ShiningStars0809

School Board Shining Stars 2008-09

The School Board awards Shining Star Awards at the beginning of each
Board meeting to honor students, staff and community partners for
special achievements, exemplary service or outstanding contributions.

Meeting Date	Names and Commendations
Sept. 11	Sue Thomas, director of Special Education, recognized the following students: Cameron Carlson, Bellingham High School, received the gold medal in the 15m Aquatics Walk in the Special Olympics Summer Games. Will Finch, Kulshan Middle School, received the gold medal in the 15m Unassisted Backstroke in the Special Olympics Summer Games. Mike Smith, Sehome High School, received the gold medal in the 15m Unassisted Backstroke in the Special Olympics Summer Games. Clarissa Westburg, homeschooled student, received the gold medal in the 25m Backstroke and the silver medal in the 25m Freestyle in the Special Olympics Summer Games. Parent co-coordinators Karlene Carlson and Sue Hutchings were recognized for their work with the Special Olympics Aquatic Team.
Sept. 25	Facilities projects manager Manuel Babayan for his exceptional contribution to the opening of Wade King Elementary. Babayan was involved with the project since its inception and spent every work day on site, overseeing construction in preparation for the fall opening. LeRoy Key, a former superintendent who is now substitute teaching for the district, and Birchwood principal David Adams received Shining Stars for their exceptional contributions to Summer School 2008. Key and Adams ran the summer program, which served hundreds of students by providing academic support, credit retrieval and credit ahead opportunities.
Oct. 23	Payroll staff Janice Burns, Kristen Hessen, Peggy Scott and Jodi Tisland for their outstanding work in reaching payroll deadlines every month, especially the first September payroll of the school year. The team has an exceptional accuracy record and worked many evenings and weekends this fall to process and update about 1,600 paychecks. Transportation staff members Aaron Adams, Dick Drost, Mark Forslof, Rick Johnson, Jason Sloan, Dave VanderYacht and Steve Wight for their outstanding contributions to vehicle safety. The district's transportation department passed the Washington State Patrol's annual inspection with excellent results and placed second in the 2008 Northwest Educational Service District 189 School Bus Safety Competition (Bus Roadeo). Fairhaven Principal Deirdre O'Neill for her exceptional and active support of her staff and students with the CHAT room program. CHAT, supported by FMS staff and the school counselor, provides a structured social environment for students during lunch to foster creative, intellectual and positive interactions.
Nov. 6	Custodian Celeste Miracle for her exceptional work as head custodian summer 2008 at Larrabee Elementary. Seismic retrofitting contractors completed the first phase of work at Larrabee just before school started, leaving four and a half days to clean, move back into the school, and prepare it for students and families. With many new students and families attending Larrabee this year due to new attendance areas, Miracle wanted their first impressions of their school to be positive. She went above and beyond, coordinating the efforts of many to pull off this feat. Miracle is working as Whatcom's custodian this school year.
Dec. 11	Bellingham High School received a Shining Star as the 2008 OSPI School of Distinction. Larrabee Elementary School teacher Lori Dorough and Fairhaven/Kulshan Middle School teacher Cathy Gersich, peer technology coaches, earned Shining Stars for receiving the EETT Technology Peer Coaching Grant. They are two of 90 awardees in the state, chosen from hundreds of applicants. Shining Stars also went to Maude Heyes-Fischer Award recipients for their exceptional achievement in learning to read. They are elementary students Kenya Carranza, Sebastian Cochran, Adrian Franco, Angel Guerrero, Beau Hubsch, Brenna James, Tauvie Kim, Anthony Natola-Fristed, Calvin Nguyen, Darren Rodenberger, Fidel Rojo, Carina Santos-Morales and Cricket Sternhagen.
Jan. 15	District parent Kate Haskell received a Shining Star for her dedication to the district's Mobile Response Team (MRT), which supports students and staff in times of crisis. Kate has served as the MRT trainer for several years. Her hard work and dedication have meant that the district continues to improve planned responses for many different kinds of crises. Her passion is infectious. Kate's participation ensures that staff members act as a team within the boundaries permitted by the school district and professional ethics. As a district committed to helping students and staff in the midst of crisis, we are extremely fortunate to have Kate's dedicated expertise and her sense of humor. Mike Anderson, manager of buildings and grounds, received a Shining Star for his outstanding leadership to the custodial and maintenance team that cares for more than 1 million square feet of facilities, acres of lawns, playfields and flower beds. In addition, Mike is instrumental in ensuring that the indoor air quality in our schools is closely monitored. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently recognized Mike's efforts in this area with the national Model of Sustained Excellence Award for the district's exemplary indoor air quality work. Mike is also leading the way in helping us reduce utility expenses by working with Puget Sound Energy on the district's new Resource Conservation Manager Program.
Jan. 29	Twenty certificated staff were honored as shining stars for meeting the requirements for National Board Certification and for overall excellence in teaching. They are: Katy Ackerson, library media specialist at Sunnyland Elementary School; Denise Bentley, fifth grade teacher at Birchwood Elementary School: Precious Bryngelson, literacy support teacher at Silver Beach Elementary School; Janet Diener, family and consumer science teacher at Squalicum High School; Lori French, Spanish teacher at Bellingham High School; Catherine Gersich, art teacher at Fairhaven and Kulshan middle schools; Amy Hankinson, science teacher at Sehome High School; Phillip Henoch, math teacher at Sehome High School; Mary Hooker, Spanish teacher at Bellingham High School; Christopher Leita, math teacher at Sehome High School; Trisha McClure, third grade teacher at Carl Cozier Elementary School; Bradley McKay, social studies teacher at Bellingham High School; Michael Owens, seventh grade teacher at Whatcom Middle School; Fontaine Phillips, English teacher at Bellingham High School; Caren Pitsch, first grade teacher at Carl Cozier Elementary School; Jennifer Styer, business education teacher at Sehome High School; Judson Swets, math teacher at Sehome High School; Diane Tjomsland, first grade teacher at Happy Valley Elementary School; Mark Toney, science teacher at Sehome High School; and Kerrie Zerba, resource room teacher at Parkview Elementary School. Certification is a year-long introspective process that requires teachers to submit a four-part portfolio and a six-exercise content and pedagogy assessment. The 10 entries document a teacher's success in the classroom as evidenced by his or her students' learning. The portfolio is then assessed by a national panel of peers.
Feb. 12	At the Feb. 12 meeting, School Board members honored retired teacher Nan Thomas and Back on Track! Reading Program volunteers as Shining Stars for developing and instituting the Back on Track! Reading program. Thomas started Back on Track! Reading eight years ago to help a family work with their child who was struggling with reading. Back on Track! has evolved into a volunteer-based program in which the student reads a story to a volunteer, retells the story, reads the story again with the volunteer, then reads and retells it again. Thomas saw such success that she helped her daughter, Patrice Wilson, a Larrabee teacher, and a work-study student work with several second graders five days a week. When the students showed great progress after only a few months, Thomas began writing the program for easy implementation by teachers and volunteers, and powerful for students. The program doesn't require a training session because she wrote the Volunteer Guide to be user-friendly and cost-free. Thank you Nan and our volunteers!
Feb. 26	Teachers Molly Foote and Veronica Binkley at King Elementary and Shirley Prichard at Happy Valley received Shining Stars for their participation in a Dr. Robert Marzano research study involving student learning and interactive whiteboards. They completed the required elements of the study in December. Bellingham was one of 10 districts in the nation selected to participate in the study. Fairhaven teacher Stephanie Strow received a Shining Star for her exemplary teaching and igniting the passion of her seventh grade students; Fairhaven seventh grader Zack Hartman was honored for achieving first place in the Barnes & Noble Martin Luther King essay contest and writing to make a difference in the world; and PTSA co-presidents Jennifer Dolese and Julie Webster received a Shining Star for their courageous and creative leadership of the Fairhaven Middle School PTSA.
March 12	Sean Benjamin, a student in the Community Transitions program, earned a Shining Star for his noteworthy work in the community. Sean has attended Bellingham schools since pre-school, graduating from Bellingham High School in June 2007. This is his last year in the district's Community Transitions program. He has learned to ride the bus system independently, attend classes at three different community-based sites, and has demonstrated valuable work skills by working in several work sites such as Re-Store, Bellingham Parks and Recreation, Bayview Cemetery and Fairhaven Food Pavilion. Sean is ready to leave the program as an employable adult and join the work force as a citizen. At the School Board meeting, Paul Shepherd of the Fairhaven Food Pavilion offered Sean a job. In late January, Fairhaven Middle School seventh grade students Brendan Friesen and Jack Melhorn finished in third in the National Engineering Society's Future City regional finals in Seattle. They were required to design a future city using a simulation on the computer, write an abstract about their city, write a research paper on how water can best be recycled, build a three-dimensional model of their futuristic city, and give an oral presentation to a team of engineers. They were scored in each of those areas. Also competing were Fairhaven students Rebecca Fairchild, Sarah Rubin, and Hazel Cashman with their city Lumier, and Kulshan Middle School students Blaise Black, Elisabeth Kindlund, and Forrest Wagner with their city Kulshanburg. All of these students earned Shining Stars.
March 26	The Squalicum Boys Varsity Basketball team and coach were honored by the School Board as Shining Stars for becoming 2A State Champions this month. Receiving the award was coach Dave Dickson, managers Keith DeReese and Joshua McLeod, and players Zach Hinton, Derek Dickerson, Keith Stackhouse, Nathan Vail, Travis Kurtz, Joshua Wolderich, Patrick Voeut, Jeremy King, Michael Greene, Caleb Thompson, Kyle Hooper and Christopher Qualls.
April 23	Seven teachers in the Bellingham School District were named master science teachers with the North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership (NCOSP) program: Larrabee Elementary School teacher Lisa Conlon, Happy Valley Elementary School teacher Mike D’Hondt, Northern Heights Elementary teachers John Livezey and Brooke Stanton, Shuksan Middle School teacher Brian MacNevin, Carl Cozier Elementary teacher Caren Pitsch and Whatcom Middle School teacher Chad Wertz. In addition, two teachers were selected to work cooperatively with NCOSP on geology and biology instructional material projects. They are Fairhaven Middle School teacher Miguel Boriss and Sehome High School teacher Steven Ruthford. George Nelson (Pinky), principal investigator on the Western Washington University/National Science Foundation grant, also was honored with a School Board Shining Star for his work with the district on science education reform Eleven Sehome High School students and two teachers received Shining Stars from the School Board for their participation in the regional Robotics competition in Seattle. The students demonstrated the robot that they built to specifications in six weeks for the contest at the April 23 School Board meeting. They are team leaders Brennan Ashton and Niko Lagen, and Daniel Blondeau, Evan Horner, Liam Horner, Tyler VanDooren, Sullivan Vanderboom, Britta McClure, Eric Schneider, Matt Nulle and Joe Murphy. Sehome teachers Kevin Criez and Mark Toney advise the students.
May 14	Music teacher Linda Short and her middle school student performers will receive Shining Star honors for their upcoming musical theatre production of School House Rock Live! Jr. The School Board will honor Wendy Barrett and the Full-Day Kindergarten Task Force members for their diligence in launching the full-day kindergarten program in the Bellingham elementary schools next year.
May 28	Kulshan science teachers Dan Bailey and Tom Johnson and paraeducator Jo Miller were honored for their coordination of the District conservation site program working with third grade and sixth grade students. The School Board awarded shining stars to students in the Highly Capable Learners Program who attended the Washington State Science Fair in April. Students honored were Muhammad Umar Nadeem, third grade, Carl Cozier Elementary School; Elizabeth Friesen, fifth grade, Larrabee Elementary School who won for best projects at their grade level. First Place winners were Ethan Flanagan, Happy Valley Elementary School; Lucy Sun, Happy Valley Elementary School; Nicholas Bourlier, Happy Valley Elementary School; Kevin Sun, Happy Valley Elementary School; Ruby Watson, Wade King Elementary School; Katrina Dank, Larrabee Elementary School; Kira Smith, Birchwood Elementary School; and Kenneth Brown, Fairhaven Middle School. Second place winners were Elsie Dank, Happy Valley Elementary School; Talia Sheinkopf, Happy Valley Elementary School; Jackson Perkins, Happy Valley Elementary School; Bekah Oviatt, Happy Valley Elementary School; Tayson Pickering, Northern Heights Elementary School; Christopher Anderson, Silver Beach Elementary School; Katherine Cunningham, Larrabee Elementary School; Liam Watts, Larrabee Elementary School; Benjamin ‘Gus’ Danielson, Geneva Elementary School; Harry Conover, Sunnyland Elementary School; Sarah Welsh, Fairhaven Middle School; and Tia Smith, Shuksan Middle School. Third place winners were Lucas Cunningham, Happy Valley Elementary School; Cameron McWilliams, Happy Valley Elementary School; Elizabeth Crandall, Fairhaven Middle School and Emily Pittis, Fairhaven Middle School. Honorable mentions went to Emily Welsh, Happy Valley Elementary School and Dawson Bowhay, Carl Cozier Elementary School. The School Board also awarded shining stars to the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council made up of Bellingham High students Lauren Thomas and Sean Cooper, Options student Jessie Wibbens, Squalicum students Daniel Herda and Kika Kaui, and Sehome students Bryn Smith and Louise Highleyman.
June 11	Central Services staff member Lori Jo Allison received a Shining Star for achieving Human Resources in Educational Leadership (HELP) certification through Washington School Personnel Association. Bellingham Association of School Employees (BASE)/district teams received Shining Stars for improving communications and fostering positive relationships. They are Birchwood’s Dave Adams, Lisa Arroyo, Carrie Beauchamp, Deborah Kibler, Aileen McDonnell-MacKay, Lori Morrow, Ramona Rae, Laurie Russell, Missy Splaine, Sue Stull, Joanne Szegedi, and Penny Welch; Fairhaven’s Deirdre O’Neill, Steve Rogers, Nancy Reynolds, Peggy Shepherd, Laura Davis, Jane Martin, Shari Neilan, Jodi Todnunter, Katharine Carey, Amelia Linda Lunde, LeAnn Caseria, Kristin Campbell. Human Resources staff members Nora Klewiada and Jeanette Herrera, nominated by BASE, also received Shining Stars for facilitating the BASE/district communications efforts. Community member Chris Brewer of Allied Arts received a Shining Star for promoting and fostering elementary art in Bellingham schools. Community member Joy Monjure of the City of Bellingham received a Shining Star for effectively coordinating a Public Works field trip for Larrabee Elementary School students that emphasized practical experience in science, technology and engineering. Whatcom Middle School counselor Denis Cleary earned a Shining Star for 21 years of continuous membership on the Mobile Response Team, which helps students and staff cope in times of crisis, and for being a founding member. Options High School students received Shining Stars for volunteer participation in the Bellingham community. They are Erin Vogelpohl, Will Sherman, Joey Culmine, Mike Yonally, Moriah Wolters, Alyssa Bramlett, Alex Kimbler, Mackenzie Hawes, Amy Ortiz and Jessie Wibbins. Options volunteers and donors also received Shining Stars for their work in supporting students. They are John Mumma, Joan Hilmoe, Amy Marchegiani, Kelly Runge, Carla Booker.
June 25	At the June 25 Board meeting, the Central Lions Club of Bellingham were honored for their generous donation of three Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to the district high schools. Tanya Rowe and the Communications Office were honored for numerous award-winning publications of 2008-09.