Lars Jorstad, one of two P.E. teachers who work at Central Kitsap High School. You may have had him once or multiple times before, however, do you truly know the man that is named Jorstad?

Since Jorstad was little, he’d been influenced by those around him into the fitness and teaching circle. One of his earliest influences being his mother who worked in the district as a teacher. That sprung on a multitude of other learning experiences, becoming close to other teachers and term principals that were close family friends.

Jorstad was local and went to Central Kitsap High School as a sophomore, then after the district’s split in 1979 he went to Olympic High School in which he graduated from Olympic High School. He also played football and tennis.

Jorstad is quite active himself and even rides his bike to work every day no matter rain or shine. His wife is also incredibly active, and very into riding bikes and running. She was also a triathlete for many years. The two have been happily married since 2009. 

“That lifestyle of being active is a pretty important part of what we do, we see a lot, we ride bikes a lot,” Jorstad said.

On his journey of physical education, Jorstad’s uncle was a big inspiration for him.

Jorstad’s uncle was a PE Teacher and adaptive P.E. teacher meaning he worked with handicap kids and special needs kids. His uncle also ran summer camps. Jorstad used to help out with that from a young age. He learned how to deal with kids and be around kids, and help them be active.

“…being in motion is just a really integral part of what I do,” Jorstad said.

Interestingly, Jorstad didn’t start out as a P.E. teacher. He actually started out as an athletic trainer and worked as one for 16 years.

The reasoning for Jorstad relinquishing the job is an honest one. He loves the fall and spring sports, but the winter sports were a lot. All the basketball games and wrestling became too much.

He had been given the opportunity to teach full time, however, he still wouldn’t become a physical education teacher until much later.

Jorstad had instead become a biology and human anatomy teacher, working that position for 15 years.

Over his 32 years of experience in teaching, he’d always taught in one P.E. class or another. There wouldn’t be more than a couple of years going by where he wouldn’t be teaching at least one section of P.E. 

Surprisingly, Jorstad has only been teaching as a P.E. teacher for 3 years. Totally up to 36 years of experience, 32 of those years being used here at Central Kitsap High School.

“…the list of great teachers that I’ve been exposed to is a long list, and there’s a lot of really good teachers that we’ve had here over the years,” said Jorstad.

Coming back from online-learning, Jorstad expressed the challenges he’s been facing since then. He feels that most of us are really happy we aren’t behind computer screens anymore.

“I can’t speak for everybody, but I think most of us are really happy that we’re not behind the computer screen,” said Jorstad.

Though, he does understand that others may not feel the same way, knowing that people have varying learning styles.

He felt that last year was super challenging, and that we belong in-person.

Coming back to in-person, the masks were a big challenge. Not seeing facial expressions  and not being able to express yourself well, seems to have made people lose something. Jorstad also feels that it simply isn’t as much fun in general.

Interacting with people is a main part of school as a whole, and not being able to when online-learning was also a large part of school that had been taken away. He acknowledges that even though we aren’t exactly back to normal yet, we’ll get there.

His thoughts on online-learning during that time, provided a new perspective on things. 

He thinks that the teachers, principals, and everybody had possibly made some decisions that might have not been mandatory. When they’d first started, it was difficult to present information live. This includes when teaching a lesson, the fact that stood out was that it wasn’t live.

There were multiple problems with equity as well, and that’s why those decisions were made. He understands that, but he thinks it could’ve been better if they’d set things up differently. 

Jorstad is an incredible individual with much more history than meets the eye. Hopefully, you’ll be able to understand a little more about Jorstad as a person.