Brenna Lander graduated from North Kitsap High School in 2007. After graduating High School, Brenna played soccer for Western Oregon University where she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Exercise Science. Originally seeking a physical education position, she moved to Hawaii where she worked with an after school camp for at-risk youth and coached basketball and flag football. After a few years on Oahu, she decided her passion was in the classroom and moved to Colorado to attend Northern Colorado University where she received her Masters in Elementary Education. Her and her husband, Mitch Icard, spent five years hiking, biking, skiing and adventuring Colorado until the pull to be closer to family while raising kids landed them back in their forever home in Indianola. On the weekends you can usually find Brenna on the beach in Indianola with her family and dog, rain or shine! 

Before joining the NK Options Program, Brenna was a stay at home Mom and underwent treatment for stage 2 Lymphoma. Since September, 2021 she has been in full remission and has been looking forward to the next chapter of life while her kids begin preschool and she gets back into the classroom. Her love for animals, her students and this community comes through in her teaching everyday. She feels passionately that every student is capable of great things and loves to teach as much as she loves to learn.

Brenna was awarded North Kitsap 'Rookie of the Year' for 2022/23!

Rhonda Rusk’s love of teaching and learning began when she owned and operated a licensed childcare service for eight years. Her love of working with these young learners in a multiage setting inspired her to return to higher education. In 2008 she earned a bachelors of arts in education degree with a major in child development through Western Washington University. She first taught second grade at Breidablik Elementary with North Kitsap School District. She embedded student collaboration in science social studies and implemented readers theater, drama and writing workshops for literacy. 

Rhonda went on to serve as a lead preschool teacher for Kitsap Community Resources Head Start program on Bainbridge Island and at Poulsbo Elementary for 5 years. While working at the Poulsbo location Rhonda began learning Spanish. This opened the door for doing some bilingual, Spanish and English reading and pre-reading skills as well as teaching preschool math concepts in both languages. Knowing some Spanish was also helpful for communicating with many of the families she served. After this experience she had an opportunity to come back to North Kitsap School District and teach third grade for the Dual Language Program at Vinland Elementary in Poulsbo. 

During this time, Rhonda was raising a family with her husband Steve in Kingston. Their three sons, Jared, Logan and Eli had been attending the Options’ program at Gordon Elementary. Rhonda and Steve were involved in the Options’ Parent Group and served on the steering committee and volunteered in classrooms when they were able. The family became part of the Options’ Community. Steve was an Options’ Chairperson and performed in several Mystery Dinner Theater performances throughout the years. 

In the fall of 2015 Options’ was seeking a primary K-1 teacher. A union began that would lead her through seven wonderful years teaching and learning with the primary K-1 students for the Options’ community. This year Rhonda is very excited to begin her eleventh year teaching for the North Kitsap School District and her first year teaching the primediate 2-3 grade students of Options’. She is looking forward to working with Options’ second and third grade students and their families. I am sure she will be finding ways to weave in drama productions, environmental awareness education and project based learning into the curriculum. 

Rhonda enjoys the great outdoors and is often found with friends exploring the trails and beaches that are scattered throughout Kitsap county. Or, camping and hiking with family and friends all over the west coast. She also enjoys reading, knitting and gardening.

Timothy Wilkinson was born and raised in Sequim and Quilcene, Timothy began his teaching career in high school, starting a business doing presentations on medieval history and then teaching in religious schools for almost twenty years. After working in construction, glazing, sales, masonry, journalism, web design, canoe building, photography, and as a mortgage broker, writer, and sailing instructor, he began classroom teaching in 1999 for Olympic Peninsula Home Connection, a parent-partnership program of the Sequim School District. He also started a consulting and tutoring business for homeschooling families. After teaching for Sequim’s Olympic Peninsula Academy and Crescent School District’s Home Connection program, in 2015 he was invited to teach the 4th-5th-6th grade class at North Kitsap Options. 

As an amateur archaeologist, Timothy has overseen the archaeological excavation of the Snow Creek Logging Camp in Jefferson County since 1995. He also participates in medieval and bronze age reenactment as a way to learn more about these periods of history. He grew up in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, and has hiked and practiced survival skills in the Olympic Mountains almost every year since he was six. He lived aboard a sailboat for two years, and spent more than 15 years teaching sailing, boating, and other maritime skills in Port Angeles, Sequim, Port Townsend, and Poulsbo. He has also been a screenwriter and film-maker, poet, playwright, and published novelist. In 2003, he designed and implemented a multi-disciplinary, project-based, multi-age project that tailored a year’s instruction for the entire student body to make a full-length feature film, which was released to the public. He now uses project-based, multidisciplinary, multi-age instruction as the foundation of all that he does in the classroom.

Nat Smith began his teaching career directly after graduating from Bowdoin College with a degree in Government and Legal Studies and a minor in Russian. As a charter corp member of Teach For America, his first placement was in a 5th grade multi-lingual classroom in Compton, CA. Teaching for 6 years in the inner-city reinforced for Nat a commitment to provide equity and opportunity for all his students. Through working closely with several parents, he learned much about the influence of community on classroom success as well as how to build a classroom community based on mutual respect and support. 

In 1998, the Options's program expanded to include middle school and Nat was the first teacher hired for the team. Nat, who grew up in Port Orchard, moved back to Kitsap with his wife (also a teacher) to start a family and begin building the Option's middle school program.

Since their move, the Smiths have lived at three addresses, had 2 dogs and 4 cats, many chickens, turkeys and fish, planted an orchard, and sewn many gardens. They’ve hiked all the major drainages in the leeward Olympics, hosted 3 exchange students, and they’ve jumped off the Indianola dock during summer phosphorescence AND on New Years Eve.

Nat has been with Options since the last century! In that time he has taught every grade level 3rd through 9th. He has been involved in at least 45 camps, cooked for 15 Mystery Dinner Theater events, participated in 3 or 4 re-Visioning processes, navigated at least 3 existential threats to the program, and received the Rangsveld Kvestad Teacher of the Year Award in 2012.  

We are so excited to welcome Bethany LaHaie as the principal of Wolfle Elementary and the K-8 Options Signature Program. Principal LaHaie comes to us with 8 years experience as an elementary administrator. She first became knowledgeable about the Options Program when working as a teacher at Richard Gordon Elementary (which was home to the program until 2019). 

Principal LaHaie has two wonderful children that attend NK schools. In their free time, they enjoy getting outside and spending time with family and friends. Originally from northern Michigan, Principal LaHaie moved to the PNW in 2003.