Thanks to the dedication of staff and community partners, Bellingham Public Schools has offered COVID immunization opportunities to all BPS staff and community education partners. On March 2, Governor Inslee added educators and licensed childcare workers to the vaccine prioritization, which meant that all Bellingham Public Schools staff became eligible to receive the vaccine if…
Humans of BPS is an ongoing series that tells the stories of the people who bring The Bellingham Promise to life. Kandace McGowan, Drama and English Teacher, Sehome High School “I’m from San Jose, California and a first generation college student in my family. I went to Santa Clara University and studied theater and psychology.…
Kids Need Books came to life in 2016 after a conversation with Alderwood Elementary School kids. Joe Nolting, a community volunteer and a few other volunteers asked the kids if they were looking forward to the summer. Some kids expressed that they weren’t and one of the reasons why was that they wouldn’t have access…
Some students in Bellingham Public Schools are part of a summer books program and receive packages of books in the mail once a month in June, July and August to encourage them to keep reading over the summer months. Students are selected for the Learning Assistance Program (LAP) based on assessments and reading data collected…
All of these interviews were recorded in early March before the closures. Sam Carlton, kindergarten teacher at Alderwood Elementary School “Coming to Bellingham through Western, I had all these intentions of being an English professor. But when I did my undergrad at Western I worked at the child development center for three years. And that…
How would our community change if every child grew to meet their full potential? How could elementary school parent groups (e.g. PTSAs, PTAs, PTOs), Bellingham Public Schools and the Bellingham Public Schools Foundation work together to better realize this vision? These are the questions being explored through a new collaboration between elementary school parent groups…
It’s National Volunteer Week, and we are celebrating the more than 3,500 volunteers who serve across our schools each year. Whether chaperoning a field trip or providing weekly classroom support, volunteers bring their hearts into our schools. Take it from Sue Webber, a volunteer at Alderwood Elementary School. We interviewed Sue this winter for our…
Written in collaboration with Leora Watson, Western Washington University Allied Arts of Whatcom County partners with Bellingham Public Schools to bring the experience of art to children in elementary schools throughout Bellingham. The Allied Arts Education Project (AAEP) was started in 2002 with a mission to expand quality arts learning opportunities for students in Whatcom…
The following interview with school board directors Camille Diaz Hackler and Kelly Bashaw was published in the Fall 2019 edition of InsideSchools, the community newsletter of Bellingham Public Schools. Why have a race and equity policy? Camille Diaz Hackler: I think the majority of people don’t think about race and equity because they don’t have…
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