·         Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy the holiday with your little turkeys while school is out this Thursday and Friday.

 

·         All schools are now looking for a parent representative to serve on the district’s Boundary Review Committee, which will recommend a district wide border configuration to the School Board to ensure that all schools and have the right balance of student enrollment and resources in the future. Every school will have a principal and parent voting representative on the committee who will be responsible for setting aside personal interests to find boundary solutions that are best for their school and the district as a whole. Applications will be available in the main office of your school starting this week. Your school’s site council will select its representative. The Boundary Review Committee is scheduled to convene on January 30 and meet about every other Wednesday through June. All meetings will be open to the public, and minutes will be posted online. The new boundaries will begin to go into effect in fall 2009, when Pacific Cascade Freshman Campus will convert into a middle school and Skyline and Issaquah High will reclaim their freshmen. The committee will have the authority to look at all boundary options, and it should be close to a final recommendation at the end of the school year. Ask your principal for more information.

 

·         Is it on your calendar? The Board will hold an important work-study session to look at elementary facility options—specifically discussing the future of Clark Elementary and the planned new elementary on the Sammamish Plateau—at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28, at the Administration Building. The Board and audience members will hear data for the first time at this meeting, which will have no time dedicated to public input. Depending on what the Board directs, a thorough public input process could be created following the meeting to help the Board process the data and make a decision.

 

·         Biology curriculum adoption: The Instructional Materials Committee has recommended the Board adopt “Biology” by McDougal-Littell for use in high school biology classrooms. This followed research and field-testing by science teachers. The materials are now available for public review and feedback.

 

·         What’s for lunch—and, more importantly, what’s in it? Nutritional information for each lunch day is now posted online!

 

·         Congratulations to several teachers who have been invited to serve on the state panel to develop new subject-area content knowledge tests for teacher endorsement: math teachers Ruth Edwards and Amie Karkainen and science teacher Rebecca Fowler from Skyline High School. 

·         Look for the November FOCUS community newsletter in mailboxes this week. It includes a feature on the new WASL graduation requirement, a construction update, and information about the new mission-driven Wednesday professional development time.  And—do you know who the only staff member is who visits every school and building in the District each day?

 

·         School Snapshots: Wrap yourself in math! Checkout a geometry humanitarian project and quilt.

 

·         The Washington State Board of Education on December 4 will hold a community meeting about improving graduation requirements to better prepare students for life after high school.