Future scholars have a blast at Cascade View
April 26, 2012
By Sebastian Moraga Evan Symington has some fun with her science experiment, a bowl of non-Newtonian fluid.
A grade-schooler stood on stage at Cascade View Elementary School, faced three judges and spelled “tabernacle.”
“Geez,” a middle-schooler in the crowd told Cascade View Principal Ray Wilson, “I don’t even know what a tabernacle is.”
Scenes like that abounded at the Science, Art and Spelling Night, where kindergartners and grade-schoolers amazed older students and grownups with their skills in the three subjects.
Arbor Day poster contest won by a budding artist
April 26, 2012
Caro means “dear” in Italian. Well, to Shannon Roubicek, Megan Caro fits the name perfectly.
Roubicek, Megan’s teacher at Snoqualmie Elementary School, raves about the artistic talent of the fourth-grader, whose work has been selected as the poster art for the city’s 2013 Arbor Day.
“Megan is one of the most hardworking, dedicated and compassionate students I have ever taught,” Roubicek wrote in an email. “She always gives 110 percent effort in everything that she does and isn’t afraid to use her creative side.”
Contributed Megan Caro poses with her painting, ‘Trees are Terrific in All Shapes and Sizes,’ which will grace the Snoqualmie Arbor Day poster next year. Megan, a fourth-grader at Snoqualmie Elementary School, said her art depicted the variety of trees in the Valley.
Megan fulfilled a yearlong dream of hers just by participating. As a third-grader last year, she was not eligible to participate. This year, she competed and won.
Her watercolor painting, titled “Trees Are Terrific in All Shapes and Sizes,” shows the variety of trees in the Snoqualmie Valley, all under a purplish sky and a setting sun.
Her setting sun can be found behind a row of mountains, the opposite of what we experience in the Valley. Megan shrugs the anomaly off, in the process of scoring one for creative, imaginative people everywhere.
Valley freshman makes honor roll at OSU
April 26, 2012
Shanna Howland, a freshman from North Bend majoring in exercise and sport science, has a spot on the Oregon State University Honor Roll for winter term.
Howland earned a 3.5 grade point average. About 3,338 students earned an average of 3.5 or higher, with 752 students earning straight As.
Students must carry at least 12 graded hours of course work to be included on the honor roll.
Teacher of the month is named
April 26, 2012
Snoqualmie Elementary School teacher Shannon Roubicek was named the March 2012 Macaroni Kid Teacher of the Month.
Macaroni Kid of Issaquah-Snoqualmie picks one teacher every month. The nomination for Roubicek called her a kind, encouraging and even-handed teacher.
“All in all, she is one amazing teacher,” the nomination read, with the word “amazing” in all capital letters.
Roubicek is a fourth-grade teacher at Snoqualmie Elementary.
She will receive a plaque from Issaquah Trophy & Awards, a massage gift certificate from Therapeutic Health in North Bend and a $100 gift certificate to the Woodman Lodge, courtesy of the lodge and the Cascade Team Real Estate Agency.
Claudine Fairchild, a physical therapist at Cascade View Elementary School, won the award in February.
Twin Falls Middle School teacher Kyle Wallace won it in January.
Track and field classic returns
April 26, 2012
By Sebastian Moraga Emmitt Rudd leaps during the long-jump competition at the Mount Si Invitational Meet.
We meet again, at the meet.
After a 23-year hiatus, the Mount Si Invitational Meet returned to life April 21 at Mount Si High School.
Teams from all over the Puget Sound area arrived to celebrate the revival of what once was a staple of the spring athletics calendar in the Snoqualmie Valley.
The hosts did themselves proud, not only with a picturesque day of cloudless sunshine, but by putting on good performances. The girls tied Marysville-Pilchuck for first place with 148 points.
Mount Si turns it around against Lake Washington with 11-5 win
April 26, 2012
The Mount Si High School softball team came back from a three-point deficit to win, 11-5, against Lake Washington High School on April 17.
Both teams scored two runs in the first inning at the Mount Si ball field, and goose eggs in the next three.
The Kangs took the lead with three more runs at the top of the fifth frame, just as rain started falling steadily.
Mount Si High School’s Britney Stevens leads off first base as slugger Mickey Blad gets ready to swing in the April 17 game against Lake Washington High School. The Wildcats won, 11-5.
Lake Washington errors helped the Wildcats put two more runs on the board in the fifth.
Celine Fowler hit a ball that bounced between the Kangs’ pitcher and catcher, and while the two tried to decide who should grab the ball, Fowler was already at first base.
Lake Washington’s shortstop missed Britney Stevens’ single, and Rachael Picchena hit a ball deep to centerfield, which allowed Fowler and Stevens to run across home plate.
The top and bottom of the sixth inning was a game changer for the Wildcats.
Local nonprofit helps children who have sensory processing problems
April 18, 2012
By Clay Eals Occupational therapist Megan Daniels helps a student with sensory processing issues.
A net that looks like a hammock with its ends drawn together and suspended from the ceiling is a new type of therapy for Encompass, a nonprofit children and family services center in North Bend.
“The net suspension therapy is not new therapy, just new to us so we can make treatments more successful,” said Darlene Logan, an occupational therapist at Encompass.
The linear swinging motion of the net calms a child with an overstimulated sensory system, while a circular swinging motion revs up a child’s system, she said.
Push toward freshman center is on at Snoqualmie Middle School
April 18, 2012
Inside a library, Mount Si High School Principal John Belcher asked Snoqualmie Middle School parents to turn the page.
Faced with people still smarting over the turning of SMS into a freshmen-only campus in 2013, Belcher told a group of SMS parents at that school’s library that the decision had been made.
“We need to shift the dialogue,” he said. “Too much energy is going into, ‘Can we reverse the decision?’’’
By Sebastian Moraga Mount Si High School principal John Belcher explains to Snoqualmie Middle School parents what the Freshman Learning Center opening in 2013 will look like. The center will take the place of SMS, returning the district to a two-middle school format until at least 2015.
Instead, Belcher and other district leaders once again pitched the freshmen-only campus’ merits.
“We are going to build a school based on what the kids want, not on whom we have hired,” Belcher said, promising the children would get something beyond a traditional experience at the freshmen-only campus.
“I want it to be so attractive that Issaquah families say, ‘What are they doing over there in the Snoqualmie Valley?’” Belcher said.
To make that experience a reality, they need more input from people, he said. And they need the conversation to shift permanently to the freshman campus and not to the middle school, whose place it will take in 2013 until at least 2015.
If a bond scheduled for February 2013 passes, a new SMS will open in 2015. The freshmen-only campus is set to open in fall 2013.
Twin Falls hosts its first science fair
April 18, 2012
In science, discoveries don’t just happen in a lab. Sometimes they happen in a bathtub, a kitchen or even near a garbage can.
Just ask sixth-grader Ethan Saur, a student at Twin Falls Middle School, who tried to grow grass with water, milk, cola and soda. His ultimate discovery had little to do with science.
“Now I know Mom will get rid of my soda every time she gets a chance to,” he said.
By Sebastian Moraga Ben Rogers, a fourth-grader at North Bend Elementary School, plays with a pendulum eighth-grader Tanner Thomson built.
To be fair, Saur also discovered that grass does not grow well when you pour anything but H2O on it.
Saur waited four weeks for the grass to grow. He watched as mold grew on the milked-up soil and expanded when Saur poured fizzy soda on it.
Schoolmate Sarah McTier and Brenna McDaniel discovered that their best free throws happen when launched from atop their heads. Josette Vail discovered turning on a light bulb is hard work if you use fruit.
Dozens of other discoveries sat on display April 12 at the first Science Fair at Twin Falls Middle School.
Students hope for a low-key Day of Silence
April 11, 2012
By Sebastian Moraga Shawn McNabb (from left), Chloe Bergstrom, Landon Edwards and Molly Boord, officers of the Mount Si High School Gay-Straight Alliance, display a homemade sign.
Four years removed from its moment in the spotlight, the Day of Silence returns to Mount Si High School April 20.
Students organizing the event, now in its 16th year nationwide and its seventh year at the school, reiterated their desire that the day be one of empathy, not criticism.
During the Day of Silence, people keep silent to honor those who have had to keep their sexual identities hidden over the years.
