an evidence-based framework would reduce the number of subscriptions and licenses the district carries. Where specific purchases are required to realize the direction, those are details for implementation, not reasons to delay direction.

On "both can be acted on independently and immediately," I take the point in part. The operational work of removing devices from K-2 instruction is not something the board does directly or immediately. What the board can do independently and immediately is provide directional commitment. Other districts have done exactly this: directional resolution in spring, implementation across summer and into the next school year.

On the other three passages you flagged, I want to engage carefully. We will review language that is sharper than it needs to be. Where it is direct, that reflects the weight of what we are talking about. Direct is not the same as divisive. The descriptions of device escalation across the grades, the community survey, and what our twelve questions cover are factually accurate.

On board engagement

On the framing that board engagement serves to go on the record rather than to foster collaborative problem-solving, I would respectfully offer a different view. Board engagement is the civic channel through which a district's community asks its elected representatives to set direction. It is not an alternative to collaboration. I will note for context that the OSPI Director of Educational Technology recently confirmed that decisions about classroom technology use are made locally, which is consistent with the Board's role in setting district direction. We will use that channel, and we will also engage directly with you and your team. The two do not have to be in tension.

On the Tech Advisory Committee

On the Tech Advisory Committee work beginning in September under Whitney Skarbek, we welcome it. We will plan to apply when applications open, and we would value clarity on the charter as soon as that is available. September is a reasonable start for the committee work itself, but the direction-setting work needs to happen before September so that the committee has a frame to work within and so that the 2026-27 school year begins with more clarity than open questions.

On why this cannot wait

I also want to share something that has been weighing on me as I read your email and reflect on the conversations of the past few weeks. The procedural questions you have raised are real and they deserve careful answers. They are also downstream of a substantive question that has not yet been engaged in this conversation.

The reason this work cannot wait another year is that the evidence on harm to children has converged across enough independent areas of research that action is warranted now. The myopia research alone is sufficient. Close-up screen exposure in early childhood is a measurable contributor to the rising rates of pediatric myopia worldwide, and the trajectory is structural and not easily reversed. The reading comprehension literature is sufficient. Children read more shallowly and retain less on screens than on paper, with the effect most pronounced in the early grades. The attention and executive function research is sufficient. Sleep, language development, and self-regulation outcomes all point the same direction. The emerging evidence on AI and cognitive offloading suggests a more precautionary approach is warranted. Any one of these alone would justify acting now. The convergence across all of them means the question is not whether to act. It is how quickly, with what care for staff, and with what shared sense of responsibility.

I want to be clear that no part of this community, ourselves included, holds the moral high ground about how we got here. Parents accepted these tools. The board approved the levies. Teachers integrated them. Vendors sold them with claims that were not yet verified. Researchers had not yet aligned. The technology footprint in BISD classrooms today was built through a thousand decisions made in good faith by people who wanted the best for our children. We are not asking BISD to accept blame for a model the whole community participated in building. We are asking the district to lead the collective course correction, because that is the role the district plays in our community.

On the path forward

On the path forward, we see room for the Board to commit to directional principles in the coming weeks, alongside the Strategic Plan.

Thank you also for the references to the Dignity Index and the 10 Elements of Dignity. Benefit of the Doubt, Understanding, and Accountability are principles we hold ourselves to as well.

I will plan to be in touch after Thursday.

Jordan Cumming
On behalf of Intentional Tech Bainbridge

Amii Thompson, BISD Superintendent

May 13, 2026 To: Jordan Cumming

Hello Jordan,

Thank you for your thoughtful email, and your continued engagement in this conversation.

I worked with Whitney Skarbek and Kiyo on an initial response to your questions and requests for commitments. Please note that these are not complete responses, but are the best we could provide within the given timeframe.

I do see a lot of shared understanding and common ground between the Intentional Tech BI group and the direction that we are headed as a district. Where I think we may differ is in how and when we achieve the requests that you are making.

Here are a few things I want you to be aware of prior to our meeting on Thursday:

I envision the community meeting as an open conversation in a respectful space of shared community. I do not anticipate "presenting" or standing at the front of the room speaking out to an audience. Instead, Whitney, Kiyo and I will create a large circle of chairs, where we can sit together and hear from one another. I will set the tone of the conversation by asking all participants to adhere to a list of agreements regarding how we will interact with one another.
Whitney is committed to creating a Technology Advisory Council before this school year adjourns. Applications for participation will be shared in our Community Newsletter next Friday, May 22nd. The goal is to convene the group 1-2 times this summer to begin work before the school year starts, so that we are not waiting until September to begin some key conversations.

I am looking forward to our meeting together on Thursday.

Attached Initial response to ITBI's 12 questions and 5 commitments (PDF)

Take care,
Amii