Educators of the year, part I: Long hours for Opstad Elementary School teacher
March 18, 2011
Let it be said that Sharon Piper, elementary educator of the year for the Snoqualmie Valley School District, breaks her promises.
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.
A bond too far: Snoqualmie Valley school bond falls short
March 9, 2011
NOTE: An earlier version of this article described three past bonds as construction bonds
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.
King County Elections finishes bulk of hand recount of Snoqualmie Valley school bond
March 3, 2011
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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.
Snoqualmie Valley student is bullied after speaking out against it
March 2, 2011
Kim Baker, a parent at Twin Falls Middle School, said her middle school daughter was bullied in early February, days after denouncing school violence at a school board meeting.
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.
Snoqualmie Valley schools earn kudos from state
March 2, 2011
The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction has recognized four schools in Snoqualmie Valley with the Washington Achievement Award for 2010.
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. Read more
Snoqualmie Valley voters chip in to pay for school bond vote recount
February 24, 2011
When supporter of the $56 million bond measure to build a new school in Snoqualmie Valley heard that it had failed by a single vote, they started to call for a recount.
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.
School bond less than 0.1 percent away from passing
February 16, 2011
The bond proposal to build a middle school on Snoqualmie Ridge stood on the verge of a comeback win when new results were released Feb. 18 by King County Elections.
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.
Snoqualmie Valley School District inching closer to 60-percent mark
February 11, 2011
UPDATED — 4:23 p.m., Feb. 14
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.
Activist warns of school district ‘scare tactics’ on bond
February 2, 2011
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.
Children safe after Fall City bus crash
October 21, 2010
NEW — 10:07 a.m. Oct. 21, 2010
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.
