From school closures and cuts to heroism, from teacher retirements to celebrity school visits, 2008 was a busy year for schools in the Edmonds, Everett and Shoreline School Districts
Here’s an overview:
January
Andrée Rice, a former first-grade teacher at Meridian Park Elementary, died after a fight with breast cancer Thursday, Jan. 24. She was 43.
Lynnwood High School teens saved their classmate Gatlena Lat, who was trapped in a flipped car Jan 15. Students Alex Nguyen, Justin Glanville, Jessica Anthony, Derek Bride, Tyler Elliott and other good Samaritans pried Lat out of the car and saved his life.
February
Shoreline School District staff and officials finished a major planning step for new Shorewood and Shorecrest High School buildings. For a year, staff, parents, students and a consultant met to determine educational specifications for each building. That process finished in February.
Officials hope to build a new Shorewood High School and renovate Shorecrest High School, but both wouldn’t be finished until 2013.
March
In December, Merle Brandell of Alaska found a plastic soda bottle with a 20-year-old letter inside that a fourth grader, Emily Hwaung, now 30 years old, wrote while a student at North City Elementary in Shoreline.
In March, Brandell contacted the Shoreline School District, who passed the message onto a shocked Hwaung.
The state Legislature wrapped up its session March 13, and some of its decisions, including pay raises for staff, hit districts across the state hard.
A major hit to districts came from cost of living adjustments, or COLAs, for teachers and other school staff that were not fully funded by the state.
April
Cuts to special education, paraeducator hours, administrative job positions and middle school activity bus runs were among the $3.2 million in reductions Edmonds School District officials proposed to fill a budget hole.
The list of proposed cuts was unveiled April 22.
In addition, some Edmonds School District high schools cut teacher positions, electives and other offerings because fewer students were projected to be in their buildings in the fall.
Mountlake Terrace High School decided to abandon its controversial small schools model for fall 2008 and return to being a traditional high school, due to declining enrollment.
Terrace broke itself into five small schools in fall 2003 with a grant from the Gates Foundation.
Kay Powers, a journalism teacher fired for helping students publish an underground newspaper, returned to the classroom under an agreement reached April 11 with the Everett School District.
Powers was to receive full back pay for her time away and take an assignment at Jackson High School.
Powers in June 2007 was placed on administrative leave from Cascade High School. The English and journalism teacher was accused of helping students produce an underground paper, The Free Stehekin, during school hours and on school computers despite being warned not to do so. She was fired in November.
The Everett Herald newspaper reported that Everett School District officials used a secret surveillance device to monitor the classroom of teacher Kay Powers, a Cascade High School teacher who was fired for helping students publish an underground newspaper with school resources during school hours.
June
Wendy Borton, principal of Room Nine Community School, retired after 32 years at the school. She’s remembered for her legacy of hands-on learning.
David Meglathery retired as principal of Edmonds Elementary. Parents and students designed paper ties and wore them for a surprise march around the playground, in honor of Meglathery’s extensive tie collection.
Pattie Holt, well-known librarian at Gateway Middle School, retired at the end of the school year after 24 years in the Everett School District. She was known for hooking students up with good books and occasionally dying her hair blue.
July
Everett School District superintendent Carol Whitehead announced that she would retire Sept. 1, months earlier than planned. She cited her family’s concern over a death threat she said arrived in the school’s mail on April 23.
Peter Scott started work as the new principal at Gateway Middle School.
Before coming to Gateway, he was assistant principal at Evergreen Middle School in the Everett School District.
Everett School District officials negotiated a purchase and sale agreement to buy about 30 acres of land on 180th Street Southeast between Sunset Road and 51st Avenue Southeast. Population forecasts show that the district will need to build two new elementary schools in the next 20 years.
The Everett School Board approved a 10-month contract with Karst Brandsma, making the deputy superintendent the district’s new interim superintendent.
Brandsma took over for Superintendent Carol Whitehead, who retired early, due in part to a death threat she received in April, she said.
August
Scores on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL, were released.
More local schools and districts – double the number from last year – were placed on a federal watch list because of their scores.
The Shoreline, Edmonds and Everett School Districts, plus 54 others statewide, did not make “adequate yearly progress”, or AYP, under the federal No Child Left Behind law in 2008.
Cedar Valley Community School in the Edmonds School District didn’t improve its WASL scores enough by a federal standard of “adequate yearly progress,” or AYP, so had to offer Cedar Valley parents the choice to send their child to another Edmonds School District school, with free transportation.
The Citizen’s Planning Committee, an Edmonds School District committee, began meeting to discuss the possible closure of Woodway and Evergreen Elementary schools and moving seventh and eighth graders from Terrace Park K-8 school to Brier Terrace Middle School to make room for Evergreen students.
This summer, a formal Shoreline School District group of teachers, administrators and parents started meeting to discuss district math standards and potentially new curriculum.
Parents and students have been pushing for math changes for almost a year.
September
School got off to a smoother start this year than last in the Shoreline School District.
Thanks to a temporary agreement between officials and teachers, class sizes were more even and more split classes were planned further in advance.
Last year, uproar had ensued when several elementary students were moved to new classrooms three weeks into the school year.
Ausencio “Cinco” Delgado started the year as the new principal at Ridgecrest Elementary in the Shoreline School District.
October
The Everett School Board launched a national search for a new superintendent, having decided against hiring a consultant.
They began with a series of public meetings to get input on the position. A final selection is expected this spring.
November
Shoreline School District officials discriminated against disabled students living at the Fircrest Rehabilitation Center, a federal civil rights investigation and a state report concluded. The reports said the district broke the law by failing to give the students the kind of education law mandates.
District officials said they made choices based on student safety and laws about school districts’ limitations. The recent rise in school-aged children at Fircrest is unsustainable and against state policy, they said.
The Shoreline School District closed the books on 2007-08 with a roughly $2.9 million unreserved fund balance.
The number shows the dramatic progress the district has made over the years. At the close of 2005-06, the district was about $2.7 million in the red. At the close of 2006-07, the district was $1.7 in the red.
The unreserved ending fund balance for 2007-08 was about $1.3 million higher than the $1.6 million balance projected in July.
Paul Feig, co-executive producer of the TV show “The Office” and creator of the acclaimed show “Freaks and Geeks,” came to Gateway Middle School to talk about his new book, “Ignatius MacFarland: Frequenaut!”
Instead, he ended up talking about his childhood in Michigan, what students should do to break into writing and acting, and his failure as a tap dancer.
December
Faced with a $5 billion to $6 billion state shortfall, the public school funding picture for the coming year looked bleak as Gov. Christine Gregoire’s office proposed cuts to public schools.
Many school districts will have to make reductions for next year even if there are no state cuts. Add in state cuts on top of that and the situation could be extreme, school officials said.
Gregoire’s proposed budget carves $406 million from elementary and secondary schools and saves another $360 million by not giving teachers pay raises.
The state legislature will vote on the budget this spring.
Edmonds School Board members voted to close Woodway Elementary school starting in fall 2009, and to move Terrace Park K-8 seventh and eighth graders to Brier Terrace Middle School.
A decision on closing Evergreen Elementary was delayed until March.
The closures are meant to save money.
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