The new model for half-day kindergarten in 2012 presented by the Snoqualmie Valley School District has parents upset about what would be expected of their five-year-olds.

The Snoqualmie Valley School District’s budget-trimming suggestion would turn Kindergartners’ half-day schedule into two sets of all-day school days with alternating Fridays.

“The new model may have 28-38 more new hours of contact with the teacher but it did not factor in any nap time or downtime,” said North Bend parent Jaymie Blatt Feb. 7. “Is it realistic to ask a small child to go to school for a full day with no nap time or downtime?”

Blatt and many other parents spoke out mostly against the proposal during two evening meetings Feb. 6 and 7 at elementary schools in Fall City and North Bend.

A few parents did express support.

“Say a million dollars has to be cut,” Karen Wilder, a bus driver for the district, said Feb. 6. “You start with the lesser of the two evils. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars in transportation is better than losing two teachers, or art or losing band.”

Don McConkey, assistant superintendent for the Snoqualmie Valley School District, said the suggestion might definitely help minimize the impact of a reduction in force.

“If there’s a RIF, this may help some positions,” said McConkey, who conducted the two meetings. “Even though there may not be a direct correlation.”

The proposal targets only affects half-day, not full-day kindergarten classes.

The proposal would eliminate mid-day bus routes, which the state does not fund.

Some parents worry about how the back-and-forth schedule would affect their children’s behavior.

Snoqualmie’s Nicole Cummins’ son attends five-day preschool, with weekends off. He acts out a little more on weekends, she said.

“If we go to this proposal, we are always going to have to adjust,” she said. “He won’t behave as well as if we were going five days a week, and I don’t want my son to be labeled a problem.”

Snoqualmie parent Lisa Ramsden agreed.

“That makes me heartbroken,” she said. “The start of kindergarten shapes a kid’s whole attitude toward school.”

Megan Roberts, another parent from Snoqualmie said schools in her former hometown of Pocatello tried the All Day-Alternate Day proposal, with dismal results.

“The first-grade teacher had to scale back and teach again what children had in kindergarten,” she said.

A feedback sheet for parents at the meetings offered two more suggestions:

q Monday through Wednesday on one week, Monday and Tuesday the next week; Thursday and Friday the third week, then Wednesday through Friday the following week.

q Every other day the entire year: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, Monday.

Some parents questioned whether the district had listed the two latter suggestions to make their original suggestion more palatable. McConkey denied that was the case.

“The second proposal was considered by a district in Sumner,” he said.

At the same time, McConkey said teachers had grown comfortable with the way things are.

“They have been teaching that way for years, so they know it,” he said. “In order to change that, we are going to have a conversation.”.

At North Bend Elementary School, McConkey told parents that every district that had considered a similar program had done it for one reason: Cost savings.

“There will be more and more school districts looking at similar models,” he said.

Some parents said misery loving company is not reason enough to adopt the proposal.

Stacey Daniels, a parent from Fall City, assailed the model, which would entail a total of five days of school in November 2012.

“So much time is spent teaching them to be social,” Daniels said, “that having five days in November makes me want to say, ‘What’s the point?’”

The Lake Washington School Board formally recognized the petition Oct. 10 and began the process of negotiating whether to transfer a piece of the Snoqualmie schools’ territory into the Lake Washington schools.

The neighborhoods, Devereaux, Trails at Camden Park, 26th Street, 27th Place and a few houses along 244th Avenue Northeast, lie at the northeast corner of Sammamish. The surrounding neighborhoods currently send their students to Lake Washington Schools, but youths in those neighborhoods attend school in the Snoqualmie Valley district.

Lake Washington was notified of the petition March 25, but because two of the neighborhoods were split on their desire to transfer, citizen petitioners had to revise the proposition, school board documents said. On Sept. 10, the Lake Washington School District received the new, validated petition.

The two districts have 90 days to negotiate an agreement, but can ask for a 30-day extension, which is likely with the holiday season coming up, Jackie Pendergrass, Lake Washington board president, said at the Oct. 10 meeting.

Pendergrass and Doug Eglington, the board member serving northern Sammamish, volunteered to represent Lake Washington in the process. It is unclear who will represent Snoqualmie Valley schools, but Joel Aune, Snoqualmie’s superintendent, knows about the petition, board documents said.

When negotiating a territory transfer, members will consider factors like the affected students’ educational opportunities, their safety and welfare, geographic accessibility, and the history and relationship of the property affected to the students and communities affected. The group will also consider how the transfer will affect — negatively or positively — each school district, including through increased transportation costs (Lake Washington) or decreased tax revenue (Snoqualmie Valley).

If both school boards agree on the next step, be it to transfer the land or not, then that decision is what happens. If the boards disagree, the decision goes through an appeal process at the regional level, and could possibly end up in the court system, though that is rare.

In 2009, the Broadhurst neighborhood, in unincorporated King County north of Sammamish, made the same request.

In that case, the transfer was denied when the school boards found that it would hurt the Snoqualmie district more than it would help the Lake Washington district.

Christopher Huber: 392-6434, ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

The change would have left the Snoqualmie Valley School District and six other school districts unable to use 15 properties worth about $12 million.

The county’s Growth Management Planning Council appointed a task force to evaluate the issue at its Sept. 27 meeting.

The School Siting Task Force consists of officials from school districts, cities, public health and the county. It will review rural properties currently owned by school districts, and recommend the best location for schools considering the interests of students, taxpayers and the state Growth Management Act.

The task force will report its findings to the council and King County Executive Dow Constantine in February 2012.

The group’s formation stemmed from a compromise reached by King County, Seattle, Bellevue and the Suburban Cities Association to further explore the issue.

The policy change is backed by anti-sprawl advocates who say that it would bring county codes inline with existing state law.

School officials and the Suburban Cities Association pushed for properties already owned by districts to be grandfathered in.

The site Snoqualmie Valley district officials are concerned about is next to Twin Falls Middle School and is earmarked for an elementary school in 15 to 20 years. The district paid $675,000 for 40 acres in 1998, half of which it used for the middle school.

Sure, the goal of the 2011 Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation Phonathon was $20,000, and it collected a little more than $15,000. But last year’s phonathon raised “only” $12,000.

Besides, foundation treasurer Cheryl Duncan said the group pulled that goal amount out of the air.

What really matters is that the foundation has 150 “Benjamins” to help improve classrooms, thanks to the generosity of Valley families.

“We will be able to fund the programs we wanted to fund,” foundation president Carmen Villanueva said. “Fifteen thousand dollars is a great amount.”

The money will fund math enrichment programs at the elementary level and the high school program Natural Helpers.

Joe Galagan, advisor for Natural Helpers, praised the phonathon. The event helps pay for the group’s pivotal Nov. 11-13 retreat to Vashon Island, where its members are trained to be peer counselors and communicators.

“We’re hoping,” he said, later adding, “they’ve been giving us about $4,000 a year to do this and we’re in the process of raising money to do it again so students can go without having to pay.”

Without the $4,000, students would have to pay about $100 per person for the two nights, five meals and the training, Galagan said.

Although the phonathon is over, people who could not donate during the Sept. 12-13 event have until the end of the month to donate online or via mail.

To donate online, go to www.svsfoundation.org and click on “Donate.” To donate by mail, send a check to the Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation, P.O. Box 724, Fall City, WA, 98024-0724.

“We want to thank our community for the generous donation,” Villanueva said. “Because of their generosity and the work of our volunteers, we were able to raise $15,000.”

“We start school,” she said. “Which is awesome. Yay!”

The Snoqualmie Valley Education Association voted to approve a tentative agreement with the Snoqualmie Valley School District on Aug. 23.

The school board met Aug. 25 at Mount Si High School to confirm approval of the agreement.

The agreement is for two years, as opposed to the one that would have expired Aug. 31, which was a three-year deal.

“We are in a two-year biennium cycle with education funding really taking a hit,” union leader Art Galloway said. “And we want to be able to address that in two years.”

Details of the agreement have not been released as of Aug. 25.

Superintendent of Valley schools Joel Aune said in a statement that despite the tough times in public education, the agreement is aligned with the Valley’s school board priorities.

School board president Dan Popp said the board was “extremely pleased” with the outcome of the negotiation process.

In a statement released via the district’s website, Popp said the board had three priorities in the negotiation: the best learning experience for the students, addressing the needs of the staff and maintaining the district’s fiscal health.

“While we will continue to face budget challenges, the contract is consistent with our priorities,” Popp added.

Peterson hailed the efforts of the union’s bargaining team.
“They listened to our concerns as teachers,” Peterson said, “and used that as what drove their negotiations and it seems that what they achieved was very fair and reflected what we had requested.”

As teachers counted the votes inside Mount Si High School’s auditorium, colleagues exited the building and expressed hope that the threat of a strike had been eliminated.

“I didn’t hear one negative comment about the proposed contract,” teacher Kim Sales said. “I think it’s absolutely fair. This contract is going to keep us where we were.”

With an ailing economy, teachers hoped to avoid taking a pay cut, Sales said.

“It sounds like that has been accomplished,” she said, “so we are thrilled.”

While the outcome pleased some, what it took to get there left others displeased.

The district and the union talked from 9 a.m. Aug. 22 to 4:30 a.m. Aug. 23, took a break, and resumed talks via e-mail and phone until 3 p.m.

“A lot of this work that we did at 1, 2, 3 or 4 in the morning can certainly be done with brighter, more awake minds, earlier in the process,” Galloway said.

He said the union leaders worry about the district’s ability to retain teachers when faced with job offers from nearby schools dangling better pay and benefits.

“We have teachers that are being recruited right now by Issaquah, Lake Washington, Monroe,” he said. “We train them and then they go other places. That’s not a good way to have a quality staff to sustain what we need to do.”

He read a statement requesting that the district revise the bargaining process.

“Our students, the families and our members ought not to have to wait until the last minute to reach an agreement,” he read. “We would never run our classrooms this way.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

The district and the union have been in active negotiations for nearly a month, but have yet to reach a deal on a new three-year contract for teachers. With school scheduled to start Aug. 30, time is getting short. 

The key point of dispute between the two sides has been a 1.9 percent reduction in pay passed by the state. The school district has proposed making up the reduction for the 2011-2012 school year by dipping into its reserves. Doing so would cost about $430,000. 

But the teachers’ union wants the district to commit to restoring the cuts for the 2012-2013 school year, as well. The median salary for a teacher in the district is $69,516, according to analysis by the SnoValley Star of data from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The Snoqualmie Valley School Board approved a balanced budget for the coming school year at its Aug. 18 meeting.

The proposed rule stems from the state Growth Management Act and forbids extending sewer service to schools outside city limits.

In theory, this rule can make sense. New schools will attract new families, increasing the pressure for development in those areas.

But schools have no say in the growth and development patterns — in either the rural or urban areas — and have to serve any student who shows up.

So, if the rule passes, what happens to districts that straddle the edges of the urban growth boundary, like the Snoqualmie Valley? The district would be unable to use land it purchased for a future school. All told, seven districts in King County — including the Valley — own 15 properties worth about $12 million that would be rendered unusable.

If the district can’t actually use the property, it would likely have to sell the land, and then what? Buy new land?

The district would have to find property that is large, contiguous, flat and inside the urban growth boundary for Snoqualmie or North Bend. That is a tall — and expensive — task.

The other option is for the district to use eminent domain to take over properties. That is unacceptable, given that it already owns property to build on.

In the long term, yes, there is a net benefit to restricting the development pressure that a new school can help create. But land already purchased should be exempt from the new rule at the very least.

Fifteen properties held by seven school districts and worth about $12 million could be affected.

The proposal would all but close an existing loophole that allows schools to be built on rural lands. The change is meant to bring the county’s plan in line with state and regional growth management plans, as required by the state’s Growth Management Act. The law was written to fight sprawl in nonurban areas.

But opponents say fighting sprawl doesn’t require a ban on new schools in rural areas, and that a ban will only cost school districts — and taxpayers — money. The Snoqualmie district is backing an amendment that would grandfather in properties that districts already own.

“Unless we can get some movement on this, it appears it’s going to have a negative impact on our district,” Snoqualmie schools Superintendent Joel Aune said.

Under the proposed change, the district could build a school with a septic system, but the operational costs would be too high, he said.

The site district officials are concerned about is next to Twin Falls Middle School and is earmarked for an elementary school in 15 to 20 years. The district paid $675,000 for 40 acres in 1998, half of which it used for the middle school.

The district also owns two sites on Snoqualmie Ridge — one for an elementary school and one for a middle school — that it plans to develop in the next 10 years.

Under the proposed changes, the district would have to look for land inside incorporated areas, which is more expensive.

But district officials might not have to go shopping for more land if the county’s Growth Management Planning Council adopts the amendment to grandfather already-owned properties. The council planned to vote on the changes at its June 29 meeting, but delayed the vote until September in order to consider various amendments.

“We’re trying to balance multiple policy objectives,” including conservation and education, said Lauren Smith, one of King County Executive Dow Constantine’s top land-use policy advisors.

While King County’s policy is supposed to match up to state and regional policies, it had not been updated since the 1990s.

Now is the time to close loopholes that encourage new development in rural areas, anti-sprawl advocates say.

“The existing countywide planning policies — which allow the extension of sewers into the rural area to public facilities — have been a problem for years,” said Tim Trohimovich, the co-director of Planning and Law for Futurewise, a Seattle-based conservation advocacy group.

Trohimovich points to two proposed developments in Black Diamond that include placing schools in rural areas to serve urban populations as an example of how the existing policy permits sprawl.

Schools also attract residents, he said.

“That is also why real estate agents tout new schools in the area in which they are trying to sell a house,” he said. “So, people move into the rural area to be near the new school…”

Snoqualmie Valley School District attorney Grace Yuan disputes the claim.

“Schools aren’t causing sprawl,” she said. “They are responding to growth that has already been approved.”

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com.

The list highlights schools that increase the number of students taking Advanced Placement classes while improving the percentage of students earning high scores in those classes.

Six school districts in the state and 388 in the nation received the honor. Bellevue, Northshore, Olympia, Seattle and Shoreline also earned the distinction.

“Continuous improvement is a goal that our district and all valley schools strive for each year,” Snoqualmie Valley Schools Superintendent Joel Aune said in a press release. “We are extremely proud of this recognition from the College Board, as it further validates the upward trend that Mount Si High School has experienced in recent years on three fronts.”

These fronts, Aune said, are an increase in the number of students enrolling in what he termed rigorous courses, more Advanced Placement courses available to students and a higher percentage of students getting good grades in those courses.

According to school district documents, Valley schools rank in the top bracket of Advanced Placement participation among Washington districts. Valley schools also rank high in the percentage of the 2010 graduating class earning a three or higher (out of five) on at least one AP exam.

The Valley was one of 12 districts statewide to rank high in both areas. Mount Si High School offered 13 Advanced Placement classes this year. The Snoqualmie Valley Virtual Academy provides 19 Advanced Placement courses online.

The school district arrived on the list based upon four criteria:

• Examination of three years of data from 2008 to 2010
• Increase in participation and access to advanced placement classes by at least 4 percent in large districts, 7 percent in midsized districts and at least 11 percent in small districts.
• A steady or increasing percentage of black, Hispanic and American Indian or Alaska Native students taking the Advanced Placement exams, and
• Performance levels maintained or improving when comparing the percentage of exams scoring 3 or higher to those in 2008.

An option to the last criterion is the school attaining a performance level where 70 percent or more of the students score 3 or higher.

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

School board members (from left) Dan Popp, Carol Loudenback and Marci Busby listen to school bond detractor David Spring suggest that the school bond re-vote be postponed. The board disagreed with Spring, voting 5-0 to put the bond back on the ballot in late April. By Sebastian Moraga

The Snoqualmie Valley School Board voted in favor of bouncing back this spring from its closest defeat in recent memory.

The $56 million school bond to build a new middle school will appear in an April 26 ballot, thanks to a unanimous 5-0 board vote. The Feb. 8 vote on the bond fell two one-thousandths of a percent shy of the 60 percent needed.

“It’s two one-thousandths of a percent: A supermajority of our Valley said yes. I stand with the majority, with the people who believe this is the right thing to do,” said Board President Dan Popp.

The bond proposal will remain the same with the exception of a 2-cent increase, from 47 to 49 cents, in the amount per $1,000 of property value the bond will cost.

Higher interest rates are the culprit for the increase, Snoqualmie Valley Schools Superintendent Joel Aune said.

Valley residents from both sides of the issue urged board members to see things their way.

Activist David Spring urged the board to delay returning the bond to a ballot until a clearer financial picture emerged from Olympia.

“We can’t afford another bond failure,” former Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation director Carolyn Simpson said to board members. “What’s the rush? Making a hasty decision would be inappropriate at this time.”

Stephen Kangas, who also opposed the bond, said decisions more important than building a new school loomed.

“What’s more important: Teachers or classrooms?” he asked board members. “Where’s student safety among your priorities? You have the time. Take the time to think this through.”

Supporters of the bond said waiting would be counterproductive.

“In the time we have waited, we have seen the interest rate go up by two cents,” Valley parent Scott Vermeulen said. “If we wait more, everything will cost more.”

Fellow dad Brent Lutz agreed with Vermeulen, saying district administrators should not wait to act until a problem had become an emergency.

Mount Si High School coach Sean Sundwall said the board had a moral obligation to put the bond back on the ballot.

“Regardless of what Olympia does,” he said, “We still have to house our kids. Give voters the same bond in April and we will deliver our children a third middle school.”

Unanimous vote aside, board member Scott Hodgins said he worried about the cost of maintaining the new building, which might range between $600,000 and $1 million.

Nevertheless, he voted yes. He said he promised when first elected to never vote against a bond.

“I don’t care what we decide to build, this is the time to do it,” Hodgins said. “Even if we don’t need it, is this a good time to build it? Absolutely. We don’t know today what our funding is going to be and what the population projections are going to be in 2013. I don’t have a crystal ball.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

Every year, she promises herself she will go home shortly after her students have, and not stay in the classroom correcting, grading, preparing, researching.

Every year, and every day, she proves herself wrong. There’s always something to do.

But what else can be expected from a teaching lifer who decided she wanted to be a teacher in the eighth grade, and who did the proverbial 180 on her first job, teaching third grade in the same school she studied third grade.

“In the same classroom,” she said. “It was weird.”

What else can be expected of someone so passionate about children that her eyes tear up when talking about what it’s like to partake in the lives of 28 children.

…READ MORE IN NEXT WEEK’S PAPER

The King County Elections Canvass Board upheld the result of the Feb. 8 bond vote, certifying a slim defeat for a proposed new middle school on Snoqualmie Ridge.

King County Elections employees review a ballot in the hand recount for the Snoqualmie Valley School District bond proposal from the Feb. 8 election. (By Katie Gilliam)

The bond supporters gathered 59.99 percent of the vote, short of the 60 percent needed said Katie Gilliam, communications specialist for King County Elections.

“We’re disappointed,” said Jim Reitz, of the pro-bond group Valley Voters for Education. “It couldn’t possibly be closer. I am sure there are hundreds of people kicking themselves for not getting their ballots in on time and I’m sure that next time they will be very anxious to correct that.”

Reitz said the decision now belongs to the school board regarding whether there will be a next time.

The board will likely discuss a second bond vote for 2011 at its March 10 meeting, Reitz said, adding that he did not know if pro-bond supporters would push for a second recount instead.

Disappointment aside, Reitz praised the way the recount and canvassing occurred.

“I am extremely impressed by how professional and transparent they were,” he said of King County Elections. “It’s a shame it did not go our way, but I have nothing but high praise for how King County Elections operates.”

In a statement, the school district echoed Reitz.

“Our heartfelt thanks go to all who volunteered their time and energy during this very close election,” the statement read. “We appreciate the strong majority of citizens in our community who supported their children and schools in the Feb. 8 election.”

The statement praised the King County Elections’ efforts and said the school board would meet this week to decide what to do.

The bond proposal is the fourth consecutive bond meant to build a school that Valley voters have defeated. It is the closest  such a bond has come to passing in Snoqualmie Valley since voters in May 2003 approved a $22.7 million bond to build Twin Falls Middle School.

After the initial recount, pro-bond supporters requested that elections staff look at three ballots that had questionable marks.

Gilliam said the department found two of the disputed ballots and upheld the county’s decision.

One ballot had the oval next to “reject” filled in and then crossed with an X. The second ballot had the oval next to “reject” filled in and then “a stray mark” next to “approve,” Gilliam said.

The third ballot, known as “exhibit B,” could not be located. According to a drawing of the exhibit B ballot, it allegedly showed marks on both the “approve” and “reject” ovals.

Staffers searched for the ballot for hours March 8, with opponents and supporters of the bond acting as observers.

“The recount has been certified, and exhibit B has not been found,” Gilliam said in a phone interview less than an hour after the vote was certified.

Earlier in the day, anti-bond activists attacked the request as a whim.

Stephen Kangas, a North Bend parent, said it was obvious to the community that any further action besides immediate certification or another full recount would amount to a fishing expedition.

“You’re starting to look like the second-guessing board” instead of the canvass board, Kangas said. He later said the “fishing expedition” was spearheaded by the school district and pro-bond activists Valley Voters for Education, to which Reitz belongs.

After the certification, Reitz defended the request.

“The election was as close as can be and both sides took all the legal means to make sure it was a transparent process,” he said.

Before the certification, suggestions of a second recount upset bond supporters and opponents alike.

Sean Sundwall, a Valley parent and Mount Si High School coach who supported the bond, said a second recount was unnecessary. David Spring, a parent who opposed the bond, said what the community of the Valley needed most was closure.

“We are not opposed if they want to continue searching through a couple of boxes,” Spring said. “But our community needs some resolution. We cannot continue this.”

Grace Yuan, legal co-counsel for the Snoqualmie Valley School District, said the district would support a “focused search” for the ballot or a recount.

“Either one, as long as we can reach closure,” she said.

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com

King County Elections employees review a ballot in the hand recount for the Snoqualmie Valley School District bond proposal from the Feb. 8 election. (By Katie Gilliam)

It took less than two hours for eight 2-person teams of King County Elections employees to finish a hand recount of more than 9,200 ballots cast in the Feb. 8 election by Snoqualmie Valley School District voters. At issue is the district’s $56 million bond to build a new middle school.

The department’s Canvassing Board will meet at 2 p.m. Friday to decide on three contested ballots. The voter’s intent is not clear on one ballot. The other two ballots could be counted if the board verifies the voters’ signatures on them. To conceal how those voters filled out their ballots, they will be mixed in with about 600 ballots that have not been examined in the recount. 

The recounts final results will then be posted online.

The bond measure lost by a single vote. Within hours of the results being certified, supporters of the bond had raised the $2,650 needed to pay for a hand recount. 

Employees pulled and sorted by precinct the 9,980 ballots cast in the election. Ballots were stored in sealed cardboard boxes on shelves in an open room in the basement of the Elections’ building. Each precinct had its own box.

A runner would then deliver a box to a team. The counters would then break the seal and start sorting the ballots — approved, rejected or no vote. Both team members had to confer on each ballot.

“Number one, we’re just checking the accuracy of our results,” checking the automated process, said Katie Gilliam, a spokeswoman for King County Elections.

Baker said her daughter, a seventh-grader, arrived home Feb. 8 with a sore jaw, sore stomach, not wanting to eat and saying she had been bullied by a fellow female student.

Baker said cameras at Twin Falls Middle School did not capture the incident and that her daughter had no marks on her.

Marty Barber, vice principal at Twin Falls, said he and Baker had a great rapport and that it sounded like there had been some bullying in the past with Baker’s child.

“There’s no evidence in Twin Falls of that bullying,” he said.

Barber went on to say that if the girl is feeling bullied, that is a real feeling.

“I am not saying the child has not been bullied,” he said. “Every time we have gone and tried to find evidence, we haven’t been able to find that. I’m not saying it’s not happening at home or walking to Twin Falls.”

Baker said she understood that a lack of video evidence clouded the accusations.

“I realize it’s my word against theirs,” she said.

Baker said a “bullying pass” made special for her child had been taken away by Principal Ruth Moen.

The pass is similar to a hall pass and allows a student to go to the office to report on a bullying incident.

Barber said the pass was left at the school’s main office, not taken away from the child.

“Since then, we have made five or six more passes,” for the girl, Barber said.

Barber dismissed the possibility that the child may be harming herself or being harmed by her parents.

He added that this is not the first time Baker’s child complained of being bullied, and that the school had dealt with past situations.

This last time, however, no results of bullying were apparent, he said.

“The police were here for that investigation and found no evidence,” Barber said.

Five days before the alleged attack, the child spoke in front of the Snoqualmie Valley School Board, denouncing repeated attacks against her.

School board member Scott Hodgins approached her afterward and thanked her for coming and speaking out.

Baker said speaking at the board meeting was her daughter’s idea.

“She has been bullied since kindergarten,” she said. “I didn’t find out about it for a long period of time, until she was in the third grade.”

Now at the middle school, Baker said her daughter has been called sexually derogatory names as well as things like “stupid” and “retarded.”

At Twin Falls, Baker said, she has found a more sympathetic ear in Barber.

“He’s trying to handle the bullying,” she said of Barber.

The child is attending two classes at Twin Falls: physical education and technology. Meanwhile, Baker said she is trying to get a no contact order issued against a student whom she said attacked her daughter.

Nevertheless, Baker said she is disappointed that bullying continues to be an issue.

“This has gone on for way too long,” she said. “My daughter needs to be in school, in class, but the main thing is, she needs to be safe.”

Barber declined to rate the safety at Twin Falls when given a 1-10 range, but said the school does not ignore the issue.

“Do I think that middle school kids say things that are mean to other middle school kids? Yes, I do,” he said. “It’s our job to educate kids so that they don’t continue to do them.”

He added, “We hold kids accountable when they do inappropriate things.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

Cascade View Elementary School, Fall City Elementary School, Chief Kanim Middle School and Fall City Elementary School earned a total of six awards, with all but Twin Falls winning awards for the second consecutive year.

• Cascade View earned awards for Overall Excellence at the elementary level.
• Chief Kanim earned an award for Overall Excellence at the middle and junior high level and a Special Recognition award for science.
• Twin Falls won an Overall Excellence award at the middle and junior high level.
• Fall City Elementary won an award for Overall Excellence at the elementary level and a special recognition award for science.

The awards place the schools among the top 5 percent in the state based on test scores, graduation rates and the closing of achievement gaps over time, a press release from the school district stated.

“We are extremely proud that 40 percent of Snoqualmie Valley schools earned overall excellence recognition,” Valley Schools Superintendent Joel Aune said in a press release, “when just 5 percent of schools statewide received this prestigious recognition.”

Aune went on to praise students, staff, principals and parents.

The award has been issued since 2009 and recognizes schools in five categories besides overall excellence and science: language arts, math, extended graduation rate, improvement and closing achievement gaps.

The state selects the honorees through the Washington Achievement Index, which the state developed to measure achievement based on data from three previous years.

“We recognize this as a unique opportunity for our schools to share with one another and leverage best practices that are yielding successful results,” Aune said.

Winning schools will be honored April 27 at Tacoma’s Lincoln High School.

“By lifting up our most successful schools,” a statement on the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s website read, “the Washington Achievement Awards shines a light on some of the best practices that are making that success possible.”

The campaign went online. A Facebook page, SVSD School Bond Recount, to raise money to pay for a recount went up Wednesday, and by evening, the group had the $2,650 needed for a recount.

Sean Sundwall, who set up the Facebook page, said he plans to deliver the money and request to King County Elections on Thursday afternoon.

“With the election hanging on literally one vote, it was time to do something,” he said. “If the margin had been 50 votes, 100 votes, it would be a different story.”

Plenty of Valley voters agreed. Most of the contributions that came in were in small amounts — $10 or $20 — but they quickly added up. More than 125 people donated, Sundwall said. “It just blew up in a matter of hours.”

Like other supporters, Sundwall is worried that not passing the bond will have long-term negative consequences for Snoqualmie Valley schools, specifically its middle schools.

The Snoqualmie Valley School Board has already committed to turning Snoqualmie Middle School into a dedicated freshman satellite campus for Mount Si High School. “That leaves us with two middle schools that could not be more displaced from the centers of population” in the Valley, the Snoqualmie Ridge resident said.

“Certainly having my kids on a bus for an hour each way affects how much they like school,” Sundwall said.

His four children are in the third, fifth, seventh and eighth grades.

Given the small number of ballots, a recount could be completed by next week, according to Kim van Ekstrom, a spokeswoman for King County Elections.

Voters in Snoqualmie Valley School District sent in 9,980 ballots, with 5,972 — or 59.99 percent — supporting the bond. Opposing the bond were 3,983 — or 40.01 percent. Twenty-five ballots were rejected.

If the Canvas Board approves a recount, all ballots will be split up and scrutinized by two-person teams made up of election department staff. The process is open to the public.

A vote could change if it is determined that the ballot was filled in improperly or damaged but the voter’s intention is clear, according to van Ekstrom.

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com.

The bond measure had 59.94 percent of the vote, just shy of the 60 percent needed to pass.

The other item on the Feb. 8 ballot — a bond measure for a new fire station in North Bend — was passing.

Katie Gilliam, with the King County Elections office, said she expected a 38 percent countywide voter turnout, but offered no “hard-and-fast” figures for voter turnout in the Valley.

So far, elections officials have counted votes from nearly 50 percent of all registered voters in the Snoqualmie Valley School District.

School bond

Joel Aune, superintendent of Snoqualmie Valley schools, said Feb. 14 he was moderately optimistic the bond would break the 60-percent mark.

“Later ballots tend to trend upward,” he said.

Aune said he was grateful for the work of pro-bond volunteers, and for the strong voter turnout, nearing 10,000 votes as of Valentine’s Day.

With the economy struggling, a vote this close is no surprise, he said.

“We had a feeling it was going to be close and sure enough,” he said, “it’s going to go right down to the wire.”

On Election Night, Jim Reitz, of the pro-bond group Valley Voters for Education, said bond votes are usually close in the Valley.

“In 2003, our last successful election that built a school, we were at almost the exact same point on election night,” he said. “We came back to win by 34 votes. If it wasn’t for those votes we might not have Twin Falls Middle School today.”

Since then, three school bond measures for new school construction have failed.

Reitz said he was optimistic the ballots still in the mail would push the election past the 60-percent threshold.

David Spring, a two-time Legislature candidate who opposes the bond, said the results are still too close to call.

Nevertheless, he said the support for the bond is substantially less than that for the 2009 bond proposal.

“It appears that close to 1,000 voters may have switched from a yes vote in 2009 to a no vote in 2011,” he said.

According to the King County website, the March 10, 2009, vote on a $27 million bond proposal triumphed 67 percent to 32.9 percent, with more than 6,000 people voting yes and 3,046 people voting no.

Spring said an announcement at the school board meeting of Feb. 3 stating the high school enrollment at the district had dropped by 50 students in the last year had sent shockwaves through the district voters.

“If the bond goes down to defeat, that announcement will have played a crucial role,” Spring said.

Four school bonds were on ballots in King County. All stood close to 60 percent of the vote, but only the Highline School District bond had crossed the threshold.

“On Election Day, four of 18 bonds were passing,” Aune said. “Not a good day for schools statewide.”

With the number of votes dwindling, Aune said the district had not given up.

“We’re in a tight spot,” he said. “But we will have to see.”

Fire Station bond

For the $5 million fire station bond to pass, North Bend voters and Fire District 38 votes must each approve a separate bond measure. If the bond measures pass, the two entities will jointly build, own and operate the new station. They jointly operate the existing fire station.

As of Feb. 15, more than 73 percent of North Bend voters and about 61.9 percent of District 38 voters had backed the fire station bond.

The bond is the product of nearly seven years of negotiations between the city and fire district. The two sides reached an agreement in July.

Major issues that were stumbling blocks were splitting the cost of construction and the location.

The new station will be on Maloney Grove Avenue Southeast south of East North Bend Way. It is a central location for serving the two jurisdictions, according to North Bend and Fire District 38 officials.

Ownership of the station will be split evenly, while the fire district will pay for 57 percent of construction-related costs. The city owns the land to be used as the new station’s site and will be reimbursed by the district.

The current station is more than 60 years old and lacks a fire sprinkler system.

The King County Elections office received more votes than expected. Six districts in the county had issues on the Feb. 8 ballot, and the county received more than 55,000 votes.

Election results are scheduled to be certified Feb. 23.

Dan Catchpole: 392-6434, ext. 246, or editor@snovalleystar.com. Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

The bond proposal to build a middle school on Snoqualmie Ridge stood on the verge of a comeback win when new results were released Tuesday afternoon by King County Elections. The bond measure had 59.78 percent of the vote, just shy of the 60 percent needed to pass.

The other item on the Feb. 8 ballot — a bond measure for a new fire station in North Bend — was passing.

Katie Gilliam, with the King County Elections office said that the amount of ballots coming in would plummet after Feb. 9.

Gilliam said she expected a 38 percent countywide voter turnout but offered no “hard-and-fast” figures for voter turnout in the Valley.

So far, elections officials have counted votes from nearly 40 percent of all registered voters in Snoqualmie Valley School District.

School bond

Jim Reitz, of the pro-bond group Valley Voters for Education, said bond votes are usually close in the Valley.

“In 2003, our last successful election that built a school, we were at almost the exact same point on election night,” he said. “We came back to win by 34 votes. If it wasn’t for those votes we might not have Twin Falls Middle School today.”

Since then, three school bond measures for new school construction have failed.

Reitz said he was optimistic the ballots still in the mail would push the election past the 60-percent threshold.

David Spring, a two-time Legislature candidate who opposes the bond, said the results are still too close to call.

Nevertheless, he said the support for the bond is substantially less than that for the 2009 bond proposal.

“It appears that close to 1,000 voters may have switched from a yes vote in 2009 to a no vote in 2011,” he said.

According to the King County website, the March 10, 2009, vote on a $27 million bond proposal triumphed 67 percent to 32.9 percent, with more than 6,000 people voting yes and 3,046 people voting no.

Spring said an announcement at the school board meeting of Feb. 3 stating the high school enrollment at the district had dropped by 50 students in the last year had sent shockwaves through the district voters.

“If the bond goes down to defeat, that announcement will have played a crucial role,” Spring said.

Four school bonds were on ballots in King County. All have close to 60 percent of the vote, but only the Highline School District bond had crossed the threshold.

Fire Station bond

For the $5 million fire station bond to pass, North Bend voters and Fire District 38 votes must each approve a separate bond measure. If the bond measures pass, the two entities will jointly build, own and operate the new station. They jointly operate the existing fire station.

In early returns, 72 percent of North Bend voters and nearly 62 percent of District 38 voters had backed the fire station bond.

The King County Elections office received more votes than expected. Six districts in the county had issues on the Feb. 8 ballot, and the county received more than 55,000 votes.

Voters can track their ballot on the King County Elections website.

Election results are scheduled to be certified Feb. 23.

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. Dan Catchpole contributed to this report.

David Spring, pictured with his daughter, says Snoqualmie Valley School District is using “scare tactics” to garner support for the bond measure on ballots for the Feb. 8 election. (Contributed)

Activist David Spring said the Snoqualmie Valley School District wants to scare people into voting for the bond by promising to create a ninth-grade annex at a middle school.

The annex, Spring said, belongs to a larger plan to turn Mount Si High School into a “megaschool.”

District authorities have said Snoqualmie Middle School will become a ninth-grade branch of Mount Si High regardless of the result of the Feb. 8 bond proposal to build a new middle school.

Spring, a former candidate for the state Legislature, said the district won’t create a ninth-graders’ annex.

“I don’t think that will happen,” he said. “If they did that, it could leave 20-plus classrooms empty at Mount Si High School and the public won’t stand for that.”

Snoqualmie Valley Schools Superintendent Joel Aune issued a statement through public information coordinator Carolyn Malcolm refuting Spring’s accusations, defending the district’s data and insisting the district is committed to annexing Snoqualmie Middle School.

Mount Si High, according to the statement, will be overcrowded by 2013 and the bond offers a cost-effective solution that would alleviate overcrowding in secondary schools for many years to come.

“The district stands behind our data and the concepts that have been presented,” the statement read, later adding, “For those who have specific questions about the bond, I’d encourage them to call or stop by the district office.”

Spring said state budget cuts and the firing of teachers will leave empty classrooms, which will allow building a second story on the 300 wing of Mount Si High.

Ryan Stokes the district’s head of finance, refuted Springs’ charges starting with a denial of any megaschool plans.

Spring said he opposes the Feb. 8 bond proposal and what he says are the district’s plans. He favors building a separate high school outside the Snoqualmie River flood plain.

Asked why his website, www.organizingforcommunityschools.org, states the school district has warned there will be 1,900 middle-schoolers by 2013 — when Schools Superintendent Joel Aune said less than a month ago that the projection is about 1,400 — Spring said the district had revised its projections from its 2010 Capital Improvements Plan to fool people.

“I believe this was done deliberately,” he said. “The bond was based on this plan.”

The district, Stokes said, bases its bond proposal on an October 2010 study, not the plan Springs cited.

In a SnoValley Star article dated Feb. 18, 2010, the district staff projected high school enrollment would surpass 2,300 students in 2013.

Last month, in a district-issued chart obtained by the Star, projections topped 1,700 in 2013.

Stokes said the former numbers used projections from 2008 by Calm River Demographics in Gig Harbor, Stokes said. By the time this bond rolled around the projections were far outdated.

The latter numbers are the accurate ones, he said.

District authorities said they scrapped plans to remodel the high school because it was too expensive, almost $100 million.

Spring said they haven’t scrapped it, just hidden it from the public because otherwise the bond won’t pass.

“That’s why I say that this bond will cost not $50 million but $150 million,” Spring said.

Jim Reitz, with the pro-bond group Valley Voters for Education, said that is not true adding that the $100-million remodeling was discussed and dismissed.

“Everyone is entitled to their opinions,” Reitz said. “Just not their own facts.”

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

No children suffered serious injuries after their school bus collided with a Subaru Impreza in Fall City the afternoon of Oct. 13.

Trooper Christy Martin, of the Washington State Patrol, said the crash occurred at about 3:45 p.m. on state Route 202 near the intersection with Fish Hatchery Road.

Martin said the Subaru pulled out of a driveway without noticing the bus traveling west on 202. The bus hit the car, injuring the Subaru’s driver, an 18-year-old woman, and her younger sibling, a teenage girl.

Martin described both injuries as minor.

Carolyn Malcolm, public information officer for the Snoqualmie Valley School District, said the students belong to Snoqualmie Elementary School, the driver of the car was a Mount Si High School graduate and the passenger is a Mount Si High School student.

Some children in the bus suffered scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious, Martin said. Malcolm denied media reports that the children had been taken to a hospital.

“There were seven of them on the bus, another bus went to get them and everybody checked out,” Malcolm said.

The driver of the bus that crashed traveled with the children so she could talk to the parents, Malcolm added.

The highway’s westbound lanes were closed for about an hour before resuming at about 5 p.m., Martin said.

The crash is still under investigation, but Martin said she believed the bus’ speed was not a factor.

A point of clarification on student test scores

The purpose of this letter is to provide some clarification to a few points in “Voices split on test scores” in the Sept. 30 Star.

The point I was trying to make at the school board meeting was that fourth-, seventh- and 10th-grade reading and math test scores for the past three years in the Snoqualmie Valley School District exceeded the state average, but were below the average of seven neighboring districts in every case.

I also pointed out that, in many cases, Snoqualmie was getting farther away from this peer group average or showing little improvement. My analysis was looking at the average of this group as well as the ranking of the scores of the Snoqualmie district in comparison to other Eastside districts. I did not say all of these districts beat out the Snoqualmie district every time.

I chose these districts because they are our neighbors, areas in which Valley residents work and shop, or districts with which Snoqualmie schools compete in athletics and arts events. To me, this peer group is a much more reasonable group with which to compare test scores instead of with the state.

Should we be satisfied when our students test higher than the mediocre average of the state? Shouldn’t our district and our community set higher expectations for our students?

The math scores for 10th grade have dropped by more than 11 points over the past two years. When 44 percent (or almost half) of all 10th-graders in the Valley don’t pass a math assessment, then some sort of major change is needed, from elementary to high school. This type of failure must be difficult for students to handle as they get the scores in the beginning of their junior year. Could these scores contribute to our 9.5 percent dropout rate or our low rates of students attending and graduating from four-year colleges?

Our students are competitive on athletic fields and in arts competitions with these other districts. Let’s work together as a community to help our students be as academically prepared as students in this Eastside peer group.

Carolyn Simpson

Snoqualmie

Home Country brings tears to the eyes

I just wanted to take a second to let you know I thought the piece written by Slim Randles, “Outliving best friends doesn’t seem right,” was wonderful. It honestly brought tears to my eyes.

Jennifer Rider

North Bend

The new standardized test scores released Aug. 31 brought mixed results to the Snoqualmie Valley School District.

Some schools saw big jumps, some saw continued success, but some slipped when compared to last year’s tests.

This year, the Measurement of Student Progress — for elementary and middle schools — and the High School Proficiency Exam tests replaced the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, in place since the late 1990s.

Mount Si High Principal Randy Taylor, whose 10th-graders’ scores came in Aug. 31, criticized the new high school test.

“The reading portion took longer than anticipated and we had kids needing more time to finish the test,” he said.

Mount Si High scored 87.1 percent in reading, down 2 percent from last year, but better than the state average of 78.8 percent and the district average of 85.8 percent.

Randy Dorn, state superintendent of public instruction, said in an Aug. 31 press release that the state will shrink the reading test in 2011.

Taylor said the tests are not the only way to measure student success.

“ìThere’s other indicators that say kids are being successful, despite the WASL and HSPE scores,”î he said, referring to the old and new standardized tests. “ìOur ACT scores are out in a few weeks and they are phenomenal, just blew our socks off.”î

The ACT is a college-admission test.

Mount Si scored 57.7 percent in math on the High School Proficiency Exam, down from 60.1 percent last year, but 16 percent higher than the state average.

Taylor said the math standards changed since last year and it’s not fair to compare two tests with different standards.

Chris Barron, from the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, said the comparison is valid this year but not the next. The state will replace the test with two exams on algebra and geometry in 2011.

The exams will be the third different high school math tests in three years.

Taylor criticized the move.

“The kids and teachers will have to adapt to a different test again,”î he said.

Slipping in reading scores from 89.1 percent last year to 87.1 percent this year is a concern, Taylor said. He praised the school’s science score of 58 percent, almost 10 percent higher than last year.

Other scores include:

• Cascade View Elementary School scored on average 19.6 percent above state averages in all its grades’ reading tests.
• Opstad Elementary School’s third- and fifth-grade reading scores of 76.7 percent and 78.9 percent, respectively, each dropped almost 10 percentage points from last year. Both scores stand above state average. Fourth-grade reading improved 7.2 percent from 2008-09, with 81.9 percent. The school had math scores below district and state averages in fourth and fifth grades.
• Chief Kanim Middle School’s scored 88.1 percent in sixth-grade reading, 86.7 percent in seventh and 86.2 percent in eighth. On average, those scores stand 21 percentage points above the state average. The school’s math scores, 79.7 percent, 84.8 percent and 78.9 percent, respectively, stand on average 26 percentage points higher.

“We attribute our success to the district as a whole,”Principal Kirk Dunckel said. “It’s kind of a trickle-up effect. Kids are benefiting from good teachers all along the way, from elementary.”

• Snoqualmie Elementary School third-graders scored 74.6 percent in reading, a drop from last year’s 81.7 percent. Fourth-graders dropped from 75.3 percent to 69.2 percent. Fifth-graders jumped from last year’s 77.4 percent to 78.8 percent. The school scored better than the state average in math in fourth and fifth grades. Fifth-graders scored 50 percent in science, 16 percentage points better than the state’s average, but down 9.1 percent from last year.
• Snoqualmie Middle School scored 73.3 percent in sixth-grade reading, a drop from the 2008-09 score of 82 percent. The school improved on last year’s scores in seventh-grade reading, with 77.2 percent and eighth grade, with 82.8 percent. The school scored 75.5 percent, 74 percent and 68.8 percent in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade math, respectively. Math scores were on average almost 20 percent higher than the state averages.
• Twin Falls Middle School scored 80.3 in seventh-grade reading, a 7.3 percent jump from last year. Eighth-graders scored 86.5 percent, a 1.7 percent jump. Sixth-graders scored 79.2 percent, a 5.4 percent drop. Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders scored 70.3 percent, 69.7 percent and 67.6 percent in math, respectively, on average 16 points above the state marks.
• Two Rivers School eighth-graders scored a 38.5 percent on their reading test. Tenth-graders scored a 66.7 percent in reading, down from 69.2 percent in 2008-09. They also scored 15.8 percent in math, 71.4 percent in writing and 36.8 percent in science.

Carolyn Malcolm, public information coordinator for the school district, said that since the release of results coincided with the district’s first day of school, district officials have not had the chance to analyze scores yet.

The district will analyze the results in depth during a Sept. 23 presentation, she said.

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

The new standardized test scores released Tuesday brought mixed results for Snoqualmie Valley School District.

Some schools in the district saw big improvements in their standing relative to other Washington schools over last year. Other schools saw continued success, but some schools slipped.

This year was the first for the High School Proficiency Exam and the Measurement of Student Progress for elementary and middle schools. The tests replaced the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, which was introduced in the late 1990s.

Mount Si students scored 87.1 percent in reading, down 2 percent from the previous year, but better than state and district averages.

Mount Si scored 57.7 percent in math, down from 60 percent in the 2008-2009 school year but well above the state average 41.6 percent.

Reading scores for Mount Si slipped to 87.1, down from 89.1.

The school’s science scores increased almost 10 percentage points to 58 percent.

Despite Mount Si’s gains, the school’s principal, Randy Taylor, criticized the new test after results were released for students who took the test last spring as 10th graders.

“The reading portion took longer than anticipated, and we had kids needing more time to finish the test,” he said.

Randy Dorn, state Superintendent of Public Instruction, said in an Aug. 31 news release that the state will shorten the reading test to be taken in spring 2011.

Taylor said the math standards changed since the previous test and that it’s not fair to compare two tests with different standards.

The comparison is valid this year but won’t be next year, said Chris Barron, a spokesman for the superintendent. The state will replace the current math test with two exams on algebra and geometry in 2011.

The exams will be the third different high school math tests in three years.

Taylor criticized the move. “The kids and teachers will have to adapt to a different test again,” he said.

The Snoqualmie Valley School District declined to comment for this story.

The tests are not the only way to measure student success, Taylor said.

“There’s other indicators that say kids are being successful despite the WASL and HSPE scores,” he said, referring to the old and new standardized tests.

He pointed to the results of another standardized test — the ACT, a college-admission test — taken by juniors last school year.

“Our ACT scores … they are phenomenal, just blew our socks off.”

Other scores include:

• Cascade View Elementary scored on average 19.6 percent above state averages in all its grades’ reading tests.
• Opstad Elementary’s third- and fifth-grade reading scores of 76.7 and 78.9 percent respectively, each dropped almost 10 percentage points from last year. Both scores stand above state average. Fourth-grade reading improved 7.2 percent from 2008-09, with 81.9 percent. The school had math scores below district and state averages on fourth and fifth grades.
• Chief Kanim Middle School’s scored 88.1 percent in sixth-grade reading, 86.7 percent in seventh and 86.2 percent in eighth. On average, these scores stand 21 percentage points above the state average. The school’s math scores, 79.7, 84.8 and 78.9 percent respectively, stand on average 26 percentage points higher. “We attribute our success to the district as a whole,” he said. “It’s kind of a trickle-up effect,” Principal Kirk Dunckel said. “Kids are benefiting from good teachers all along the way, from elementary.
• Snoqualmie Elementary third-graders scored 74.6 percent in reading, a drop from last year’s 81.7 percent. Fourth-graders dropped from 75.3 percent to 69.2 percent. Fifth-graders jumped from last year’s 77.4 to 78.8 percent. The school scored better than the state average in math in fourth and fifth grades. Fifth-graders scored 50 percent in science, 16 percentage points better than state’s average, but down 9.1 percent from last year.
• Snoqualmie Middle School scored 73.3 percent in sixth-grade reading, a drop from the 2008-09 score of 82 percent. The school improved on last year’s scores in seventh-grade reading, with 77.2 percent and eighth grade, with 82.8 percent. The school scored 75.5, 74 and 68.8 percent in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade math, respectively. Math scores were on average almost 20 percent higher than the state averages.
• Twin Falls Middle School scored 80.3 in seventh-grade reading, a 7.3 percent jump from last year. Eighth-graders scored 86.5 percent, a 1.7 percent jump. Sixth-graders’ scored 79.2 percent, a 5.4 percent drop. Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders scored 70.3, 69.7 and 67.6 percent in math, respectively, on average 16 points above the state marks.
• Two Rivers School eighth-graders scored a 38.5 percent on their reading test. Two Rivers’ 10th-graders scored a 66.7 percent in reading, down from 69.2 in 2008-09. Tenth-graders scored 15.8 percent in math, 71.4 percent in writing and 36.8 percent in science.

Sebastian Moraga: 3926434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

Just call it Teaching 2.0.

Teachers from the Snoqualmie Valley School District learned how to bring wikis, blogs, podcasts and other techie buzzwords into their classrooms Aug. 20, 21 and 23 at Twin Falls Middle School.

Droves of teachers attended class, some showing up for several classes each day.

Teachers from the district also taught classes, which led to the sight of schoolteachers teaching schoolteachers.

“We’re hoping that any strategies they leave here with, they can put to use very soon,” said Jeff Hogan, the district’s director of technology.

Karen Schotzko taught a class on podcasting, which filled one of the computer labs. Of all of the teachers in the room, one said she had experience podcasting. That made teaching the class easier, with most everyone on the same level, she said.

Schotzko’s class opened with a three-minute video from www.commoncraft.com, where someone explained the meaning of podcasting — think “Playable On Demand” plus “broadcasting” — and the myths of podcasting — no, you don’t need an iPod to do it.

Another video explained the importance of bringing podcasts and other technology to a classroom that is full of tech-savvy children nine months out of the year.

Schotzko and the other instructors — almost 20 — received three to four days of training earlier in the year, “because it’s different to teach kids than to teach adults,” Hogan said.

During training, the instructors brainstormed what classes they wanted to teach. Teachers Kerstin Kramer and Gayle Smith helped put the curriculum of classes together, Hogan said.

One of the purposes of the classes is to help children get excited about learning, Hogan said. A geography class might look more interesting than usual if instead of a map, children use Google Earth.

There’s more to it than just using the training in the classrooms, Hogan said. Just as important is that teachers set goals for themselves. In spring, teachers assessed their tech know-how prior to the classes. In the first two months of 2011, it will be reassessed.

Sebastian Moraga: 392-6434, ext. 221, or smoraga@snovalleystar.com.

Deputy Superintendent Don McConkey listed ways to merge the three departments by concentrating on professional development, assessment and leadership.

Professional development

McConkey said professional development — classes teachers take to learn more about content and lesson delivery — helps teachers grow, which in turn helps their students.

Professional development should be mandatory and job embedded, so teachers can take classes during the day, when they are most alert, he said at the Snoqualmie Valley School Board work session July 8.

Some professional development would have teachers observe other teachers in different departments. A history teacher might observe a science teacher and glean ideas about how to engage students and teach a lesson.

Professional training in technology will start at the end of August, when teachers can take classes at the Snoqualmie Valley Summer Learning Academy. If teachers attend the classes and prove they have incorporated new technology, like ActivBoard strategies, into their lessons, they will receive an additional $1,650 at the end of the year with money from the 2010 levy.

Student Services Director Nancy Meeks said professional development would also help students with disabilities and English language learners. Several professional development courses offered by the district instruct teachers how to create lesson plans that not only help their regular, but also their struggling students.

The programs, called Guided Language Acquisition Design and Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol, have already helped students who don’t have immediate access to teachers trained in special needs or English language learning.

Assessments

Teachers need tools that allow them to analyze data related to their students’ learning, McConkey said.

Teachers should spend less time scoring and more time synthesizing, he said.

There are quite a few assessment tests out there, including the Measurement of Student Progress for middle school students, the High School Proficiency Exam and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, better known as DIBELS. Although there is no shortage of assessments, teachers don’t have one, go-to place where they can electronically see all of them for a given student.

That is about to change.

The school district is buying software — an electronic teacher data dashboard and portal — that would group students’ grades together along with their assessment scores and discipline issues in a color-coded spreadsheet. Green for good scores, yellow for average and red for poor results.

Superintendent Joel Aune said the district would have to train teachers how to use the software and take advantage of it.

“It will be a two- to three-year learning experience until we can get to a point where teachers are agile and they can leverage that,” Aune said.

The district hopes to launch the software this year, McConkey said.

Leadership

There are several leadership avenues available to teachers, including content area and grade level leaders, teachers who are on special assignment and administrative interns.

Teachers can also become leaders through professional development opportunities, and then translate their knowledge into the classroom, helping their students learn.

McConkey said the district has integrated student services into its professional development workshops for years.

“It all makes sense that we need to be working in concert and leveraging resources so that we can ensure we’re providing seamless services for our kids across the district,” he said.

Once educators have more ideas from professional development, they can focus on curriculum and instruction by increasing the content level and complexity students are asked to learn. McConkey also challenged educators to make teaching more student centered and less teacher centered.

“If we are not doing one of these three things, we are not improving teaching and learning,” McConkey said.

Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 221, or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com. Comment at www.snovalleystar.com.

Snoqualmie Valley School District officials have outlined a teaching and learning plan that would integrate three major departments: curriculum and instruction, student services and instructional technology.

Deputy Superintendent Don McConkey listed ways to merge the three departments by concentrating on professional development, assessment and leadership.

Professional development

McConkey said professional development — classes teachers take to learn more about content and lesson delivery — helps teachers grow, which in turn helps their students.

Professional development should be mandatory and job embedded, so teachers can take classes during the day, when they are most alert, he said at the Snoqualmie Valley School Board work session July 8.

Some professional development would have teachers observe other teachers in different departments. A history teacher might observe a science teacher and glean ideas about how to engage students and teach a lesson.

Professional training in technology will start at the end of August, when teachers can take classes at the Snoqualmie Valley Summer Learning Academy. If teachers attend the classes and prove they have incorporated new technology, like ActivBoard strategies, into their lessons, they will receive an additional $1,650 at the end of the year with money from the 2010 levy.

Student Services Director Nancy Meeks said professional development would also help students with disabilities and English language learners. Several professional development courses offered by the district instruct teachers how to create lesson plans that not only help their regular but also their struggling students.

The programs, called Guided Language Acquisition Design and Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol, have already helped students who don’t have immediate access to teachers trained in special needs or English language learning. 

Assessments

Teachers need tools that allow them to analyze data related to their students’ learning, McConkey said.

Teachers should spend less time scoring and more time synthesizing, he said.

There are quite a few assessment tests out there, including the Measurement of Student progress for middle school students, the High School Proficiency Exam and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, better known as DIBELS. Although there is no shortage of assessments, teachers don’t have one, go-to place where they can electronically see all of them for a given student.

That is about to change.

The school district is buying software — an electronic teacher data dashboard and portal — that would group students’ grades together along with their assessment scores and discipline issues in a color-coded spreadsheet. Green for good scores, yellow for average and red for poor results.

Superintendent Joel Aune said the district would have to train teachers how to use the software and take advantage of it.

“It will be a two- to three-year learning experience until we can get to a point where teachers are agile and they can leverage that,” Aune said.

The district hopes to launch the software this year, McConkey said. 

Leadership

There are several leadership avenues available to teachers, including content area and grade level leaders, teachers who are on special assignment and administrative interns.

Teachers can also become leaders through professional development opportunities, and then translate their knowledge into the classroom, helping their students learn.

McConkey said the district has integrated student services into its professional development workshops for years.

“It all makes sense that we need to be working in concert and leveraging resources so that we can ensure we’re providing seamless services for our kids across the district,” he said.

Once educators have more ideas from professional development, they can focus on curriculum and instruction by increasing the content level and complexity students are asked to learn. McConkey also challenged educators to make teaching more student centered and less teacher centered.

“If we are not doing one of these three things, we are not improving teaching and learning,” McConkey said.

Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 221, or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.

District Business Director Ron Ellis said the district had, as he presented the district’s proposed 2011 impact fees, part of its six-year Capital Facilities Plan.

The Capital Facilities Plan outlines three major growth components, including what new buildings the district plans to build, what land officials propose to buy and how many portable classrooms the district needs.

In its 2010 Capital Facilities Plan, the district plans to build a new elementary and middle school, both located on Snoqualmie Ridge on the land the district already owns.

The middle school, proposed to open for the 2013-14 school year, would replace Snoqualmie Middle School, which Mount Si High School is set to annex that same year. The new elementary school is proposed to open for the 2015-16 school year.

The six-year plan includes more than the two new schools; it also proposes the district buy 36 portable classrooms, bringing the district’s total portable classroom count to 94 by 2015.

Of the 36 new portable classrooms, 10 would be for elementary schools, 16 would be for middle schools and 10 would be for the high school.

According to the plan’s cost estimates, the district can set local impact fees, which affect new dwellings. Before implementation, the district’s impact fees need to be approved by the School Technical Review Committee of King County; Snoqualmie Valley School Board; the cities of Snoqualmie, Sammamish and North Bend; and the King County Council.

Several Sammamish neighborhoods send their children to Snoqualmie Valley schools.

If approved, this year’s impact fees would be among the highest in the region.

For single-family dwellings, the proposed charges would be $5,628 for Riverview, $5,266 for Auburn and $3,808 for Issaquah. For multifamily dwellings, like an apartment building, the proposed charges would be $2,169 for Riverview, $1,518 for Auburn and no charge for Issaquah.

If approved, the Snoqualmie Valley district would top its neighbors.

A single-family dwelling would cost developers $8,140 (last year, it was $2,687) and a multifamily dwelling would cost developers $3,252 (last year, it was $1,033).

Ellis said he had recently readjusted the impact fees after acquiring more recent student enrollment projections. The district is projected to grow by 7 percent in the next six years, to an estimated total of 8,037 students in 2015-16.

The district can house up to 6,582 students in its buildings and portable classrooms now.

After looking at the Capital Facilities Plan, North Bend councilman Alan Gothelf asked why so many students would have to be housed in portables. In a later interview, Ellis said portables were the district’s only alternative at the time.

“Until we can get a bond passed to build schools, we’re going to have to use portables to bridge the gap,” Ellis said.

Councilman Dee Williamson said he had not seen any out-of-the-box thinking regarding school crowding and budget cuts from the district, like year-round school, but Ellis said that annexing Snoqualmie Middle School was one creative solution the district had approved.

Ellis said he and Ryan Stokes, the district’s new business director, would meet with the Snoqualmie City Council in August. The School Technical Review Committee of King County already looked at the plan, and Sammamish has yet to see it, Ellis said. The plan will either be approved or rejected by the King County Council this fall.

The Snoqualmie Valley School District is entering the third and final year of its federal stimulus allowance. To date, the district has received about $3.1 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. By 2011, it expects to have received a total of about $3.7 million.

President Barack Obama signed the act into law in February 2009, giving a $787 billion recovery package to help the economy and to create and save jobs, according to the act’s website, www.recovery.gov.

One of the act’s goals is to increase federal funding for education, though only in the short term.

“It’s a double-edged sword, because you get some federal dollars that allow you to retain some of the programs that you would have otherwise had to reduce, and you’re hoping that when the money goes away, that the economy improves so you don’t have to make the cuts you didn’t want to make in the first place,” district Business Director Ron Ellis said.

The federal stimulus money came at a time of local and state budget deficits, prompting Ellis and his team to use much of it as backfill to replace lost money.

The federal stimulus came in three different forms — through the Title I budget, which helps children from low-income households, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, called IDEA. With the third form, State Fiscal Stabilization, Washington received federal stimulus dollars it passed along to school districts. The state spent the money in several ways, including on Initiative 728, used to hire and train more teachers.

All of the State Fiscal Stabilization money and 50 percent of the IDEA money helped backfill local and state deficits, Ellis said.

The district receives Title I and IDEA monies every year, but the federal stimulus money offered a temporary boost to both.

Student Services Director Nancy Meeks said the district spent its federal stimulus money carefully, since it was only a temporary fix.

“We knew they were a one-time only expenditure,” Meeks said. “We probably have not spent our dollars as soon as many other districts have — we’re thinking about how we spend the dollars so that we don’t have that cliff. So, if we’re spending those dollars on staff, we know we can’t continue it.”

She gave an example of smart spending, saying it would be wise to spend the money on new curriculum, a one-time expense, instead of spending it on a teacher.

Even with federal stimulus dollars, district officials still had to make cuts — including about $3.2 million in the 2009-10 school year. This year, the district dipped into its reserves so it would not have to make more cuts.

By the time the education federal stimulus dollars expire Aug. 31, 2011, they “will have helped avoid even deeper reductions to instructional programs than we would have otherwise had to make in the face of significant cuts to state funding,” Ellis said.

The forecast is still uncertain, and Ellis said if the economy doesn’t improve, the district might have to make more cuts in the 2011-12 school year, after federal stimulus dollars expire.

“If the state’s economy does not significantly improve by the time that federal stimulus dollars end, the district may be faced with further reductions to programs and services,” he said.

Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 221, or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.

Snoqualmie Valley Superintendent Joel Aune’s administrative peers have voted him president-elect of the Washington Association of School Administrators. Aune will follow the current president, Saundra Hill, superintendent of the Pasco School District, when her term ends in July 2011.

He said he was “deeply honored” to serve WASA and thanked his colleagues for electing him to office.

The Olympia-based WASA provides training and support for education administrators, and advocates for legislation, according to its website.

“I believe WASA must continue to play a key role in supporting those who lead our schools,” Aune said in a news release. “Now, more than ever, we must work to maintain and further expand WASA’s role as a credible, persistent and respected advocate for public education in the state of Washington.”

Aune listed several goals he hopes to accomplish during his term, including advocating for public education funding, increasing membership, strengthening WASA’s Corporate Partners Program and developing more professional development opportunities for members.

Aune has worked in education since 1983, when he worked as a teacher and then as assistant principal in the Cashmere School District. After working as an elementary school principal in Walla Walla, he served as superintendent in the Colfax School District, until he came to Snoqualmie Valley in 2005.

Aune has held many positions in WASA already. After joining the group in 1998, he served twice on the Board of Directors from 2004-06 and again from 2007-09, as president of WASA Metro Region from 2008-09, as a WASA Membership Committee chair from 2006-08, as a WASA Management Review Team member in 2003, as Northeast WASA Region president from 2002–03 and Northeast WASA Region Superintendent’s Component chair from 2001–02.

Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 221, or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.

The Snoqualmie Valley School Board approved Stokes’ contract at the June 24 board meeting. Ellis will continue working until Aug. 31 to help Stokes, who starts work July 12, with the transition.

Ryan Stokes

For the past eight years, Stokes has worked as a licensed certified public accountant, auditing industries and companies as an external audit manager for a national public accounting firm.

As an external audit manager, Stokes said he gained experience as a problem solver, project manager and communicator. At his current job, he said he routinely informs board members of accounting processes “in a way that people can make educated decisions.”

A native of New Mexico, he graduated from Brigham Young University, where he majored in accounting. He moved to the Snoqualmie Valley in 2007, and said he learned about the job at the district in a roundabout way.

When the school district announced it would issue a boundary change for its elementary school students this spring, Stokes and his wife began following the district’s website for updates about the change, which affected their three children. It was there that he saw the job posting.

“I saw the position and I thought that it would be a great position to be involved with,” Stokes said.

During the interview process, “I was really excited and very impressed by all of the district employees I met with,” he said. “They seemed to have good energy and dedication to what they were doing. It’s nice to have something with such a great purpose.”

Stokes was one of 20 candidates who applied for the position. He said he would bring a fresh perspective to the district, and communicate openly with the school board and the public about issues the district faces.

“There are obviously challenges with growth and state budget cuts and the kind of district that we live in,” he said. “We want to make sure we are looking on the horizon enough and make sure we can anticipate those changes.”

As director of business services, Stokes will be responsible for budget planning and management, enrollment and staffing allocations, and state and federal financial reporting, according to the district’s website. He will also oversee several district teams, including business services, maintenance and operations, transportation, personnel and food services, as well as facilities improvements.

Superintendent Joel Aune said he looks forward to working with Stokes.

“We are very impressed with Ryan Stokes’ credentials and experience,” Aune said in a news release. “He brings great energy, extremely successful experience in his current career track, outstanding technical skills and a sincere interest in the Snoqualmie Valley School District. I feel confident that he will be a positive addition to our district and a capable replacement for Ron Ellis, who has done a superb job here for the past eight years.”

Laura Geggel: 392-6434, ext. 221, or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.