News - Local News

POSTED: Sunday, Sep. 20, 2009

Bellingham schools providing options for students

BELLINGHAM - It used to be that Bellingham schools were all pretty much the same. The teachers were different and there may have been a special class here and there, but students were still learning similar material in similar ways.

But that's all changing due to a movement to create schools that have unique themes, missions and focuses that set them apart, giving parents and students some choices.

"When you look at opportunities for children, (Bellingham) pretty much had one-size-fits-all up here," said Superintendent Ken Vedra. "When you look at the district's mission of college, career and citizenship, you have to have options for students to meet all three criteria."

When Vedra arrived in the district in 2007, he asked principals to think about their schools and school communities and work with staff, students and parents to see if there were places they could update their mission, vision or core beliefs.

For some schools, this resulted in a schoolwide focus, theme or philosophy, ranging from international studies to arts to service-learning to science and technology. Through the district's transfer policy, parents can transfer their children out of their neighborhood school if they don't like the school's focus. At the same time, parents can transfer their child into a given school, depending on available space.

In the end, the teachers still teach math, English, history, reading and the like. It's just how they go about it that's different.

"I think parents should have options," said Wendy Barrett, the principal at Northern Heights Elementary School, which is working toward becoming an International Baccalaureate school. "To believe that one particular model is going to meet every child's need and every child's interest is not reasonable."

Below is a look at three schoolwide programs used in the Bellingham School District: International Baccalaureate, Arts Impact and Gateway to Technology.

INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE

When Wade King Elementary opened in fall 2008, it opened as a candidate school for the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program. Since then, not only has the school started implementing the program and is poised to start the accreditation process, another school has started the program.

Northern Heights Elementary School became a candidate for International Baccalaureate in June, clearing the way for the school to start figuring out how to incorporate the program into daily activities.

The program, offered by the nonprofit International Baccalaureate Organization, is designed to let children develop as inquirers, both inside and outside of school. The program is not a curriculum, but rather it guides students and teachers to look at what they're doing and how it relates to the international community. The curriculum at International Baccalaureate schools still meet state and district standards while using six themes to explore subject areas.

When Vedra asked principals to think about how to make schools fit in with their community, Northern Heights principal Wendy Barrett realized she had a good opportunity to deeply connect the students and the community.

"Northern Heights is a school with a tremendous amount of diversity," Barrett said, adding that 11 languages are spoken at student homes. "As we're teaching kids for 21st century skills and a global economy, we have a tremendous asset here about teaching globally."

Barrett started talking to parents and staff about the program a year and a half ago, putting feelers out to see if this would indeed be a good fit for the community. After community meetings, small group "coffee" conversations and a DVD and fact sheet mailer, Barrett heard back from more than 70 percent of her families and only had two with hesitations about the program.

"I was so excited by the philosophy and what it would bring to a child's education," said Tanya Robinson, a parent of a second-grade student at Northern Heights who considered transferring her son to Wade King Elementary when it opened just so he could be part of the program. "As you go down the list (of attributes students should develop), you look at it as a parent and how can you not want your child to be all these things."

Rob McElroy, principal at Wade King Elementary, "is more convinced than ever" that the International Baccalaureate program works and said parent support of the program last school year was high, with regular meetings to discuss aspects of the program and provide constant feedback about how things can change.

Teachers are pleased with progress students are making, too.

"I see a difference in them in one year," said third-grade teacher Denise Binderup. "This group is different than last year's group."

Three families left the school this year after deciding International Baccalaureate wasn't the right fit, but enrollment has increased. About 80 students from outside the attendance boundary enrolled in the school this year, and about half of those students are coming from private schools. In every case, the program has been cited as the reason for attending.

But being part of the program can be costly for the school, with application and annual fees running $8,000 per year, training costs as high as $20,000 each year and necessary upgrades to resources, including the library. During budget cuts last spring, several parents and community members asked the school board and district officials how they could make cuts in one place but allow the International Baccalaureate programs to continue.

Those costs are covered by a combination of the participating schools' budgets, federal and state funding for teacher training, and by pooling professional development funds that every teacher gets as part of their contract. At Northern Heights, the PTA is kicking in some funding and at both schools teachers have paid out-of-pocket for some training expenses.

"We don't get additional money for IB," McElroy said, adding that he used the school's extended-day fund, something every school received, to purchase the Mandarin Chinese Rosetta Stone program to help with the school's language requirement.

"Any school could choose to do the same kind of work," Barrett said. "It's simply a priority of where we're spending those dollars."

"I think it is actually an investment that's well worth making," said John Korsmo, a parent of first- and third-grade students at Northern Heights. "For us not to embrace that and not be out in front or literally in the lead on issues of cultural respect and understanding I think is very short sighted. It might save money in the very short near term to not go down this road, but I think in the long haul we would be worse off."

ARTS IMPACT

Music and acting has long been associated with Roosevelt Elementary School, with a strong choir program and bi-annual musical regularly selling out.

But Principal Steven Morse and staff have taken it to a new level by turning the school into an "arts-infused" school.

According to several national studies done during the last decade, infusing arts with other subjects increases student retention and interest because it allows students to use both sides of their brains. And Morse has seen it first hand at regular choir practice or the bi-annual musical -- as struggling students find their element.

"They're a whole different kid for that hour," he said. "We're catching a lot of kids that might fall through the cracks otherwise."

Teachers said the movement started last school year when Morse gave teachers the freedom to "dabble" in the arts if they wanted to while still sticking to the curriculum. But it ended up being more than "dabbling" in the arts: local artist Ben Mann helped fourth-graders create murals for the cafeteria, fifth-grade students were part of a multiple-week dance program, and after-school clubs, including a hip-hop club, were created by teachers and students.

"I really am excited about it because for a long time I felt we've haven't taught the whole child," said second-grade teacher Barb Del Wraa, who was also part of the committee learning about the program. "We need to feed both sides of the brain."

During the next two years, teachers will receive training in how to infuse arts into elementary school subjects through Allied Arts and the Arts Impact Program, a program based out of Tacoma that has received federal grants to replicate its program elsewhere. In addition to the multiple days of training the staff attended before the school year started, teachers will also have artist mentors - artist Ben Mann, dancer Lynne McNett and theater mentor Lizanne Schader - who will help them both in and outside of the classroom.

And teachers are excited about the mentors because most of them admit they have limited art backgrounds.

"For me, being able to be a learner right alongside our young learners... is special," said long-time first-grade teacher Pam Pottle. "I'm 26 years in and I get to learn something new!"

To pay for the program, Morse "cobbled" together several grants and didn't rely on district spending. The school's PTA also kicked in some funding and assistance with getting the program off the ground.

"This was something we had to work out ourselves," Morse said.

And it's not just classroom activities that are changing, the whole look of the school is transforming.

The front entryway of the school was transformed into an art gallery last school year, with artwork standing out against the bright red walls of the main atrium. Prints of professional pieces hang interspersed with student art, allowing students to compare themes and styles. Other school walls are bare, waiting for new creations to cover them.

The arts also cross languages, a bonus for the school that has about a quarter of its students speaking a language other than English at home.

"Art is a universal language so it feels good that they're something they can do," said fifth-grade teacher Vicki Niles. "I really feel this is what's best for these guys."

The entire staff is on-board with the idea and parents have been informed of the changes without receiving any complaints, something that both surprised and pleased Morse.

"I planned to take slow, little steps over time, but people got so excited," he said. 'We're probably two or three years ahead of where I thought we'd be."

GATEWAY TO TECHNOLOGY

Shuksan Middle School not only started the school year in a new building, it started the school year with a new focus.

Shuksan is now a STEM school, or one that focuses on incorporating and exciting students about science, technology, engineering and math.

According to the Department of Labor Statistics, eight of the top 10 fastest-growing fields are technology, math or science related.

"It's very important for us to try to prepare students for that future," said Principal Andy Mark.

And that's what Mark hopes starts happening this school year.

Students will be introduced to a new class this year that follows the Gateway to Technology Program, a national program that is designed to get middle school students excited about science, math and technology before they reach high school. This is the middle school piece of a larger program call Project Lead the Way.

"This piece is very different from other middle schools in Bellingham," Mark said. "It can be done very well and you just see the excitement on student faces."

In the class, students will learn about basic engineering, designing and modeling, electronics and how electricity works, robotics and other areas that tie into technology and technology-related careers. Eventually there may even be some lessons about flight and space.

"I think there's a niche there, an important one and we need to start preparing students for that."

The new school is also technologically advanced, with a school-wide video and sound system, interactive white boards in every classroom, multiple computer labs and laptops available for student check-out.

And the possibilities of how to incorporate that technology into the classroom are endless, Mark said.

Teachers can use the white boards and post the lessons done on them to a Web site, allowing students to make up the work if they were gone. The video and sound system creates the possibility for a morning news show, giving students a chance to learn how to use digital video and editing equipment. Increased computer access means students will be taught how to properly use technology for research and presentations and can create multimedia projects even if they don't have a computer at home.

But the school focus is about more than technology, it's also about student achievement. Shuksan regularly has some of the lowest test scores in the district.

"When you look at our population and talk about WASL scores, we've got to do something to get students more interested in math and science."

Students can now take math classes through the geometry level in middle school, and the new building has three high-school level science labs, allowing students to conduct more advanced experiments than they may have in the old building.

Eventually other schools may join Shuksan in its mission. Larrabee Elementary has been working on increasing STEM-type opportunities and students were part of an engineering club last year.

But no matter what the focus or the technology used, the curriculum delivered is still in line with state and district standards.

"We're going to have all this fancy technology," Mark said, "but really it's about teachers teaching and students learning."

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For more information, check out the following Web sites

• International Baccalaureate: www.ibo.org

• Arts Impact: www.arts-impact.org

• Gateway to Technology: www.pltw.org/Engineering/Curriculum/Curriculum-middle-school.cfm